Motion Picture Daily (Apr-Jun 1951)

Monday, May 21, 1951 Motion Picture Daily 3 Johnston Attends MP A Board Meet Eric Johnston, Economic Stabilization Administrator, and president of the Motion Picture Association of America on leave of absence, attended a meeting of the MPAA board here on Friday. His appearance at MPAA meetings has been infrequent since he assumed the government post last winter. The meeting was described as "routine," with MPAA internal business and financial matters up for consideration. Reviews "Night Into Morning" (Mctro'-Goldivyn-Mayer) THE despair of a man whose wife and child are killed in an explosion that wrecks his home and the valiant attempts of his friends to guide him back into the paths of life form the narrative base of this Edwin H. Knopf production. It will appeal to audiences with a taste for pathos and should be a natural for those numerous persons who are interested in the vicarious experience of personal tragedy. Fletcher Markle's direction of the story written by Karl Tunberg and Leonard Spigelgass, keeps the characterizations, locale and settings well within the environment of the average family, which will heighten the audience's feeling of personal identification. The cast names, headed by Ray Milland, John Hodiak and Nancy Davis, will stand out on the marquee. Milland is an associate professor at a West Coast college, happy with his work, in love with his wife, Rosemary de Camp, proud of his young son, John Jeffery, and surrounded by loyal friends on the campus. One morning, while Milland is lecturing, a defective furnace in his house explodes, snuffing out the lives of his wife and son. At first, Milland appears to stand up under the tragedy, though the audience knows he contemplates suicide, but later he begins to drink. He repels the solicitude of his friends, but Miss Davis, a colleague who has lived through a similar tragedy, insists on watching over him. Hodiak, also a campus instructor and engaged to Miss Davis, is sympathetic to Milland but grows distrustful of his sweetheart's interest. He wonders if under her solicitude lies a subconscious love for the bereaved man. Milland, who now lives alone in a hotel, continues to drink and refuses the aid and solace of his friends. One day he has an automobile accident which endangers the life of a student and, instead of taking the leave of absence offered . by the department head, Lewis Stone, he tries to resign. He tells Miss Davis and Hodiak that he is going away. Miss Davis divines that he plans suicide, follows him at the risk of breaking with Hodiak, and persuades him to live in order to keep bright the memory of his wife and child. Milland experiences the catharsis of open grief and is able to look forward to living again. The story outline is filled in with effective bits of campus and family life, in which Dawn Addams, Jonathan Cott, Celia Lovsky, Gordon Gebert, Otto Waldis and John Maxwell appear. Others in the cast are Jean Hagen, as the girl across the hall in Milland's hotel, Harry Antrim, Katherine Warren and Herb Vigran. Running time, 86 minutes. General audience classification. For June release. Vaughan O'Brien "The Emperor's Nightingale" (Rembrandt Films) TP HE beloved fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen has been made into A a delightful film for the entire family. The Czech-made picture was produced and directed by Jiri Trenka, is acted entirely by puppets and is in Nu-Agfa color. William L. Snyder is presenting the picture here through Rembrandt Films. The English version is endowed with a perceptive narration by Phyllis McGinley which Boris Karloff delivers in soothing nursery tones. An added dividend is the music of the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Oktar Parik. Presented as the dream of a poor little rich boy who has everything in the world but the freedom to wander outside his great home and play with real friends, the sequences that bracket the Andersen story are presented by live actors, but there is no dialogue in the film, only Karloff's narration. Andersen's fairy story about the Chinese emperor who tires of his restricted life and his artificial pleasures is a simple one. The emperor, for the first time in his life, discovers pleasure in a natural, living thing — a nightingale. He soon tires of it, however, and turns his attention to a richly jeweled mechanical nightingale that sings the same song over and over. When the real nightingale flies away, the emperor suddenly misses it, realizing that it brought joy into his life. He is dying of a broken heart when the nightingale returns. The emperor's life is saved, and he learns that his life and pleasures have been superficial. He breaks away from: the routine imposed by court life to live a new life. The boy, awaking from his dream, learns a lesson from the tale. Running time, 70 minutes. General audience classification. For September release. New Lighting, Color For DeMille Film Washington, May 20. — Producerdirector Cecil B. DeMille predicted here that film lighting