Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1947)

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Motion picture daily Thursday, February 27, 1947 Five Appeal (Continued from page 1) fixing deprives the defendants of their rights under the copyright laws and deprives the public of exceptional pictures. That prohibition against owning theatres jointly with independent exhibitors, except for interests exceeding 95 per cent or not exceeding 5 per cent, "did not result from the trial of any issue tendered by the plaintiff." And that the failure to permit the exhibitor defendants to acquire additional theatres to protect their investments or enter competitive fields "is far more restrictive" than the decree directed by the Supreme Court in the Crescent Amusement case. Paramount's assignment of errors, while identical in many respects with that of the other four defendants, differs in three particulars. Besides appealing from single sales and competitive bidding, it objects much more lengthily to the partial-divestiture clause than do the co-appellants. Also, it accepts the ban on pooling agreements with independent exhibitors, while Loew's, RKO, 20th-Fox and Warners cite that injunction as an error of the local court. Court Said to be Wrong Declaring that the court erred in finding that the defendants discriminated against small independent exhibitors, agreed with their licensees to grant discriminatory privileges to affiliated theatres and conspired as exhibitors to receive such privileges, the five companies specifically protest the court's judgment that they "acted in concert in their grant of clearance and run." While accepting the court's bans on clearance between theatres not in substantial competition, they object to having the burden of the proof of "reasonable" clearance in competitive situations placed upon the distributors. Yesterday's appeal does not question the court's prohibition of franchise deals, formula deals and master agreements, although objection to these clauses was raised earlier in appeals by Universal and United Artists, which, along with Columbia, are the non-theatre-owning defendants in the case. Like these three defendants, Paramount appeals from the court's grant of a 20 per cent cancellation privilege on features sold prior to trade showing, but Loew's, RKO, 20th-Fox and Warners accept this provision. Industry Arbitration With regard to industry arbitration, the five co-appellants point out that the court held that the system has "demonstrated its usefulness" and urged its continuance on a voluntary basis. "The court's holding that it lacked the power to continue the system is contrary to the decision in United States vs. Swift & Co.," the appeal declares. The appellant's objection to the court's ban on fixing admission prices is predicated on the fact that many features are licensed on percentage terms. During the period of exhibition, the defendants declare, "the licensor has an immediate and direct interest in the admission prices charged. The prohibition imposed bv the court has particular effect in the case of a feature of unusual cost, (Continued in column 4) 'Carnegie Hall9 (Continued from Page 1) flirtation with those who prefer their notes hot. Marsha Hunt is the mother, and William Prince grows up to be her piano-playing son. When they are not living in the shadow of Carnegie Hall, they are living right on the premises. The parade of the years throws mother and budding bov into contact with many of the noted virtuosi who play the Hall. But Prince leans toward the new in music, leaves home to join Monroe's band, comes back to write the "57th Street Rhapsody" m a debut at Carnegie. This reconciles mother and son and patches the temporary rift between the boy and his wife, Martha O'Driscoll. THE narrative thread is not too weighty, nor is it new. But it is highly serviceable and made innocuously palatable under Edgar G. Ulmer's direction, aided by a nice array of performances chiefly in the hands of Miss Hunt, Prince, Frank McHugh and Miss O'Driscoll. Of this limited cast, the first three do the best jobs. Miss Hunt is understanding as the mother. Prince is boyish, enthusiastic and likeable in what is a better performance than any he rendered Warner. McHugh is the Irish attache and all-around Good Samaritan. . „ But the professional players are not the real stars of ' Carnegie Hall. These are the real-to-life stars of the concert and orchestra stage. Unaccustomed to cameras and lights, all of them do unusually well in the dramatic bits which they are called upon to perform. In their real-to-life tasks as contemporary leaders in music they are, of course, completely professional and accomplished. Producers William Le Baron and Boris Morros, moreover, were particularly adroit in tailoring their musical catalogue. Wisely, they have resisted whatever temptations perhaps confronted them to roam beyond the ken of the popularly known classics and near-classics. Thus, Walter Damrosch conducts parts of the Tschaikowsky piano concerto and one of the "Leonora" overtures of Beethoven. The list is too long to enumerate. BY title itself, "Carnegie Hall" has an asset which will attract many and make others cautious. But what they will be seeing is a first-class job of picture-making, designed for a broad appeal and drawing upon established concertists to project this. Before any exhibitor predetermines that classical music is not for his audience he had better check around to fortify such a position. He will find more people like, and listen to, good music than he may suspect. This is something to bear well in mind when he considers "Carnegie Hall." He may find himself attracting patronage not normally flowing to his theatre and substantial reason to conclude his regulars will also be on hand, as usual. . Running time, 134 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, not set. Red Kann Valley of