Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, March 6, 1951 RKO's Reisman Sales Drive Begins The 1951 sales drive of the foreign division of RKO Pictures, honoring Phil Reisman, vice-president in charge of foreign distribution, will start worldwide this week and run to June 2. Captains are the supervisors of the five divisions: Joseph Bellfort, Europe; Robert S. Wolff, United Kingdom; Michael Havas, Latin-America; Ralph Doyle, Australia and Leon Britton, Far East. Jack Kennedy is drive coordinator. Robert K. Hawkinson, assistant foreign manager, is chairman of the home office drive committee which includes: Beverly Lion, Ned Clarke, Jack Kennedy, Harry Ehrreich, Rutgers Neilson, Arthur Herskovitz, Mel Danheiser and Alfred Stern. Personal Mention 'Miracle' Appeal to Be Heard March 12 Ajlbany, N. Y., March 5— The Appelate Division will hear arguments on March 12 to review the action of the Board of Regents cancelling the license for "The Miracle" on the grounds that it is "sacrilegious." The clerk of the court, John S. Herrick, said that Samuel E. Arnowitz, attorney for Joseph Burstyn, Inc., has asked the court to view the film in Warner's screening room. MGM Releases {Continued from page 1) van, Arlene Dahl, Mercedes McCambridge and Monica Lewis, and "Royal Wedding," co-starring Fred Astaire, Jane Powell and Peter Lawford, with Sarah Churchill. For April: "Father's Little Dividend," starring Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Bennett, followed by "Soldiers Three," with Stewart Granger, Walter Pidgeon and David Niven, and "The Great Caruso," starring Mario Lanza and Ann Blyth. For May: "The Painted Hills," in Technicolor, starring Lassie, with Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling and Gary Gray; "The Headline Story," starring Donald Crisp, Jeffrey Lynn and Marjorie Reynolds; followed by "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman," also in Technicolor and co-starring Ava Gardner and James Mason, and "Go For Broke," produced by Dore Schary and starring Van Johnson For June : "People in Love," with Ray Milland, John Hodiak, Nancy Davis and Jean Hagen ; "Mr. Impe rium," in Technicolor, co-starring Lana Turner and Ezio Pinza ; "Calling Bull dog Drummond," starring Walter Pidgeon with Margaret Leighton, and "Excuse My Dust," in Technicolor, starring Red Skelton, with Sally Forrest, Monica Lewis and McDonald Carey. For July : "Kind Lady," starring Ethel Baryniore, with Maurice Evans ; "An American in Paris," starring Gene Kelly with Leslie Caron and Georges Guetary, in Technicolor ; "Love Is Better Than Ever," co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Parks, "Show Boat," in Technicolor, with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ava Gardner, and Joe E. Brown. SAM SEIDELMAN, head of Eagle Lion Classics' foreign sales, is due to leave here this week for Mexico City. • Joseph Steiner, managing director of Walter Reade's Park Avenue Theater, New York, and Dorothy Waring, playwright and television producer, will be married today by Judge Mervin Herzfeld in Union City, N. J. • Irving Blumberg of Warner Theatres' Philadelphia publicity staff, and Jules Fields, Robert Stillman representative, were recent guest lecturers at the School of Journalism of the University of Pennsylvania. • Laura Kovsch, secretary to Universal-International's Cleveland branch manager, has been promoted to secretary to district manager Peter Rosian. Jean Falk has been named the branch manager's secretary. Sylvia Langer, secretary to H yams Green of the Little Cinemet Theatre and Globe Film Distributors, New York, was married Sunday to Harold Leand, formerly manager of the City Theatre here. • David A. Babcock, superintendent of the emulsion coating department at Eastman Kodak's Rochester plant, retired recently after completing some 45 years of service. • Ted Routson, press director for the Hippodrome, Town and Little theatres, Baltimore, is confined to his home because of illness. Leonard Berch, Atlanta's branch manager of United World Films, will leave there for New York on March 14. • N. A. Taylor, president and managing director of International Film Distributors, Ltd., has returned to Toronto from New York. • Rudolph Mate, director, has arrived here from the Coast en route to France. • Phil. Laufer, Universal special exploitation representative, has returned to New York from