Motion Picture Daily (Apr-Jun 1950)

iday, April 21, 1950 Motion Picture Daily 3 AFL Will Have 'IA' Theatre at Exhibit One exhibit scheduled for the AFL's "Union Industries Show" at Philadelphia, May 6-13, and now being prepared bv Quaker City locals of the IATSE, is a theatre turned inside out — a film house complete with blazing marquee and modern streamlined exte^bs, but having this dis t )n: an entire wall will be ...issing, so people can just drift in and sit down to see the show. Jrges Senate (Continued from page 1) Review Harbor of Missing Men" (Republic) " LI ARBOR of Missing Men" launches an underworld action melodrama n on the high seas. The film satisfactorily mixes action and excitement, fulfilling the modest needs of its classification. Richard Denning has the focal role of a fishing-boat owner who strikes a deal to deliver a boatload of contraband fire-arms for an underworld operator. Some dark doings follow and the money from the transaction is hijacked, leaving Denning in a perilous spot. For his own safety, he finds himself having to elude the hi-j ackers, as well as the angry group from whom the monev was stolen. ... . Denning finds sanctuary with a Greek family that also operates a fishing boat. Some of the production's finest scenes are those showing the underwater endeavors of the family. In time Denning falls in love with pretty Aline Towne, a member of the family. There follows Denning' s struggle to clear his name, punctuated bv some fisticuffs and gunplay— then wedding bells. Sidney Picker was associate producer, and R. G. Springsteen directed from a story 'by John K. Butler. t>-i Running time, 60 minutes. General audience classification. Release date March 26. Man del Hekbstman He put in the Congressional Record a lengthy memo opposing the bill and a legal analysis which he said "demonstrates that the bill violates the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution. It violates due process of law; it constitutes a bill of attainder and an ex post facto law— both specifically banned by our Constitution," he said. Wiley urged a "spontaneous moral usade among our people, led by our eat churches, assisted by all the dertit people in the cinema themselves, id let this voluntary crusade be the !.swer to the problem of immorality Hollywood or any where else." He lid he regretted the tendency to run the government to correct every oblem, and declared that the Motion icture Association of America and e various organizations of indepenent film producers and exhibitors ire more than qualified under their esent leadership to meet this oblem." Wiley's remarks on the legal aspects the bill take added weight from the <ct that he is a former chairman of e Senate Judiciary Committee and is le committee's ranking Republican. With 12,000 bills before Congress lad "literally hundreds of crucial foblems" before the Senate Commerce Committee that the Committee kould have seen fit to schedule hearigs "on this issue of proposed regimentation of the motion picture industry of America," Wiley said. 1PIC Cool Towards alks with Jackson Hollywood, April 20. — A report irnished by Dore Schary, who could ot be present, on his meeting yesterpy with Judge Stephen S. Jackson, enatorial investigator of Hollywood's icrals, was read to the membership jt last night's Motion Picture Industry j'ouncil meeting. They voted to take Inder consideration Jackson's suggestion for meetings with other MPIC officials. j A statement issued today pointed ut this action "provided nothing to ldicate any change in the general Attitude of disapproval noted throughut Hollywood toward the circumances attending Jackson's advent." .'he discussion "approved the genera! ttitude and position taken by Schary ut also contained a straightforward ejection of anything associated with rxeptance of any plan to affix Federal ' censes on performers or films," the '.atement said. Breen on Censors (Continued from page 1) Ad Code Changes (Continued from page 1) Prices Cut to Enliven 6:30 'Dead' Period Philadelphia, April 20.— An "early bird" evening price was instituted at Paramount's Nixon Theatre here last night by Harry Botwick, Paramount theatre head in this area. The Nixon's price was reduced to 47 cents from a 55 65-cent regular evening admission during the hour between 6:30 and 7:30 P.M. The action was also seen as an attempt to get TV owners into the theatre before major telecasts start. More Bidding (Continued from page 1) code, Breen emphasized that he had no intention whatever to "suggest to you how to run your business." In "accepting the invitation to ^ speak, Breen said, he wanted only "to tell you something about the motion picture industry's experience" with its Production Code. Breen recited the history of the