Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1948)

4 Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, November 3, 1941! CIO Bids Industry Deal With SOPEG Allan S. Haywood, vice-president and director of organization of CIO, has written to the presidents of Loew's , RKO Radio, 20th CenturyFox, Columbia, Republic, United Artists, Universal, Warner and National Screen, urging that their companies meet with the representatives of United Office and Professional Workers of America "in the interest of good labor relationship" to consummate an agreement, it was reported on Monday by the Screen Office and Professional Employees and Screen Publicists guilds. UOPWA is the guilds' parent union. The companies have persisted in their refusal to "do business" with SOPEG and SPG because of the unions' failure to comply with the nonCommunist affidavit provisions of the Taft-Hartley Law. Haywood points out in his letters that "there is nothing in the law that compels" the companies to require the filing of affidavits by the unions. Television Council Will Install Dec. 2 Installation of officers at a combined-industry-wide dinner on Dec. 2 here has been set by the National Television Film Council. Presidents of television stations, networks and major film companies will be invited to attend and exchange viewpoints. Officers to be installed are Melvin L. Gold, president ; Burt Balaban, vicepresident ; Robert H. Wormhoudt, secretary ; Robert M. Paskow, treasurer. Eleven members of the board of directors will also take over. Dewey Victory (Continued from page 1) can look for no decree short of complete divorcement. No further decree talks were scheduled as of yesterday, according to Government sources, but it was understood that former Secretary of State James Byrnes of 20th CenturyFox counsel plans to confer on the matter with Clark on Friday. Have YOU tried a SKYBERTH on American's famous DC-6 -MERCURY" flight to LOS ANGELES? Phone HAvemeyer 6-5000 or your travel agent Ticket Offices . Airlines Terminal Rockefeller Center • Hotel New Yorker 120 Broadway • Hotel St. George AMERICAN AIRLINES £4 The Snake Pit' (Continued from page 1) scene is held relentlessly to a mental institution. Through the various stages of cure, Miss de Havilland passes as the patient of a sympathetic doctor, Leo Genn, who eventually makes her well. Since realism is the steadfast keynote, the patient must have shock treatments. Not once is this shown, but a number of times — each time accelerated toward a horrific climax with appropriate music crashing from the screen in a nerve-wracking blending with terrifying screams as the electric current passes through the patient's body. There is the therapeutic bath, another form of treatment, during which the inner recesses of the deranged patient's mind are contorted into visual conceptions of fearful waves about to engulf her. It is not only Miss de Havilland who feels these terrors. The intent obviously was to project them to the audience, and that intent overwhelmingly succeeds. THE tortured weavings of her mind are shown. She loses all track of time, then regains some of it in fleeting moments of lucidity. To and fro she ranges from complete mental instability to craftiness, cunning, suspicion and helplessness. She is incapable of trusting those who sincerely want to help her, sometimes recognizes Mark Stevens, her husband, and then does not. But through slow progress and exceeding care, the cause of the difficulty is traced to her early years and the way out of her miasma of doubts established. The film ends with Miss de Havilland's recovery. A performance of such obviously exacting demands easily might have been ludicrous in the wrong hands. Not here, however. Miss de Havilland is dramatically superb in a complex role which must have been physically exhausting. She probes deeply beneath the surface for understanding and interpretation and imparts to her characterization of Virginia Cunningham pity and compassion. Whatever else may be said about "The Snake Pit," it is a personal triumph for her. In atmosphere and mood, the film of necessity is depressing, yet grips with a form of morbid fascination. It has a curious ability to attract and repel at the one time. While Miss de Havilland and the excellent Leo Genn are mostly in the foreground, there are constantly in the background the asylum, its straitjackets, the women who are the inmates, the disordered manifestations of their diseased minds, the inescapable despair of a world lost. The problem should be apparent by this time. Now that the film has been made, there must be considered how the public will take it. Entertainment, as traditionally defined and normally accepted in the industry, plays no part — -near or far — in "The Snake Pit." It is not what the public is asked to buy, nor accustomed to find in a theatre. SINCE much has been published recently about mental institutions, it is not remote for an interested element to be attracted. The red-beef-andraw-liquor group certainly is a potential. Those morbidly bent are another. Those who insist upon realism, unrestricted and exposed, undoubtedly will lend support. In all probability, moreover, "The Snake Pit" will be subject