Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1948)

2 Motion Picture Daily Friday, October 15, 1948 Personal Mention APAM BLUMENTHAL, chairman of the ' Cinecolor board, will leave Hollywood today for New York for an executive board meeting on Oct. 28. • William M. Pizor, vice-president and general foreign sales manager of Screen Guild Productions, has left New York by plane for Europe. He will return in about two months. • Richard F. Walsh, IATSE international president, is due to arrive in Hollywood next week from Vancouver, B. C. • Louis B. Mayer, M-G-M production head, and Howard Strickling, studio publicity director, will leave New York for the Coast tomorrow. • Rudy Berger, M-G-M Southern sales manager, will return to his Washington headquarters today from New York. • Harry Shaw, Loew's Poli New England zone manager, was here yesterday from his New Haven headquarters. • Fred C. Quimby, head of M-G-M short subject production, is due back on the Coast tomorrow from New York. • A. J. O'Keefe, Universal-International assistant general sales manager, returned to New York yesterday from Boston. • Jeff Livingston, Universal-International press contact, will leave here today for Los Angeles and San Fran Arch Oboler, writer-producer-director, is due to arrive in New York today from Capetown, South Africa. Montague Salmon, managing director of the Rivoli Theatre here, is in Hollywood. • Claud Morris, special representative for Edward Small Productions-, is in Atlanta from New York. • Arthur Kelly, United Artists vice-president, is due back in New York from London early next week. • Lloyd Bacon is due in New York shortly from the Coast. Joe Felder of Favorite Films has returned to this city from Detroit. S.P.G. Unit Ratifies New E-L Agreement Members of the Screen Publicists Guild, United Office and Professional Workers of America, CIO, last night voted to ratify terms of a new contract with Eagle-Lion. Details of the pact were not disclosed. Signing of the agreement is expected in the next few days. Insider's Outlook By RED KANN TJ ERE and there British of*■ ficial policy regarding Israel has brought about attempts at boycotting British films. The move is not widespread, never has been, meets no encouragement from the industry and is not condoned by responsible Jewish agencies supporting the new state. To attempt to deny the decided displeasure of the American companies over the English quota law and the booking policies pursued by the J. Arthur Rank companies would prove a rather lame enterprise. This state of affairs has cut into the diminishing interest in English films, whatever it may have been when Rank officially was on record in opposition to any quota. Consequently, there is neither a wild scramble nor headlong rush toward playoffs on British product, despite the fact that such revenue would augment the $17,500,000 which the American industry is permitted to withdraw from England. ■ However, the determining factor is something else. Rank talks about failure at peace or genuine understanding between both industries until British films "receive reasonable playing time in the U.S.A." It depends entirely upon how he thinks "reasonable playing time" is to be developed and whether he would be satisfied by getting it through competition or by having it underwritten by the majors here as a quid pro quo helping to preserve their position in Britain. Since he has stated several times that he is prepared to take his chances, which presumably is his position currently, he should understand that he must succeed, or continue to fail, in the American market in direct ratio to the product he supplies it. The American showman has no need to turn to other sources than Hollywood for mediocrity. Hollywood does handsomely by him on that score. ■ When Rank gets to know what evidently he is yet to learn about the men of exhibition in this country, he will appreciate that they are in the business of running theatres for profit. They have been profiting the most and the longest by way of Hollywood, but no one who professes to a surface knowledge of this industry has the slightest doubt of how rapidly allegiances can switch if there is a reason. It delves into the primer again to observe that the exhibitor will play any producer's film whether made in California, England or the Gobi desert if he can buy it at a price he Calculates to be right and believes he can make a dollar in the doing. ■ There is no widespread opposition to British films beyond the opposition set up by British films themselves. When Arthur H. Lockwood, TOA president, pointed this out the other day he was reflecting with unerring accuracy the thinking of the general body of American theatremen. "There will be playing time, and ample playing time, for any foreign film which meets the American public's standard," he said. Rank did well here with "Henry" nationally and is doing well now with "Hamlet" in Boston and New York. The simple truth is audiences were waiting. The entire situation, clearly, once again reverts to its inescapable conclusion : When England, or France, or X, Y and Z send to this country merchandise audiences want to see, the result will never be in doubt. ■ B Unbelievable, yet true, is the incident of the producer who telephoned the sales manager to inquire how his Broadway run was doing. Opening week was O.K. at $60,000. Second week was down to $53,00. "I'm disappointed, but it's nice that we took in all that money," said the producer. "We took it in all right, but what with the theatre rental and the very heavy newspaper and radio campaign, we aren't doing so well," replied the sales manager. "You understand, of course, that the $53,000 I'm talking about is gross, not profit." "Is there a difference?" asked the producer. ■ ■ Hollywood, including David O. Selznick, has been after Roberto Rossellini, director of "Open City" and "Paisan." Negotiations reached a stage, at one point, where a long and intricate contract was forwarded to him in Rome. He got as far as the first seven pages, then gave it up. But not before cabling Selznick: "How would you like to be the director of my next picture?" Agreement Near in Wallis-Para. Deal Agreement on a new producing-releasing deal between Hal Wallis Productions and Paramount is nearer as a result of meetings held here over the past two weeks. Final negotiations are scheduled to be held in Hollywood in the near future. Wallis is scheduled to leave here for the Coast today and may be followed by Joseph Hazen, president of Wallis Productions, in a day or two. "Bif Victory," their 12th and last pic£'\. j for Paramount on their present contract, will be ready to go before the cameras soon. Silverman Named Republic Manager Appointment of Norman Silverman as Republic Pictures' Philadelphia branch manager, effective Nov. 1, was disclosed here yesterday by James R. Grainger, executive vice-president in charge of distribution. $1.06 Columbia Dividend Columbia Pictures' board of directors, at a meeting held here yesterday, declared a quarterly dividend of $1.06K per share on the $4.25 cumulative preferred stock, payable on Nov. 15, to stockholders of record on Nov. 1. NEW YORK THEATRES —RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL ROCKEFELLER CENTER Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon jin "JULIA MISBEHAVES"! Peter Elizabeth Cesar LAWFORD TAYLOR ROMERO A Metro-Goliwyn-Mayer Picture SPECTACULAR STAGE PRESENTATION EDWARD G. ROBINSON GAIL RUSSELL JOHN LUND, A Paramount Picture ikw* JEANNE CRAIN WILLIAM HOLDEN Edmund Gwenn 'APARTMENT FOR PEGGY' Twentieth Century-Fox Picture Color by Technicolor ON VARIETY STAGE — KAY THOMPSON AND WILLIAMS BROS. — ROLLY ROLLS ON ICE STAGE — RHYTHM IN PLAID = ROXY thA¥e & 50th St. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Martin Quigley, Jr., Associate Editor. Published daily, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Q.uigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, President; Red Kann, Vice-President; Martin Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo J. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager; David Harris, Circulation Director; Hollywood Bureau, YuccaVine Building, William R. 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