film industry's need for and experience with its Production Code. He pointed out how, following repeated onslaughts by various censorship agencies, the industry came to the realization that it owed it to the public to thwart "outside" regulation by adhering to moral and ethical standards on its own. Breen recalled how Martin Quigley presenled a draft of a "definite document" which was to serve as a guide in the setting up of a Code. He explained how finally interest mounted to the point where a Code was set up how originallv pictures were reviewed by the PCA after they were completed, how ultimately the system of pre-production review came into being. "Not in 10 years has a film been pu' into production in Hollywood that was not likely to be acceptable" to the PCA, Breen said. He said he has "worked on" 10,000 features and 10,000 shorts that reached the screens and some 50,000 stories that did not. Some 413 stories were approved by PCA last year out of about 3,600 submitted, he said. Breen reported that of the approximately 10.000 films which have been reviewed by the PCA there were 11 appeals from decisions to refuse a seal of approval. Nine of the 11 were foreign films, he said, adding that in all cases the PCA was sustained by the Motion Picture Association's appeal board. month by the MPAA Advertising Advisory Council calling for advertising code amendments to prevent capitalizing on notoriety in advertising of films in release or about to be released. Another proposal would prevent release of new pictures or reissues within a time period calculated to make capital of notoriety involving anyone connected with such pictures. MPAA president Eric A. Johnston, who is expected to preside at a meeting here today of the Motion Picture Export Association, attended yesterday's session. Also present were : Barney Balaban, Jack Cohn, Ned E. Depinet, Sam Schneider, Nicholas M. Schenck, Spyros P. Skouras, Joseph Hazen, Austin Keough, John J. O'Connor, Edward Morey, A. Schneider, William Clark, Albert Warner, W. J. Michel, Theodore Black, Joyce O'Hara, Francis Harmon and Sidney Schreiber. MPIC and Compo (Continued from page 1 ) Smith Lists Nine (Continued from page 1) hawk," Technicolor, Dan Dailey and Anne Baxter. June— "Night and the City," Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney ; "Love That Brute," Paul Douglas and Jean Peters. July— "The Gunfighter," Gregory Peck; "Where the Sidewalk Ends," Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. August— "The Black Rose," Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, in Technicolor ; "Stella," Ann Sheridan and Victor Mature, and "The Cariboo Trail," Randolph Scott, in Cinecolor. a discussion of plans for the MPIC's "most thorough-going participation" in the forthcoming COMPO meeting at Chicago's Drake Hotel, May 8. Executive secretary Art Arthur, accompanied by either Roy Brewer or Y. Frank Freeman, will attend the COMPO conclave as MPIC representatives. The MPIC membership also voted to send a representative, when invited, to exhibitor conventions, in all cases where circumstances and budget per mit, beginning with the Arkansas Independent Theatre Owners meeting at Little Rock on May 2-4, and ITO of Iowa-Nebraska at Omaha, on May 16-17. are slated for regional sales meetings which UA has scheduled for Hollywood, Chicago and Dallas, it was said. A meeting of Eastern branch managers was held here last weekend. Paul N. Lazarus, Jr., executive assistant to UA president Gradwell L. Sears, will leave here for the Coast on Monday to conduct the conference of Western managers on the following day. He will be in Chicago on May 1 for a session with Midwestern managers. Fred Jack, Western and Southern general sales manager, will hold a meeting of Southern managers in Dallas on April 29. Despite the reforms made in clearances and other trade practices in recent years, approximately 100 private anti-trust suits are pending against major companies, many of them instituted since the trade changes were adopted. About 20 cases were disposed of last year and close to that number of new actions were filed, according to legal sources here. U-Fs 'Big Push' (Continued from page 1) will leave Hollywood for New York over the weekend. Other features slated for release during the period are "Louisa," with Ronald Reagan and Charles Coburn ; "The Sleeping City," Richard Conte and Coleen Gray; "Peggy," in Technicolor, Diana Lynn and Charles Coburn ; "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion"; "Sierra," Technicolor Western with Audie Murphy and Wanda Hendrix, and "Curtain Call at Cactus Creek," in Technicolor, with Donald O'Connor and Gale Storm. Parents' Magazine Special Merit Award . . "Abundance of Excitement ... Life-like Proportions."