Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

2 Motion Picture Daily Friday, October 14, 1949 Personal Mention ELLIS ARNALL, Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers president, arrived in Hollywood yesterday from New York and will report on the foreign situation to the SIMPP membership today. • Edward T. Cheyfitz, special assistant to Motion Picture Association president Eric Johnston, will leave Washington today for Europe, where he will join Johnston in Rome. • W. B. Potter, Eastman Kodak advertising director, has been elected chairman of the board of the Association of National Advertisers. • B. J. Kranze, Film Classics sales vice-president, is visiting exchanges at Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans and Charlotte. • John Joseph, M-G-M advertising executive, has returned here from the Coast. • Jack Roher, head of Peerless Films, Ltd., of Toronto, Winnipeg, and Montreal, is in New York. Steve Strassberg, Film Classics assistant advertising-publicity director, is in Washington from New York. Variety Delegates to Visit Saranac Lake All tent representatives coming to New York for the annual mid-year conference of Variety Clubs International will be taken by special train to Saranac Lake to inspect the Variety Clubs-Will Rogers Hospital. The conference will get underway on Tuesday, Oct. 25, at the Hotel Astor, and the tent representatives will arrive in New York on Sunday, Oct. 23, to leave that night for Saranac. A dinner for the visitors, patients and staffs from all institutions in the area, will be served during which talks will be given by William McCraw, executive director of Variety ; Chick Lewis, executive vice-president of the hospital, and others. After dinner the Barkers will be taken to Fred Schwartz's Timberdoodle Lodge at Lake Placid for a cocktail party. O'Donnell to Induct London Variety Club on Oct. 20 With R. J. (Bob) O'Donnell, international chief barker, officiating, the new Variety Club of Great Britain will be inducted and presented with its charter on Thursday night, Oct. 20, at the Savoy Hotel in London. Colonelship to Brown Oxford, Miss., Oct. 13.— To commemorate the filming and world premiere of "Intruder in the Dust," producer-director Clarence Brown presented Mayor R. X. Williams of Oxford with a bronze plaque which soon will hang in City Hall. Brown, in return, was made a Mississippi Colonel on the staff of Gov. Fielding Wright. Rathvon Sees Full E-L Lineup for '50 Envisioning a line-up of product for Eagle-Lion for all of 1950, film financier N. Peter Rathvon revealed here yesterday the extent to which his Motion Picture Capital Corp. would figure in the distribution company's immediate future. Rathvon's firm has completely financed four which will be released by E-L, he said. They are : "Sundowners," produced in Technicolor by Alan LeMay and George Templeton; "Rupert," produced by George Pal; "Beloved" (tentative title), produced by Bert Granet, and "Destination Moon," to be produced by Pal. Both Pal pictures will be "live action." E-L is due also to get for release the Collier Young-Ida Lupino production, "Never Fear," which previously was scheduled for Film Classics distribution. The independent production field is getting stronger, Rathvon believes. If there were no independent production, he held, the industry would "lose a lot of its spontaneity." E-L operations vice-president William C. MacMillen, Jr., said yesterday the company itself is provided with financing in excess of $1,000,000 for the backing of independent production with "first" or "second" money. Also, E-L general sales manager L. J. Schlaifer declared the company's sales organization could handle satisfactorily about 52 pictures a year. Suggestive Copy Closes Mass. House Boston, Oct. 13.— License of the Taconic Theatre in Williamstown, Mass. was suspended through next Sunday by the board of selectmen after the management refused a request that two French films advertised for presentation be withdrawn. Reason for the suspension of the license was protests from citizens who regarded the advertising as "suggestive." The films were "Passionelle" and "Torment." Jack Warner Cited For Welfare Work Hollywood, Oct. 13. — Jack L. Warner was honored for his efforts as president of the United Jewish Welfare Fund at a dinner given by the organization's key men tonight at the Ambassador Hotel. Honored with Warner were M. F. Berg, 1949 campaign chairman, and Henry Ginsberg, industry chairman. To Film Life of Mary An Italian film company has been formed to make a full-length