of wide and perhaps even provocative discussion — a circumstance which sometimes sells tickets. However, these are partial answers at best. The whole answer cannot be provided with assurance. Since this is so, the best of all advice to the exhibitor is that he see this attraction and thereafter arrive at his own balanced conclusion. Experience with "The Lost Weekend" suggests where showmen might look for an approach on how much their audience can take. "The Snake Pit" is based generally on a best-selling novel by Mary Jane Ward. Frank Partos and Millen Brand prepared an expert screenplay for co-producers Anatole Litvak and Robert Bassler. Within the fixed boundaries of his subject and with all other considerations set entirely aside, Litvak, who also directed, has done a vibrant and commanding piece of work. Supporting cast values are strong, the chief performers in this classification being Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan, Helen Craig, Leif Erickson, Beulah Bondi, Lee Patrick, Ruth Donnelly, Katherine Locke, Frank Conroy and others. Running time, 108 minutes. Adult audience classification. Release date, not set. Red Kann Ten Chicago Suits (Continued from page 1) South side, thereby forcing distributors to license films to a greater number of competitive theatres for simultaneous showing. Suit asks to restrain opposition houses, the Uptown and Granada, both operated by Balaban and Katz, from playing ahead of the Ridge and other independent theatres. Defendants are': Paramount, B. and K., Universal, United Artists, EagleLion, Selznick Releasing, Loew, 20thFox and Warners. Monetary damages are not asked. Plaintiff in the second suit is Weldon Allen, operator of the Grove Theatre, at Galesburg, who asks $441,000 treble damages charging monopolistic practices, fixed admission prices and priority first-runs granted to the West and Orpheum theatres in Galesburg, operated by Great States. Defendants are B. and K., Great States, Paramount, Warner and Universal. Meyers in Tax Business Hollywood, Nov. 2. — Alvin P. Meyers, former screen writer who entered the Government's employ in 1936 as assistant chief of the income tax division of the Internal Revenue Bureau, has resigned as head of the Southeast division of IRB to enter private business as tax consultant and accountant. He will be associated with H. Loren Baker. Meyers' last screenplay was M-G-M's "Tennessee Johnson." $1,500,000 DelRuth Budget Hollywood, Nov. 2.— Joe Kaufman, associate producer for Roy Del Ruth Productions, has announced the acquisition of a modernized adaptation of Frank R. Stockton's 40-year-old short story, "The Lady or the Tiger ?," which has been scheduled on Del Ruth's 1949 independent production slate for Allied Artists release. Del Ruth has budgeted it at $1,500,000. It will be made in color. B. & K. Will Install Theatre Video in Dec, Chicago, Nov. 2. — Plans for the |nl stallation of a $30,000 tele-transcription recorder to introduce "live" television shows of the same caliber as those of the Paramount Theatre, New York, have been announced here bjj John Balaban, head of Balaban and1 Katz Theatres and director of tele vision station WBKB. The Chicag< Theatre is expected to be thenoutlet in which the new recorder i]atj<" be installed, probably early in _ ber. Balaban also disclosed that an advisory planning board has been set up consisting of B. & K. executives. Decree Talks Off (Continued from page 1) P1 port on the Government's attitude re-i portedly made it evident that furthe talks would serve no purpose. The|Di Government's divestiture demands are, regarded as offering nothing that might not be improved upon by trial of the issues. Meanwhile, the companies are pre paring briefs in opposition to the Government's proposed early divesti ture of approximately 1,400 theatres with ultimate complete divorcement They will be presented to the court this week. Collapse of the negotiations means that a move for a new postponement of the hearings, which had been a possibility heretofore, will not be made. Goldman Plea (Continued from page 1) original decision made by Judge Kirkpatrick in which he held that films be distributed by competitive bidding and thereby awarded to Goldman a tripledamage verdict of $375,000. Another phase of the complex litigation instituted by Goldman will be heard tomorrow morning when Judge Kirkpatrick will hear argument on whether defendants may still show their own pictures exclusively in their own theatres. Depinet to Employees (Continued from page 1) pany and, with few exceptions, our employes have worked either for one or the other. For that reason the separation to be undertaken will be a relatively simple one." Depinet said that he expects that the two new units will "grow and prosper" and employes will have "equal if not bigger and better opportunities." N. J. Conciliation Meet Board of directors of Allied Theatre Owners of New Jersey met here on Monday with the organization's committee on exhibitor-distributor conciliation to examine the committee's survey of member complaints in accordance with the conciliation plan of Andy W. Smith, Jr., 20th-Fox's general sales manager. 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