Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

FIRST IN FILM NEWS VOL. 69. NO. 48 MOTION PICTURE DAILY NEW YORK, U. S. A., MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1951 TEN CENTS 11 Pictures Launch New ELC Division Amory Appointed Head Of Foreign Films Unit Bernard G. Kranze, Eagle Lion Classics distribution vice-president, launched the company's new "art" films sales unit at the weekend with the appointment of Charles Amory as its head and the allocation of 11 British-made pictures for its handling. Amory's department will handle pictures which the company deems are designed exclusively for "art" theatres. Pictures imported from France, Italy and other European countries, as well as England, will be sold through the new unit. The 11 films which will be given immediate attention by the new unit are : "So Long at the Fair," starring Jean Simmons ; "The Blue Lamp," starring Dirk Bogarde and Robert Flemyng ; "The Late Edwina Black," starring Geraldine Fitzgerald and David Farrar ; "Paper Gallows," starring Dermot Walsh ; "Taming of Dorothy," starring Jean Kent and {Continued on page 2) Coast Pay Hikes Up This Week Hollywood, March 11. — IATSE representatives will resume discussions with major studio labor officials this week on the voluntary wage increase offered to studio workers. Although the exact date for the meeting has not been set, Roy Brewer, IATSE international representative, stated that the producers' offer, which included a 10cent hourly increase and a cost-of-liv(Continued on page 6) Italian Delegation Delays US Trip The five-man Italian delegation which will enter preliminary negotiations with the Motion Picture Association of America on a new ItaloAmerican film agreement, has postponed its departure from Rome for New York, it was learned at the weekend. Instead of arriving here yesterday aboard the 6". 6". Queen Mary, as planned originally, the Italians now are due in New York aboard the same ship on March 27. Even that sailingis tentative, however, according to the MPAA. Simons Heads EC A Film Guarantees Washington, March 11. — Gilbert P. Simons has replaced Albert W. Scott as head of the Economic Cooperation Administration's information media guaranty section, charged with processing film guaranty contracts. Scott has been recalled to duty with the U. S. State Department. Simons has been working in the ECA guaranty program section for almost a year. Col. Modifies Stock Options Columbia has amended the stock option agreements it has with executives Joseph A. McConville and A. Schneider to make their options non-transferable, and has granted Irving Briskin, executive producer, an option on 5,000 shares of common in consequence of and in consideration of his having signed last October a sevenyear employment agreement. Briskin's option is subject to approval of the company's stockholders. He has the right to terminate his em{Continued on page 2) Bershon, Associates File Trust Action INDUSTRY TO AID RED' HEARINGS UA Has A New Release List The new management of United Artists came up at the weekend with a re-shaped release schedule for the 10 features which the company will market in the next three months. William J. Heineman, distribution vice-president, in disclosing the new schedule, said the releases of independent producers will present a negative cost of more than $10,000,000. Resetting of I. G. Goldsmith's "The Scarf" for April 6 will start the new release period. It was directed by E. A. Dupont and stars Mercedes McCambridge and John Ireland. Original release date was March 26. A definite UA release date of May 25 has been set for the Italian-made "Fabiola," starring Michele Morgan, and said to have cost some $4,000,000. Also new on the schedule is A. W. {Continued on page 6) Full Coooperation Is Set for Un-American Activities Committee Los Angeles, March 11. — Independent theatre operators Dave Bershon, J. W. Kennedy and Vivian Koerner, operating the Leimert Theatre, a neighborhood operation in this city, have filed an anti-trust suit in Federal Court here against eight major distributors. The complaint asks for damages totaling $1,600,000, charging discrimination in clearances. Injunctive relief is demanded in the complaint. Mid-U.S. Now Likes British Films; Davis British pictures are gaining in favor with American audiences in the central part of the country where the box-office popularity remained at low ebb for long, John Davis, managingdirector of the J. Arthur Rank enterprises in London, reported prior to his departure from here yesterday for a Canadian visit. The British pictures' penetration of the interior American markets is a "slow, quiet" process, Davis conceded, compared with the headway they have made on the East and West Coasts. However, he added, a lot of progress {Continued on page 2) Rhoden to Address Judges at 17th Quigley Showmanship Awards Today The 17th annual judging of the Quigley Awards for Showmanship for the best product promotional campaigns conducted at theatres in the United States, Canada and abroad will be held here today in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Seventy executives from production, distribution and exhibition will vote on scores of campaign presentations submitted during the past year to the Managers Round Table of Motion Picture Herald. Elmer C. Rhoden, president of Fox Midwest Theatres, Kansas City, will be guest speaker at the luncheon which will follow the balloting to determine the nation's top showmen. Washington, March 11. — The motion picture industry is shaping up a two-pronged strategy for minimizing the damaging effects of the coming Un-American Activities Committee hearings on Hollywood. For one thing, the organized industry will cooperate with the Committee wherever possible to expose subversive activity in Hollywood, and will let the Committee know this in no uncertain terms. For another thing, the industry will emphasize the "positive" steps it has taken to fight Communists within the industry and to use the screen throughout the world as an anti Communist propaganda vehicle. The industry is under no illusion it can entirely prevent the hearings from having a bad effect on its public re {Continned on page 2) Crime Hearings Go On Theatre TV Here Excerpts of the hearings conducted by the Senate committee investigating crime, scheduled to begin here today at the Federal Building, will be theatre televised by Fabian's Fox in Brooklyn, Century's Marine in Brooklvn and Century's Queens in Queens Village, L. I. Previous hearings in Washington and St. Louis have been telecast but this will be the first time that the {Continued on page 2) Smith Presides at Coast Para. Meet Los Angeles, March 11. — Paramount's plans for handling the general release of Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" and playdates for "Trio" will be discussed at a two-day meeting here of Western division branch managers called by George A. Smith, Western sales chief. Those attending the sessions, beginning tomorrow, will be Ward Pennington, Denver ; Wayne Thiriot, Portland; F. H. Smth. Salt Lake City ; H. Neal East, San Francisco ; Harry Haustein, Seattle, and A. R. Taylor, Los Angeles.