Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1946)

2 Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, March 27, 1946 ires a an re of Congressmen Told Films Not Luxury Washington, March ^.-Exhibitors are impressing upon their respective Congressmen that motion p.cture; are not a luxury, but rather are necessary method of relaxation , in anneal for Federal admission tax dSn, Abram F. Myers cha*™m the board of Allied States, told Mo tion Picture Daily today. Myers emphasized the importance keepmg pictures entirely separate from so called luxury items Myers pointed out that a majority of Congressional opposition in lowering the excise tax °s that the lawmakers oppose outright reduction of luxury taxes. It has been said that if only the admission tax is reduced, luxury jrtan taxes could be continued. The Knutson bill covers all excise items. Rep Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina says he regards motion pictures as a luxury. The Ways and Means Committee chairman declared that no reduction in ' pleasure taxes can be considered at this time. He implied that consideration will not be forthcoming during this session of Congress. On the other hand, Congressman Harold Knutson calls his tax reduction measure "must legislation, tailing in the area of an emergency bill. The Ways and Means Committee clerk of the House said today that the reduction bill is not scheduled for hearings, and expressed the belief that social security and other legislation will absorb the rest of the committee s time this session. $250,000 from WB To Stage Plays With the declared principal objective of encouraging new playwrights and acting talent that will later be brought to the screen, Warners has allocated $250,000 for the financing of Broadway productions. Negotiations are now under way for several properties which are being considered for late spring production, according to Jacob Wilk, Warners' Eastern production manager, who also supervises the company's stage activities. At the same time, Warners is understood to be looking for a second Broadway legitimate theatre to add to the Biltmore, which it now operates in association with George Abbott. Warners has been financially interested in more than three dozen Broadway shows thus far and has been among the leading purchasers of stage properties for the screen. Among present Warner holdings are "Life With Father," "Voice of the Turtle," "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," "Wallflower." and others. Personal Mention Schneer Joins 'U' Hollywood, March 26. — Charles Schneer, formerly connected with Columbia's New York office, has joined Universal as an associate producer in the Marshall Grant unit. HAL HORNE, chairman of the board of Story Productions, will leave New York today for Minneapolis to be present at the marriage of his daughter, Laurel Horne, to Paul Allen, radio singer, on March 31. • Carole Brandt, Eastern story head for M-G-M, will leave London over the weekend for Stockholm and Oslo and will return to New York about April 15. • Florence Silver, head of Republic's home office still department, is engaged to marry Bernard Miller, a former sergeant in the 15th Air Force. • B. J. Mannix, Howard Strjckling and Jack Sayers, all of M-G-M studios, have arrived in New York from the Coast on the Constellation. • Henri Klarsfeld, Paramount division manager on the Continent and North Africa, is scheduled to leave here for Paris by plane tonight. • Jules Levey, independent producer for United Artists, will leave New York for Hollywood on the Constellation today. • Angelo diCarli of the Lenox Theatre, Hartford, and Mrs. diCarli, rerecently became parents of a son. • Sam J. Gardner, M-G-M Los Angeles branch manager, has returned to his Coast office from Philadelphia. • Harry Goldberg, Warner Theatres' director of advertising-publicity, is in New Haven from New York. Pincus Sober of M-G-M has returned from a five-week tour of the company's Midwest branches. • W. J. Kupper, 20th Century-Fox general sales manager, has recovered from a recent illness. • A. W. Smith, Jr., 20th CenturyFox Eastern sales manager, is on vacation. • Lana Turner, M-G-M star, has arrived in New York from Miami Beach. SPYROS SKOURAS, president of 20th Century-Fox, has arrived in London from New York, by plane. • Lillian Jenocoff, secretary to Re public's Albert E. Schiller, is engaged to Norman Essex, who recently rejoined the company's advertisingpublicity department following his discharge from the Army. • Mike Piccirillo of Loew's Poli Palace, Meriden, Conn., has been named to the social and publicity com mittees of the local chapter of the American Veterans' Committee. • Norman H. Moray, Warners short subject sales manager now in Hollywood from New York, will start a swing around West Coast and MidWest branches next week. • Epifanio Aramayo, United Artists' publicity director in Argentina, who has been in New York for the past three weeks, left yesterday by plane for Buenos Aires. • Joseph H. Moskowitz, 20th