Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

2 Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, March 27, 1951 Personal Mention SILAS F. SEADLER, M-G-M ad vertising manager, leave here Friday for business. is slated to the Coast on Mary E. Christy, secretary to Uni versal-International Films' vice-presi dent Americo Aboaf, became engaged over the weekend to Joseph N. Vessio, of the U. S. Army. . • Sidney Box, British film producer and Tom Arnold, London theatre proprietor, are due to arrive here from London aboard the S. S. Queen Mary today. Gael Sullivan, Theatre Owners of America executive director, yesterday left here for Washington where he plans to remain until the conclusion of the TOA board meeting April 4. • Darryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century Fox studio vice-president, who re turned here from Europe yesterday will leave for the Coast by plane to day. James R. Grainger, Republic dis tribution vice-president, returned to New York yesterday from Hollywood where he conferred with Herbert J Yates, president. • Mark L. Sanders, veteran theatri cal promotion man, has resigned his post with the Dipson Theatres circuit effective April 1, to manage the Sen eca Drive-In at Geneva, N. Y. • Harold Wirthwein, Western sales manager for Allied Artists and Mono gram, has arrived in Hollywood from Salt Lake City. C. J. Latta, chief barker of the London Variety Tent, will attend Variety International's annual con vention in Philadelphia on May 9 • Morey Goldstein, Monogram and Allied Artists general sales manager, will leave here today for Gloversville and Albany, N. Y. • Ernest Ziegler of the Universal Pictures still department in New York, has been promoted to student booker in Albany. • Albert E. Bollengier, United Artists treasurer, is in Hollywood from New York for conferences with pro ducers. • Pete Dana, Universal Pictures Eastern sales manager, is in Wash ington from New York. E. Guy Lecory of Metrotone News is due here tomorrow from France aboard the S. S. lie de France. • Anthony Z. Landi, associate pro ducer, has arrived here from the Coast. • Fred R. Sammis has been named editor-in-chief of all Macfadden Pub lications, effective immediately. Tradewise . . . By SHERWIN KANE THE failure of Southern California Theatre Owners Association at its recent meeting in Los Angeles to take action on (ratifying or rejecting the new organizational plan for the Council of Motion Picture Organizations is a disturbing symptom to industry members who believe that COMPO is needed urgently to cope with the public relations and related business problems of the industry. Pointing up the potential danger of SCTOA's deferment of action on COMPO, Gael Sullivan, executive director of Theatre Owners of America, said last week that it might influence other TOA regional units to postpone action on COMPO also. Sullivan attended the SCTOA meeting and is credited with having done his utmost to win ratification of the new COMPO organizational plan. It is reported that had it not been for Sullivan's efforts SCTOA would have vetoed COMPO, instead of merely deferring action. Sherrill Corwin, one of the ranking officers of SCTOA, told this department last week that the organization is so busy coping with trade practice problems in the Los Angeles area that it had no time to devote to COMPO at its recent meeting. He was unwilling to predict when action might be expected, saying that it depended on the time required to resolve the area's trade practice problems. "We are taking first things first," he said. Another theatre operator, high in the counsels of TOA and thoroughly familiar with the Southern California situation, told Motion Picture Daily that SCTOA members are so antagonistic to distribution in consequence of trade practice conditions in the area that they flatly refuse to sit with distributor representatives in COMPO, or to cooperate in any other joint endeavor involving distribution, until their local problems are resolved. Whatever the reasons may be for SCTOA's disdain of COMPO, the record shows that it was the first and most potent dissenter within TOA's ranks. This was publicly expressed as a grievance over lack of adequate local and regional representation for exhibitors on COMPO's national board, and was used to influence or strength en the disinclination of others not to cooperate in advancing COMPO. As a result, the activation of COMPO was delayed for months at an extremely critical period in the industry's attempt to cope with its public relations and economic problems. Thereafter, to placate such dissidents as SCTOA, the original structure of COMPO was torn apart, in order that the organization might be saved and was re-built, after much travail and loss of valuable time, to include representation for