Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1945)

2 MOTION PICTURE DAILY Wednesday, March 7, 1945 Personal Mention WILLIAM F. RODGERS, Loew's vice-president and general sales manager, will return to New York from the Coast March IS. • Jay Eisenberg and Mike Simons, Loew attorney and editor of the company house organ, respectively, returned to New York yesterday from New Haven. • John Flinn, Jr., of Warners publicity staff for five years, will be inducted into the Army on the Coast next Tuesday. • Don McElwaine, PRC director of advertising-publicity, will entrain from Hollywood March 14 for Boston and New York on business. • Joe Farrow, M-G-M Philadelphia office manager, is recuperating from an operation at the Presbyterian Hospital there. • Irving Blumberg, Warner Philadelphia circuit advertising and promotion director, is back at work after an operation. • Duke Hickey, MPPDA public relations committee field representative, will arrive in Miami today from Pittsburgh. John R. Wood, Jr., March of Time sales manager, will return to New York today from Washington. • Albert Sindlinger, Audience Research executive vice-president, is en route to the Coast from New York. • Allen Benn, operator of the Belmont, Philadelphia, has gone to Mt. Clements, Michigan, for a vacation. • Bill Bethel, Republic Philadelphia salesman, underwent an operation in Philadelphia last week. • Samuel Marx, M-G-M producer, will arrive in New York today from the Coast. • Edgar Moss, 20th-Fox Philadelphia manager, has returned there from Arizona. De Rochemont on Air March of Time producer Richard de Rochemont will appear on the Town Hall program, here, tomorrow night, over the Blue Network, on the subject: "Can France Regain Her Place As a World Power?" Making up the discussion group with de Rochemont will be Lewis Gannett, Louis Fischer, and Leon Henderson. Du Mont to Talk Dr. Allen B. Du Mont, head of the Du Mont Laboratories and former president of the Television Broadcasters Association, will address a joint meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in Buffalo tomorrow. Low Coal Priority For Film Houses Washington, March 6. — The War Production Board here tonight issued a priority list to be employed next Winter, in case of need, to spread available coal supplies among essential war and civilian consumers. No specific mention of theatres was made in the list, but a spokesman for the WPB said they would go into the very lowest of seven categories. While theatres using coal were tonight faced with the possibility of an enforced shutdown in the event of an emergency such as was twice experienced last month by houses in seven states which heated with natural gas, gas consumers of the Middle West now are expected to be protected against a recurrence of that situation next Winter by three new large gas pipe line. Deitch Back at Para. As Theatre Official Joseph Deitch, film buyer and booker for Tri-States Theatres, Des Moines, has joined Paramount as an executive in the theatre department, Leonard H. Goldenson, vice-president in charge of theatre operations, disclosed here yesterday. He will start his new duties on April 1. This marks Deitch's return to the Paramount home office after many years. He became associated with Paramount-Publix in New York some 20 years ago, the last eight years of which he was film buyer. In 1932 he was named film buyer for Tri-States. Mahoney Succeeds Fain at Interstate Boston, March 6. — Interstate Theatre Corp. announces the resignation of M. Edgar Fain as general manager, effective April 1. Fain is leaving the business to become president of Tower Iron Works, Providence. Interstate's new general manager will be James F. Mahoney, for the past 17 years district manager for Interstate's Connecticut and Western Massachusetts houses. Dewey Will Sign Ives Bill Next Monday Albany, March 6. — The Ives-Quinn Anti-Discrimination Bill, passed 49-6 in the State Senate last night, will be signed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey next Monday in the presence of the 23 members of the temporary commission that recommended the measure's enactment, it was announced here today. By the terms of the bill, a five-man commission will be appointed to eliminate discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color or national origin. Soldiers to Visit WE Seven American soldiers from Bastogne will visit local plants of the Western Electric Co. today to tell employes of the Army's need for more equipment. All Academy Awards On Air Nationally Hollywood, March 6. — Marking the first time that any network has broadcast the presentation of every award, WJZ, here, and the Blue network on Friday, March 16, will air the entire proceedings attending the annual awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The program, which will originate in Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, will be heard from 12 :30 a.m., to 1:30 a.m., EWT. The program is being arranged so that the presentation of every award will be made within the one-hour broadcast; previously, only that portion of the program in which the major awards were presented was brought to radio listeners. Another innovation will be the inclusion on the program of outstanding sequences in the pictures from which nominations