and color film shooting will be revolutionized as a result of new lights and film developed for "The Greatest Show on Earth," the film he is now making about the circus. The new color and lighting will be made available to the industry generally as soon as the circus feature is finished, DeMille promised. He and a group of actors and crew were here for location shooting during actual performances of the Ringling circus here. DeMille said he and Westinghouse and General Electric worked a year and spent over $100,000 to develop a new incandescent "cold light" controllable from the ground even when hung high in the air. The weight of the new lamp is about 12 pounds, compared to present 150 pound lamps. The fact that much of the heat will be eliminated will make it easier to work under, and will be especially important in connection with color filming, he said. DeMille Host At Circus Shooting Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount will be host to trade press representatives at the Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey circus in Philadelphia tomorrow night, where DeMille is doing location shooting for his forthcoming $4,000,000 Paramount release, "The Greatest Show on Earth." The press representatives will leave New York tomorrow afternoon for Philadelphia, have dinner with DeMille, watch the camera work and the circus performance and return to New York afterward. WANTED FEMALE INVESTOR Active or inactive {or sound motion picture and television company. Small Investment Required Unlimited Opportunities For appointment CALL CHickering 4-6724 Brazil Remits (Continued from page 1) company gets a monthly quota of remittances based on past earnings records. Under the 1947 agreement, the distributors have the right to make appeals to the Bank of Brazil for the unremitted surplus, and the bank has consistently released the surplus. Bergher said Brazil imports between 350 and 400 pictures annually, some 300 of these being American. He reported also that there were 32 applications for new theatres in Sao Paulo, Brazil, alone which were approved last January. M-G-M Studies Pleas (Continued from page 1 ) asked to compile details of all distress conditions, such as unfair rentals and favoritism and appear personally at the ATO office here tomorrow. New Film for UA _ United Artists has completed negotiations for the release of a new film, to be made this summer in Mexico by Benedict Bogeaus, titled "Learn to Love," with Dennis O'Keefe and Evelyn Keyes co-starred. JVEfVS in fflrief . . . LJ ollywood, May 20.— Motion Picture Center Studios president Joseph Justman announced the immediate conversion of one-half of that rental studio's space^ facilities and manpower to television-film production purposes. A new corporation called Motion Picture Television Center will handle the project with William Norins. executive vice-president of Emerson Film Corp., as president, William Stephens, veteran producer-director, as vice-president in charge of production. Buffalo, May 20.— The decision of John P. Rollek, Buffalo license director to revoke the theatre license of Old Vienna on the ground that the theatre permitted bingo has been upheld unanimously by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in Rochester. Washington, May 20. — Local theatre owners at a meeting here pledged full support of the civil defense effort. A. Julian Brylawski, head of the Theatre Owners of Metropolitan Washington, said the exhibitors had promised to use their screens to disseminate information, lend their theatres in off-hours for meetings and cooperate in any other way necessary with civil defense authorities. • Hollywood, May 20. — Samuel Goldwyn has been named chairman of the Hollywood Bowl celebration for the May 24 appearance of David Ben-Gurion. The appointment was made by Charles Brown and Oscar S. Pattiz, joint chairmen of the Los Angeles committee for bonds of the Israel Government. Hollywood, May 20.— Here to canvass facilities for production of the State Department's "Truth-Campaign Films," Jay Dresser, William Barry and James B. Faichney told a special meeting of the Motion Picture Industry Council that a large proportion of the government's film schedule probably will be filmed in Hollywood. Hollywood, May 20.— Ted Gamble, head of Gamble Enterprises, Inc. and Charles P. Skouras, president of National Theatres, were the principal industry speakers Friday night at the annual dinner of Allied Post 302', American Legion, attended by eight hundred persons at the Ambassador Hotel. Skouras co-sponsored the event for the tenth consecutive year. Phonevision Gross (Continued from page 1) thetical number of TV sets predicted for "a few years" hence, without regard for the current stagnated sales of TV. The final and official study of the test is being made by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago,. and is not nearly complete. When it is, Zenith is scheduled to ask the Federal Communications Commission for authorization to operate Phonevision on a commercial basis.