regional COMPO members, as demanded by the dissatisfied TOA units. It may be seen now, in the light of SCTOA's refusal to act on the changes made largely at its behest and for its benefit, how shallow were those stated objections at the time they were made. TOA, of course, made no claim at the time COMPO was reorganized to comply with its members' wishes that it could deliver its affiliates after their advertised objections had been met. It would seem, however, that if Sullivan's apprehension over the possibility of similar delaying tactics by other TOA units is well grounded, TOA's national administration should ascertain the facts at its Washington board meeting next week, and make known the results to the industry. Too much valuable time has been lost already. COMPO and the industry should not he kept waiting longer in the hope of obtaining the aid of those not disposed to give it. • • It remains to be observed in passing that the phenomenal public interest displayed in the telecasts of the Senate's Kefauver crime investigating committee serves to underline a message that the nation's newspaper and magazine television editors participating in the Motion Picture DAiLY-Fame annual television polls have been emphasizing for the past two years. That is, that television's most important role is as a news medium and that its greatest potentialities will be realized when it brings events of wide public interest to its viewers as they happen and when they happen. The editors maintain that in other fields television is and will remain "second-rate theatre." My ers andRembusch Invited to NCA Meet Minneapolis, March 26. — North Central Allied has invited national Allied board chairman Abram F. Myers and national president Trueman Rembusch to deliver the main addresses at the local unit's annual convention in Minneapolis, May 7-8. Myers was invited to explain the consent decrees and exhibitor rights under the Federal Court. Rembusch would discuss television. NCA president Ben Berger has appointed Ted Mann, chairman, Martin Lebedoff, Al Lee and James Zien to assist NCA executive counsel Stan Kane with convention plans. 1 Iowa-Nebr. to Honor Berger Minneapolis, March 26. — The Iowa-Nebraska Allied unit will honor North Central Allied president Ben. Berger at a testimonial banquet in Des Moines on April 11. The testimonial to Berger will climax a twoday convention of the Iowa-Nebraska exhibitor unit, to be held at the Savery hotel, Des Moines, April 10-11. Stan Kane, NCA executive counsel, has also been invited to attend. Pittsburgh Variety Will Honor Dana Pittsburgh, March 26. — A testimonial dinner for Pete Dana, Universal-International Eastern sales manager, will be given by the Pittsburgh Variety Club Tent No. 1 on April 9 in the William Penn Hotel here. Dana formerly was Universal's branch manager here. Maurice Bergman, U-I director of public relations, will be toastmaster. Mayor David L. Lawrence of Pittsburgh will be honorary chairman, with John Walsh and Abe Weiner as cochairman. Wally Allen is in charge of publicity and arrangements. Lust Opens 11th Theatre Washington, March 26. — Veteran Washington exhibitor Sidney Lust has opened his 11th theatre here. It is the Allen, located at a main intersection in Takoma Park, Md. NEW YORK THEATRES RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Rockefeller Center FRED ASTAJRE JANE POWELL "ROYAL WEDDING" Color by TECHNICOLOR A Metro-Goldwyn-Moyer Picture tlus THE MUSIC HALL'S GREAT EASTER STAGE SHOW Paramount prestntt BOB HOPE Tn person^ BIUY --.«k ECKSTINE MfflWELL-NClAN'DARWEIl ( u**m-mum ,m in DAMON RUNYON'sVllOeo Hf|j|JER|/jj(TCn LEMON DROP KID WI OICHESTIA *ND CHORUS Midnight Ftalwr* MOTION PICTURE DAILY. Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; SherWin Kane, Editor; Terry ^^%^^^^l£f^a^^^t<^^A Sundays and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20 N. Y. Telephone Circle i^J^ffJ^1^ Sectary New York." Martin Quigley, President: Red Kami, Vice-President; Martin Quigley Jr Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, V"^"*?™^ James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager. Hollywood Bureau, Yucca-Vine BttJgW. WUham K^VV eav Editor. Chicago Bureau, 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley. Advertising Representative, FI 6-3074. Washington, J A_ «e%National Pres '^.^f^^'^inri London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London Wl: Hope Burnup. Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address "Quigpubco, London, ^^."g^^ secondHerald; Better Theatres and Theatre Sales, each published 13 times a year as a section of Motion Picture Herald ; International Motion ^^^^l^^0^ Class matter, Sept, 21, 1958, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 m the Americas and $12 foreign, single copies, iw.