Indianapolis. JULES LAPIDUS, Warner's Eastern and Canadian division sales manager, left here last night for Buffalo and Albany. • Irving Lesser and Seymour Poe, representing Sol Lesser Productions, have returned to New York following visits to RKO Pictures branches in the Midwest and South, respectively. • Howard G. Burkhardt, manager of Loew's Midland, Kansas City, has been elected vice-president of the Jackson County Chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. • William Conncers, general manager for Hamrick Theaters of the Northwest, visited Fred C. Quimby, at the M-G-M Coast studio, from Portland, Ore., recently. • Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney Productions president, has been awarded Mexico's Aztec Eagle decoration. He is due in New York shortly from the Coast for a two-week stay. • Beaumont New hall, curator of George Eastman House, Rochester, N. Y., was the recipient of the service medal of the Photographic Society of America for 1951. • Sid Kramer, RKO Pictures short subjects sales manager, returned to New York yesterday from a tour of company exchanges in Eastern Canada. • Don McElwaine of M-G-M's studio publicity department, has arrived on the Coast from a tour of the Midwest. • Abe Bernstein, M-G-M Cleveland press representative, was in New York yesterday on business. • J. J. Cohn, M-G-M's studio executive, returned to the Coast yesterday from Baltimore. • Robert Lamb, Paramount salesman in Detroit, will leave for duty with the U. S. Navy tomorrow. Theatre Landmark In Boston Passes Boston, March 5.— The old B. F. Keith Theatre, where B. F. Keith's vaudeville circuit was founded, has been sold to the Boston Herald Traveler Corp. It will be razed for possible future expansion of the Traveler's newspaper plant. The theatre was opened in 1884 and it was there that the first motion picture was shown in Boston, on May 16, 1896. Press Previews for Stillman's 'Fury' Invitational previews have been arranged for Robert Stillman's "The Sound of Fury" at the press clubs of Philadelphia and San Francisco, it was announced bv Max E. Youngstein, UA advertising-publicity vicepresident. In both cases this is the first time that the clubs had lent themselves to this type of general introduction of a film to their members. In Philadelphia, Robert Stillman was awarded a citation by the press association "in appreciation of the courageous film production, 'The Sound of Fury,' which boldly depicts the evils of mass prejudice and mob violence." Top Brass' Sees 'Spy' Washington, March 5. — Officials of the Office of Defense and of the Pentagon staff were guests here today of producer David Diamond at a screening of his production, "I Was An American Spy." Morey Goldstein, general sales manager of Monogram-Allied Artists, attended. Jerry Fairbanks, producer, New York from Hollywood. is m Higgins in New Post Donald F. Higgins has been appointed chairman of the editorial board of The March of Time by pro-j ducer Richard de Rochemont, succeeding Fred Feldkamp, who moved to March of Time's new television department as script supervisor. | Peyser, Sears Are New U.A. Officers New United Artists officers, in addition to those reported here yesterday, include the following, Arthur B. Krim, president, announced: Seymour Peyser, vice-president and general counsel, and Seward I. Benjamin, secretary. Gradwell L. Sears was reelected a vice-president, and H. J. Miller was reelected treasurer. Loyd Wright and Muller were named assistant secretaries and Benjamin and H. A. Weimer were named assistant treasurers. Previously announced were W. J. Heineman and Max E. Youngstein, vice-presidents. Benjamin is a brother of Robert Benjamin who, with Krim and Matthew Fox, comprise the new UA management control group Fisher Is Named District Manager Chicago, March 5. — A. H. Fisher, Chicago branch manager of Republic Pictures was promoted to Chicago district manager at the company's sales meeting held this weekend at the Blackstone Hotel. James R. Grainger, Republic distribution vice-president, presided at the meeting. Gilliam in Schine Post Cleveland, March 5. — ■ George (Bud) Gilliam, resigning from the local Warner theatre department after 15 years with the company, to join Schine as booking manager in Cincinnati, will be honor guest at a dinner on Thursday in the Theatrical Grill here. 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