Century-Fox vice-president representing the studio in New York, will return here from the Coast at the end of April. • Roy Haines, Western and Southern division sales manager for Warners, is due to return to New York from Los Angeles at the weekend. • Robert Goldstein, Eastern representative of International Pictures, will return to New York from Hollywood on Monday. • Ben Kalmenson, Warners vicepresident in charge of sales, left New York yesterday for Chicago on the first leg of a Western trip. • Richard Morgan of the Paramount legal department has returned to his desk following a three-week illness. • Orton H. Hicks, head of Loew's International 16mm. department, left New York yesterday for Chicago. • N. Peter Rathvon, RKO president, returned to Hollywood yesterday from New York. Kosiner to Europe On Small Product Harry Kosiner, New York representative of Ewdard Small Productions, will leave for a month's visit to Europe and the Continent over this weekend for conferences with European representatives on the distribution and marketing of Small's productions. He will confer with officers of Omnia Films in England, France and Italy, on setting up sales policies under the recently-renewed contract between Omnia and the Small office. In England, Kosiner will also meet with E. T. Carr of the J. Arthur Rank organization on sales plans for "Bella Donna," which is now in production for United World Pictures. New Houses Must Provide for Parking Detroit, March 26. — The City Council has drafted an ordinance requiring all builders of new commercial establishments, including new theatres, to provide parking space for their buildings in the future. The move is calculated to prevent a repetition in Detroit's fast-growing outlying districts of the strangulated Loop parking situation. According to the ordinance, all new theatres must provide parking facilities adequate for a total number of cars to the ratio of one parking space for every two theatre seats. Theatres will not be permitted to charge for use of the lots. Asides and Interludes By JAMES P. CUNNINGHAM BUDD SCHULBERG of Hollywood, son of producer B. P. Schulberg, will tell about Leni Riefenstahl in the Saturday Evening Post, published today. Riefenstahl, vaT"-, known German screen actress-produUBj and pal of Adolph Hitler, was recently discovered by Schulberg in her hunting lodge in the Austrian Tyrol, where she lives as a technical prisoner. She says she is an artist and that "Hitler was very artistic himself, and sensitive(!) He liked to encourage people," said Leni, adding : "and not only Germans"; (for instance?) A Some 5,000 employes of the Toho Motion Picture Co., in Tokyo, were refused a high-cost-oj-living bonus; so they threw open the doors of the company's first-run theatres there and gave free shows to the public, at the expense of their bosses. A "Okay, okay man," yelled the Captain at the nervous, stuttering sailor, who evidently had a message for the Cap and couldn't speak it — to hear Lew Lehr tell the story. "Out with it! If you can't say it, sing it." The sailor took a deep breath and sang, "Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, the bosun's mate fell overboard and is half a mile behind." A This publication has in hand an invitation from the National Publishers Association to apply to the Joint Army-Navy Press Arrangements Staff for permission to attend the big Atomic-Bomb blow at Bikini Atoll, in May. Personally, we will be quite satisfied to observe the repercussions in the less explosive atmosphere of a New York newsreel screening room. In further discouragement of acceptance is the warning that, "The trip will be made on Navy ships under very crowded conditions, and, accordingly, little can be assured in the way of personal comfort." Assuring a full pictorial record of the explosions and their devastation, there will be 300 cameras of every kind and description known filming the goings-on. Some Task Force cameras, installed in B-29's and C-54's, pilot-less and controlled by radar, will be timed automatically to shoot at 1/10,000 of a second. Eastman will send cameras capable of filming 3,000 frames per second. A Mary Pickford has arrived in Europe and took with her 25 pounds of concentrated food, 20 pounds of chopped steak — "and some lipstick." The lady always was most cautious. A Sign of the Times: Due to the uncertainties of these days, the Products of Tomorrow Exposition, scheduled to open at the Chicago Exposition on April 27, has been postponed indefinitely. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Martin Quigley, Jr., Associate 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; Red Kann, Vice-President; Martin Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; David Harris, Circulation Director; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue; 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." Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, International Motion Picture Almanac, Fame. 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