Fear" (Monogram) JOHNNY MACK BROWN and his side-kick, Raymond Hatton, have their hands full in this story, which concerns a land-grabbing plot engineered by an ostensibly peaceable and trusted citizen of a frontier town. The villain, played by Steve Darrell, whose machinations are pretty well concealed from the townsfolk until the closing minutes of the film, leads the folks to believe that banker Tristram Coffin is the culprit who swindled them out of money so their mortgaged properties could be taken over by the Darrell interests. However, some clever investigating by Johnny and Hatton, followed by considerable shooting, fist-fighting and horseback chases, leads the two to the real swindler who is duly turned over to the law. This is standard Western fare, liberally sprinkled with the kind of action which saddle-saga customers want. The cast is rounded out with Christine Mclntyre, Ed Cassidy, Ted Adams, Eddie Parker, and others. Lambert Hillyer directed, from an original by J. Benton Cheney. Production was supervised by Charles J. Bigelow. _ Running time, 54 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, Feb. 15. C. L. F. "Before Him All Rome Trembled" (Super film) FACTUAL or not, "Before Him All Rome Trembled," which brings Anna Magnani to American audiences for the second time, on the heels of her triumph in "Open City," is exciting film fare which traverses the path of many a good U. S. cloak-and-dagger thriller about the underground in occupied Europe and its heroic contributions to the liberation. Ostensibly based on the work of Italian Anti-fascists operating in the Royal Opera House in Rome, the film, directed by Carmine Gallone from a script written by him, in collaboration with G. Gherard and C. Cataldo, offers a liberal portion of Puccini's "Tosca" as an integral part of the background and action. In fact, the opera quite obviously inspired the plot. With English titles by Armando Macaluso providing an excellent explanation of the story as it unfolds, the picture is "art house" material not only because of the language barrier but also because of the operatic material. However, as a story about two opera stars, portrayed by Miss Magnani and Gino Sinimberghi, who shield an English agent at the risk of their own lives their associates among stagehands engineer a spectacular escape at the climax of a performance of "Tosca," it has flashes of suspense and action. Apart from some annoying disturbances in the sound and an inability to capture fidelity in the reproduction of the music, "Before Him All Rome Trembled" — a title taken, incidentally, from the Puccini score — is a good "quality" picture, capably directed and skillfully acted. Its basic drawback lies in its slow pace, with the camera lingering too long on the opera performance thereby impeding momentum of the climax. Running time, 105 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, not set. • L K. Five Appeal (Continued from column 1) where it is necessary to 'roadshow' the production. The limited number of such features precludes the possibility that their continued production and exhibition can be the basis of an unlawful monopoly. The decree as drawn will prevent the production in the future of such features," the appeal contends. £sent? On the subject of partial » , estiture, the appellants state that "the decree compels these exhibitor defendants to dispose of many valuable theatre interests, unless they can arrange to purchase the partial interest of their respective co-owners, and then only if they can obtain court approval of such purchase." Paramount, in addition, holds the the court erred in not specifically decreeing that the company might applv for permission "to retain any presentlyowned partial interest in a theatre or group of theatres upon a showing to and finding by the court that retention of such partial interest did not and would not unreasonably restrain competition." Also in refusing to decree that "in any case where it is shown that a joint relationship between an exhibitor defendant and an independent exhibitor resulted from a sale by the defendant (or a trustee in bankruptcy), the defendant may apply to the court to continue such relationship to the extent to which, and in the places to which the parties were not in competition at the time of the sale." The assignment filed by Loew's, RKO, 20th-Fox and Warners alleges that the New York court made 39 errors, while Paramount cites 47. Included are virtually all the findings and conclusions with regard to price fixing, those with regard to run and clearance which hold that the defendants "acquiesced in and forwarded" a unified system, those which held that theatre interests owned jointly with independents enabled the parties to operate the houses "collectively rather than competitively" and eliminates competition ; as well as the provision that the consent decree entered on Nov. 20, 1940, should be of no, further effect. Paramount and its affiliated companies asks that the "decree, judgment and final order be reversed and a judgment entered in favor of each of them." Loew's, RKO, 20th-Fox and Warners asks that the "decree, judgment and orders be reversed, modified or corrected and that appropriate judgment be entered." 15 Additional Films Get Legion Ratings Fifteen additional features have been classified by the National Legion of Decency. One of these, "Man's Hope" (Spanish), Lopert Films, has been rated Class B. In Class A-I are: Lopert's "Cage of Nightingales" (French), RKO Radio's "Code of the West" and "The Farmer's Daughter," Republic's "Heldorado" and "Last Frontier Uprising," M-G-M's "It Happened in Brooklyn," PRC's "Law of the Lash," Universal's "Michigan Kid," and Columbia's "Over the Santa Fe Trail." Placed in Class A-II -are : "Backlash," 20th Century-Fox ; "Queen of the Amazons" and "Renegade Girl," both Screen Guild; "Suddenly It's Spring," Paramount, and "That Brennan Girl," Republic.