Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1947)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

r r i^v | FIRST MOTION PICTURE Accurate IN ATT "^7" Concise FILM and NEWS mmmmm^mMm J&Mb mmmammW «3BB* Impartial j VOL. 61. NO. 42 NEW YORK, U.S.A., MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1947 TEN CENTS l^w Cases Will Prolong Life Of Arbitration Filings in N. Y., Ohio; 3 Others in Preparation Evidences of renewed exhibitor interest in the industry arbitration system were disclosed on Friday with the filing of new complaints in New York and Cleveland and indications that additional complaints will be filed within the next few days in Albany, New Haven and Cincinnati. The arbitration tribunals may accept new cases up to April 1 and tribunals which have cases pending before them then may remain in existence until those cases are disposed of. Accordingly there has been trade speculation whether the recent and current activity is indicative of independent exhibitor interest in seeing the boards maintained for as long as possible despite Department of Justice (Continued on page 6) Record High Is Hit By Admission Taxes Washington, March 2. — Federal admission tax collections reached an all-time high of $454,928,352 during the calendar year of 1946, compared with $375,306,023 for 1945, the Bureau of Internal Revenue reported on Friday. Between 80 and 90 per cent of both totals represent receipts (Continued on page 6) Levin Appoints Five District Managers John J. Shine, Frank S. Ingres, Otto Stradley, Barry Halbert and Arthur W. Davis have been named district managers of Confidential Reports, Inc., by Jack H. Levin. Shine will work out of the Atlanta office, covering Charlotte, Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City ; Ingres, from the Chicago office, will cover Des Moines, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Omaha, and St. Louis ; Stradley, in Cleveland, will cover Buffalo, Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh ; Halbert, in Los Angeles, will cover Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle, and Davis, from Philadelphia, will cover Albany, Boston, New Haven, New York, and Washington. Exhibitor Records Seized in Court Tilt on Percentages Pittsburgh, March 2. — Seizure of an exhibitor's books and records and removing them from his' theatre office is the latest move in the distributors' prosecutions on claims alleging monetary withholdings on the playing of percentage pictures. This is believed to be the first such seizure in this type of case. An order was signed by U. S. District Judge McVicar in Federal Court directing the U. S. Marshal here to seize and impound books and records in the office of Bart Dattola in the New Dattola Theatre, at New Kensington, Pa. The order also provides that counsel for all parties and their auditors may have access to the impounded records at all reasonable times. The seizure order arose in the course of inspection of theatre records of 19 exhibitor plaintiffs now being made for eight distributors under a supplementary order granted (Continued on page 6) Columbia Half -Year Profit, $1,560,000 A net profit of $1,560,000 for the 26-week period ended Dec. 28, 1946, was reported at the weekend by Columbia. This compares with $1,295,000 for the same period of the previous year. The company reports an operating profit of $2,480,000 for the period, compared with $2,250,000 in 1945. Estimated provision for Federal taxes for the 26 weeks in 1946 amounts to $920,000 ; in 1945, the amount was $955,000. The comparative earnings per share (Continued on page 6) Showmanship Award To Be Judged Today The work of 22 finalists competing for the annual Quigley Showmanship Awards will be appraised by more than 100 industry executives of the Quigley Awards Committee, at the Hotel Astor, here, today. Following the appraisings, Martin Quigley will be host at a luncheon at which Sol A. Schwartz, vicepresident in charge of theatres for RKO Service Corp., will be the principal speaker. Many out-of-town theatre executives and exhibitors will attend. Italy Keeping Lid On Film Profits By ARGEO SANTUCCI Rome, Feb. 24 (By Airmail) — While no quota restrictions against foreign product appears to be in the offing, according to informed industry spokesmen here, it is possible that earnings of foreign pictures will still have to be held in blocked accounts. That investment of these earnings will continue under government control seems certain, according to these observers." Concerned over the prohibition against converting lire into dollars, American companies in Italy have indicated their dissatisfaction and point to the ban as making unprofitable the distribution of pictures which cost, on the average, about $13,500 for dubbing, prints and advertising. This country's banks need government permission to spend earnings from the exploitation of foreign pictures in blocked accounts, but this rule may be relaxed to enable American companies to invest in Italian stocks. "It Happened in Brooklyn" [ M-G-M ] — A Can't-Miss Musical LET'S see about this one: There's Frank Sinatra, as faithful a son as Brooklyn has ever known ; Jimmy Durante, combining the mellow with his inimitable brand of humor; Kathryn Grayson, ready for song and romance and finding both ; Peter Lawford, the voting folks' delight; warmly sympathetic direction by Richard Whorf under the experienced hand of producer Jack Cummings ; six song numbers by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, who rank high in their field; a smattering of Bach, Dclibes and Mozart, who were no slouches, either. There, also, is a story which is never important, but reliable enough for a musical. All this sounds like a package of entertainment which is what "It Happened in Brooklyn" is. A tip-top package, unquestionably slated to (Continued on page 5) CSA Hits U.S. As Exhibitor Representative Holds Bidding Bad, Not Just Inadequate Relief Holding that divorcement is unnecessary, the Confederacy of Southern Associations on Friday declared in an appeal to the Supreme Court that the Department of Justice's opposition to competitive bidding does not constitute a representation of their interests, inasmuch as the government objects to the bidding system solely on the ground that it is an inadequate substitute for divorcement. The CSA petition, asking the high tribunal to reverse the New York Federal District Court's denial of the association's right to intervene in the industry antitrust suit and to eliminate the bidding provision from the court's decree, was the 10th and last appeal placed on record. It came two (Continued on page 6) FWC Gains Seven In Pooling Breakup Hollywood, March 2.— Seventeen theatres in Southern and Northern California which Fox West Coast has operated in pooling arrangements will pass to individual control and the circuit will take over 100 per cent operation of 24 other houses on completion of current paper work. The split-up, necessitated by the (Continued on page 6) Myers Anticipates 4Clean-Cut' Verdict Washington, March 2. — Unlike the New York Federal District Court, the U. S. Supreme Court early next year will make a "clean-cut" decision in the industry anti-trust suit to cither remove producer-distributors from "thin legal ice" by affirming that they do not have a monopoly (Continued on page 6) In This Issue "Fall Guy" is reviewed <>n page 5.