have been made. These excerpts will be shown on the Grauman screen with sound tracks being heard on the broadcast. New PRC Exchanges Announced in April Chicago, March 6. — Leon Fromkess, PRC president, here today on his way to Hollywood, disclosed to Motion Picture Daily that additional purchases of exchanges will be announced at the next PRC board meeting in New York, early in April, if new purchases will have been made by that time. The company now owns eight exchanges. Fromkess said that no plans for the acquisition of additional British films will be made until the raw stock quota for a second quarter is made known. Warner Continues As AMPP Director Hollywood, March 6. — Reelection of Harry M. Warner to the board of directors of the Association of M. P. Producers at the annual meeting of the organization here on Monday was explained today as "a matter of course," without special significance. Warner did not attend the meeting. Warner Bros, served notice of intention to resign from the AMPP last December, immediately following its notice of resignation from the MPPDA in New York. The resignation is scheduled to become effective May 30. Walker Here Monday Thomas L. Walker, secretary of Edward Small Productions, is scheduled to arrive in New York from the Coast on Monday. He will attend meetings with the film industry's WPB Advisory Committee which will meet in Washington on the 16th on raw stock allocations. Blue Web Video Show The Blue Network was host to representatives of the press and others here last night at a reception at the Park Lane Hotel prior to the telecasting of the Blue's 'Quiz Kids' program over DuMont's station WABD telecaster. 'Battle of Iwo' in Theatres Tomorrow "The Battle of Iwo," new full newsreel release by all five companies which the nation's theatres will start showing tomorrow, and which was screened here yesterday for the press, contains some of the most powerful and dramatic footage to come out of this war. The film runs 10 minutes, and shows both landing preparations and actual battles. Death through rifle and machine gun fire, mortar and artillery bombardment, hand grenades and liquid fire, run riot through the tempestuous landing and establishment of beachheads. Rushed by Plane So important did the Navy consider this footage in the fight against complacency in this country, that a special plane rushed the film to the U. S. from an embattled carrier, and the Navy authorized an additional 250 feet of film per print for its showings, donating the extra film to the five newsreel companies, which are limited to 700 feet on ordinary releases. Wide cooperation between the Navy and the newsreel companies made possible the simultaneous booking of the earlier fighting on the island, while the entire Iwo issue is not yet settled. Photographers of the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard made the battle scenes, and several paid for it with their lives. The entire filming was done under the supervision of Lt. Commander William Park, former newsreel editor of Pathe and Paramount. The film shows the horrors of war to the greatest extent yet of any released, and it should more than fulfill its purpose of arousing fighting spirits of those back home. — E. S. U. S. Forces Combine Pacific Footage First film produced jointly by the Armed Forces for public showings will be released on March 22 by the War Activities Committee. Titled "Fury in the Pacific," the 20-minute subject is the record of an amphibious assault, typifying the fury of war in the Pacific. Army Pictorial Service, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Army Air Forces combined their material to reproduce the problems of a typical combined action in the Pacific. The film contains new footage, including closeups of Japs in combat, and closeups of U. S. troops photographed so close to the enemy that nine combat cameramen were hit taking the film. "Fury in the Pacific" is an Office of War Information release, to be distributed by Warner Brothers for the WAC. John Scully, Jr. Freed Lt. John Scully, Jr., son of John Scully, Universal's New England district manager, and nephew of William Scully, was recently released from a German prison camp following a Russian drive. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, President and Editor-in-Chief; Colvin Brown, Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Executive Editor, Published daily except Saturday, Sunday, and holidays by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York, 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address, "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, President; Colvin Brown, Vice-President; Red Kann, Vice-President; Theo Sullivan, Secretary; Sherwin Kane, Executive Editor; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Ave., Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Bldg., William R. Weaver, Editor; London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London Wl, Hope Burnup, Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address, "Quigpubco, London." All contents copyrighted 1945 by Quigley Publishing Co., Inc. Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, International Motion Picture Almanac, Fame. 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