Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1952)

FIRST IN FILM NEWS MOTION PICTURE DAI LY VOL. 71. NO. 17 NEW YORK, U.S.A., THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1952 TEN CENTS ^Your Show of Shows' Wins 1951 TV Poll Critics Pick It for 2nd Consecutive Year "Your Show of Shows" was the Best Network Television Program of 1951, as it was in 1950, in the opinion of a majority of the American newspaper and magazine television e d i tors and columnists participating in the third annual Motion Picture DailyFame television poll. The 90-minu t e Saturday night entry of NBC-TV, produced by Max Max Llebman Liebman and starring S i d Caesar and Imogene Coca, was responsible for bringing five first places in the poll to NBC-TV, one less than in 1950. In addition to being voted Best Network Program, it was named Best Comedy Show and Best Variety Program, and Caesar was tied with Jimmy Durante as TV's Best Comedian of 1951, while Miss Coca, was voted Best Comedienne. Durante a Winner The indestructible Durante was voted Best Performer on Television in 1951, overshadowing Caesar, who won that award in the previous poll, in addition to tieing with Caesar in the Best Comedian division. Colgate Comedy Hour finished second in the Best Network Program division, top group in the poll, just ahead of Kukla, Fran & Ollie, a perennial favorite of the critics since the (^Continued on page 4) Complete Results of TV Poll on Page 5 Complete results of the voting in the Motion Picture Daily-Fame third annual television poll are published on Page 5 of this issue. Pictures of winners, adjudged by American newspaper and magazine television editors and critics to be the best on the air in 1951, are published on Page 4. Showmen to Step Into Shoes of Convalescing Branch Manager Dallas, Jan. 23. — Fourteen exhibition leaders in this area will take over the duties of a distribution branch manager a week at a time during the manager's hospitalization. At an executive committee meeting of Texas COMPO showmen, Claude C. Ezell, president, and associates, presented this idea of interindustry cooperation in support of John J. Houlihan, branch manager of Republic in the Dallas exchange, when it was learned he would be confined to a hospital for 14 weeks after a spinal operation. The idea was supported by all those in attendance. Remarks from various exhibition heads and other executives of COMPO were typical of "The Big Heart of Texas." The tremendous efforts of Houlihan last fall in heading distribution in the COMPO organization were recalled. Houlihan will go to the hospital Friday and on Jan. 28 Robert J. 0'Donnell will take over the full responsibilities of branch manager at (Continued on page 6) Defense Drive Aid Pledged to Lovett Washington, Jan. 23. — In consequence of a luncheon-conference in the Pentagon here today among top defense officials and representatives of the motion picture industry, a 10minute short subject on the recruitment of women in all branches of the Armed Forces is expected to be produced for exhibition in theatres across the country. Another result of the conference is likely to be the inclusion of footage on (Continued on page 6) 2 Trust Suits Here For $4-Million Two anti-trust suits asking triple damages totaling $4,022,461 were filed yesterday in U. S. District Court here against the eight major film companies by theatre corporations of Yonkers, N. Y. Both suits charge monopoly in restraint of trade and allege unsuccessful efforts by the plaintiffs over many years to secure second-run product for theatres in Yonkers. One of the actions, filed by Gormel (Continued on page 6) $2,642,240 Suit Names Loew*s InVl Loew's International yesterday was named defendant in a $2,642,240 damage action alleging violation of distribution contracts which the Bank of America, National Trust and Savings Association, Enterprise Productions and Sunset Security Co., filed in U. S. District Court here. The complaint charges that the defendant company violated a Jan., 1947 distribution agreement covering release of nine pictures in foreign coun(Continued on page 6) TV Critics Clamor for Better Shows^ New Faces Television editors and columnists of American newspapers and magazines who added their personal comments to ballots in the third annual Motion Picture DAiLY-Fame television poll appear to be quite distressed about the state in which they found television programming in 1951. They had few orchids to dispense, but an abundance of scallions. Better programs, better production and new talent constitute their most frequently reiterated cries for improvement. They look with jaundiced eye on the borrowing of "names" from radio and other entertainment media, names which with but few exceptions they feel have little to contribute to television, and most of which are but "on their way to another wake," as one critic put it. They insist that television should make its own talent discoveries and development, and some express actual apprehension for policies which permit such TV discoveries as Dave Garro way to go unused for even a brief time, and Kukla, Fran & Ollie to be trimmed to half its program time. Confessing he was "alarmed" by such developments, one editor remarked he considered them "evidence of an indifference to television quality that ultimately may degrade the whole industry." There was considerable editorial comment on "bad taste" in dialogue and dress in television shows, in dramatic lines and situations, too. A San Francisco editor com(Continued on page 4) Top Producers HaU TOA's Coast Seminar Zanuck, Schary, Warner, Others to Attend Parley Hollywood, Jan. 23. — Theatre Owners of America's exhibitionproduction round-table conference scheduled for Jan. 30 in Los Angeles, which may yield sufficient pertinent information to cause the Council of Motion Picture Organizations to put off its projected similar seminar, was today welcomed in enthusiastic terms by leading producers. Among the producers who expressed enthusiasm for the TOA conference were: Hal B. Wallis, Jerry Wald, Stanley Kramer, Steve Broidy, Darryl F. Zanuck, Herbert J. Yates, Dore Schary, Jack Warner and Screen Producers Guild president William Perlberg. Coast film leaders who already have (Continued on page 6) 20th Seminar In 5 Cities Twentieth Century-Fox is planning to extend the seminar and merchandising meetings similar to that held at the home office Tuesday, throughout the country, it was disclosed here yesterday. Contemplated cities where the sessions will take place include Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, where representative exhibitors in the area will be present to hear the company's merchandising plans for a full year's lineup. Underlying the decision is the com (Continned on page 6) Johnston Named to Point Four Post .'Washington*, Jan. 23. — ^Eric A. Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Producers Aesociation of America, was "drafted" for government service a second time today when President Harry S. Truman asked him to become chairman of the International Development Advisory Board which supervises planning operations under the Point Four program foi? aid (Continued on page 6)