picture of the life of the Virgin Mary, to be shown in 1950 during Holy Year, according to press dispatches from Rome. The feature will be called "The Life of Mary in History and Legend," with the sound track made in five languages, it was reported. The company, whose honorary president is Prince Francesco Chigi, banker, was said to be holding a competition to find the most suitable actress to play the title role. Joint Operations By Competitors Cited as Illegal Seeking yesterday a U. S. Supreme Court hearing of the Fifth & Walnut $2,100,000 triple-damage anti-trust action against major distributors, plaintiff's attorney Monroe E. Stein has embodied in his petition for a writ of certiorari the charge that "every joint operation by competing exhibitors of a theatre is illegal per se under the decision in the U. S. versus Paramount case." The petition, which is due to be received in Washington today, repeats the principal contention raised by the plaintiff during hearings here in U. S. District Court and the New York Circuit Court of Appeals, namely, that the findings of fact and conclusions of law in the Paramount case are now admissible in private anti-trust suits. In both previous trials presiding judges disagreed with this contention, and verdicts were rendered in favor of the distributors. Asserting that he was "relying on the Kogod and Burka case against Stanley Theatres" in bringing his charge that joint theatre operations are illegal, Stein pointed out yesterday that the Brown Theatre, Louisville, was operated jointly by Loew's and Fred Dolle prior to Sept., 1946, and was provided with the product of all distributors but 'Warners on a moveover. Fifth & Walnut operated the National Theatre, Louisville, and plaintiff has charged that the defendants conspired to deprive that house of product. Suit covers the period from Dec, 1943 to July, 1946. Plan Mass Bookings For 'Quarter in N. Y. Success of the day-and-date booking of J. Arthur Rank's "Quartet" in 18 Philadelphia theatres makes it the logical picture to lead off Eagle-Lion's new policy of booking such films into standard rather than art theatres, W. J. Heineman, E-L distribution vicepresident, declared here yesterday. Heineman said if "Quartet" does not get Loew's and RKO circuit bookings in New York, plans are being made to mass-book it in 50 to 75 independent houses here with E-L and the theatres cooperating on largespace advertising in New York papers, thus applying the formula used in Philadelphia. Ship New Screens Abroad All foreign houses of Loew's International will be equipped with the new Glascreen, it is announced by Herman Gluckman, president of Nu Screen Corp., with shipments to India complete. Other shipments will follow as export licenses are obtained. $26,000 for 'Pinky9 Boston, Oct. 13. — "Pinky," Darryl F. Zanuck production for 20th Century-Fox, completed its first week at the Astor Theatre here today to what was described as an all-time record business of $26,000. Production Index Rises on Coast Hollywood, Oct. 13. — The production index has resumed its upward movement, with a total of 29 in work. Ten pictures were started, while four were completed. Started were : "Military Academy" and "Captive Girl," Columbia ; "The Flying Saucer," Independent ; "Blue Grass of Kentucky" and "Borrowed Guns," Monogram; (Untitled), Paramount ; "Singing Guns," Republic ; "The Victim," "The Rockbottom" and "The Hawk and the Arrow," Warner Brothers. Completed were: "A Mother for May" and "Trail of the Rustlers," Columbia ; "Bomba on Panther Island," Monogram ; "Sierra," U-I. Wright in Trust Case Washington, Oct. 13. — Robert L. Wright, former Justice Department anti-trust attorney, will be associated with Harold Schilz and John Claggett in preparing and arguing the appeal of H. B. Meiselman against a District Court decision throwing out his antitrust case against the Wilby-Kincey circuit and major distributors. Schochet to SG Post Harry Schochet, formerly with Paramount Pictures' New York branch, has resigned to become office manager and chief accountant for Screen Guild's New York office. NEW YORK THEATRES RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Rockefeller Center Olivia deHavilland Montgomery Ralph Clift • Richardson in William Wyler's "THE HEIRESS" with Miriam Hopkins A Paramount Picture SPECTACULAR STAGE PRESENTATION 'MyRiend I HAL WAUIS IninlM .lomng I0HN LUND • DIANA LYNN DON MORE • MARIE WILSON And introducing DEAN MARTIN * JERRY LEWIS NOWT Kivoli ^* B'WAY AT 49 ST. 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