Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1946)

Wednesday, November 27, 1946 Motion Picture Daily 7 Ask Modification of Portuguese Quota . By J. de M. PALMEIRO Lisbon, Nov. 23 (By Airmail). — Although the production branch of the industry in this country has expressed approval of the government's new, drastic film-quota law, scheduled to become effective in January, exhibitors have petitioned that the regulation be modified. Following action taken at a meet;T£r of the Portuguese Exhibitors AsPjjLation, Dr. Campos Figueira, its «..idirman, presented a special note to Prime Minister Oliveira Salazar, suggesting principally that the exhibition license for features should be proportional to the number of screening weeks for each picture during its first run. The new quota legislation, as reported in Motion Picture Daily on Nov. 7, would compel theatres to exhibit at least one week of native product for every five weeks of foreigin pictures, except when the local output could not compete quantitatively. Fear Government Program This move by exhibitors springs from fear that the government's program for increasing the quality of production here cannot succeed quickly. Dr. Figueria explained that the costs of raw stock are very high, as are prices for laboratory work, and that the national market is quite restricted, with no possibilities of getting foreign markets, except Brazil. Moreover, the country's technicians are few and badly trained, he said, adding that it will be necessary to send technicians abroad, chiefly to the United States, to learn fundamentals of the business. Portuguese directors generally are incompetent, he concluded. The exhibitors' note also urges the building of more theatres of an economical type, principally in the rural zones, and objects to "exaggerated salaries" being asked by film artists. Meanwhile, distributors here are of the opinion that, under the new law, • all but a few distributors of a very limited number of foreign films will be forced out of business by high costs, including licenses, taxes, import duties and fees for subtitling, translation and publicity. The law provides that certificates costing from $200 to $400 must be obtained for each feature and forbids the screening of any foreign picture dubbed in Portuguese at a foreign laboratory. All nine Portuguese producers, however, give their approval to the government decree. They seek, ultimately, the entire nationalization of the industry, an ever growing production of Portuguese films, more local markets, deals with foreign countries so as to be in a position to negotiate under the most convenient circumstances with the industry from abroad, facilities to promote this country's propaganda by means of short documentaries and immediate nationalized exploitation of the 16mm. field. To these ends, it has been decided to create a new Portuguese Producers Association. Dunn Names Wilson Memphis, Nov. 26. — Lynn Dunn, manager of Kay Film Exchange, has named Cliff B. Wilson, formerly with Columbia and Monogram as booker and office manager, as a special sales representative for Kay here. France May Escape Nationalized Films The film industry's status as an entertainment medium, and, hence, its freedom from classification as specifically a "public service" institution, is the factor which may continue to save it from nationalization in France where radio, coal mines, banks, insurance companies, gas and electric industries and an automobile concern have become state-operated enterprises since the war's end. This is the opinion of Joseph Siritzky of Siritzky International Pictures, here, owners of a large circuit of theatres in France, who currently are engaged in legal negotiations for recovery of a number of houses there which were confiscated by the Germans and then taken into sequestration by the incoming French government. Thus far, Siritzky reports, his company has been successful in recovering 18 houses in the South of France. Those remaining to be restored, he said, include important first-runs in Paris and in other large French cities. The motion picture's stature as a propaganda medium does not argue so well against it for socialization as would a "public service" status, Siritzky said, adding that, from the same standpoint, this applies to newspapers which, in France, continue to be independently operated. Whereas, other French industries have been, and probably will continue to be pressed into socialization as part of an open "nationalizing" campaign, the newspapers and the film industry thus far have not been openly included in the drive, he added. French Organizations Now Centered in One Paris, Nov. 23 (By Airmail).— A bill adopted by the French Assembly establishing a National Center for Cinematography has become a law of the French Republic. This Center will take the place of previous trade organizations. But the actual application of the bill awaits an official decree. Currently the French trade organizations are preparing this decree together with the Information Department and the General Director of the Cinema. It appears that the National Center will not be a practicable, workable organization before the end of the year. RKO Making French Film with Chevalier Paris, Nov. 23 (By Airmail).— Some 26 French features are now in production, the most important being the RKO-Pathe French production, "Silence Is Golden," written and directed by Rene Clair and starring Maurice Chevalier. Two French features have been completed in French Morocco and studios are to be built at Agadir. The first French feature in color, "Le Mariage de Ramuntcho," is nearly completed. New Century Researcher Ruth Samberg, formerly with the Whitehall Pharmacal Co.'s market research and analysis department, has joined Century Theatres here as assistant to Harriet Lubin, head of the research and survey department. (ill in HAL WALLIS' —From Paramount