Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1953)

2 Motion Picture Daily Thursday, January 22, 1953 Personal Mention DAVID COPLAN, president of International-United Film Corp., will return to New York after a fourweek European visit on Monday. Dorothy Jeanne Soule, daughter of Frank A. Soule, chairman of the board of Pictorial Films, Inc., here, has become engaged to John Russell Ward. • Alfred Starr, Theatre Owners of America president, has been appointed a member of the advisory board of medical education, research and health services of Vanderbilt University. • David Sarnoff, chairman of the board of RCA, last night received a citation from the Congregation Emanu-El Men's Club here. • Loren L. Ryder, head of Paramount's studio sound department, returned to Hollywood from New York by plane yesterday. • Harold Wirthwein, Allied Artists Western sales manager, has returned to his Los Angeles office from Denver and Salt Lake City. Tom Wood, publicity director for Huntington Hartford Enterprises, has returned to Hollywood from New York. • Bette Davis will receive a special citation from Hollywood's Foreign Press Association in conjunction with the organization's annual awards to be given on Feb. 14. • Ed Gallner, M-G-M press representative in Philadelphia, is here on vacation. Peterson Heads Canadian Group Ottawa, Jan. 21. — The annual meeting here of the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada elected the following officers : Dean Peterson, Toronto, president ; W. J. Singleton, Montreal, vicepresident; Pierre Harwood, Montreal, secretary-treasurer. It also named the following directors : James Campbell, Montreal ; David Wansbrough, Toronto ; Lew Parry, Vancouver, and Graeme Fraser, Ottawa. The association reported 27 film producing companies as new members, the largest in its history. Variety Banquet to Honor C. Carpentier Chicago, Jan. 21. — The local Variety Club's installation of officers will be held Feb. 18 at the Congress Hotel, at a banquet honoring Charles F. Carpentier, Illinois exhibitor who was recently appointed Secretary of State in the new state . government headed by Gov. Stratton. George Murphy will be master of ceremonies of the event. Producers, Brewer, Walsh Meet Today Hollywood, Jan. 21. — AFL Film Council chairman Roy Brewer, I A T S E president Richard Walsh, and representatives of several other member-unions in the council, will meet late tomorrow afternoon with representatives of the major studios at Association of Motion Picture Producers headquarters for a conference on problems raised by the resolution the council passed yesterday which seeks to dissuade American producers from making films outside the country. Condon to Coast on New RKO Set-up Richard Condon, currently operating as Eastern director of publicity and exploitation for RKO Pictures, will leave here tomorrow for the Coast for conferences with Perry Lieber, newly designated national publicity and exploitation director. Condon, it was learned, will be accompanied by Louis Gaudreau, business manager of the advertising, publicity and exploitation departments. The appointment of Lieber as publicity and exploitation director and the designation of Ellison Vinson as national advertising director, will move the headquarters of those departments to the Coast. Ben Grimm will serve as Eastern advertising manager under Vinson, it was learned. Brandt and Golding Touring for 'Hans' Leon Brandt, exploitation manager for RKO Radio, will leave New York today for Dallas where he will join David Golding, director of advertising and publicity for Samuel Goldwyn Productions, in a tour of Texas cities to set campaigns for openings of "Hans Christian Andersen." The two will meet in Dallas with Robert J. O'Donnell and Frank Starz, executives of the Interstate circuit. Brandt also will confer with Hap Eaton, RKO Radio field exploitation representative, and other field men who will be assigned to handle openings in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston. Field Meetings on RKO Anniversary RKO Radio branch managers throughout the country are currently holding preliminary meetings with salesmen and bookers in preparation for the company's "25th Anniversary Drive" which gets under way March 6 for 16 weeks. Division meetings will be held in mid-February at which final plans for the drive will be set. Italian Films Export Distribution Setup In Full Operation Tlie Italian Films Export Releasing Corp. distribution facilities are now in full operation with the appointment of five division managers, it was reported here yesterday by Bernard Jacon, sales vice-president. Seymour Schussel, for 14 years with Columbia Pictures, and most recently sales manager for Joseph Burstyn, Inc., has been named IFE Eastern division manager and assistant to Jacon. Schussel will be at New York headquarters. Working as sales-exploitation men in his division will be Phil Levine, covering Metropolitan New York, and Ellis L. Gordon, in Boston, New Haven and Albany. Heading the Central office in Cleveland is Mark Goldman, who has covered that area for the past 20 years in sales executive positions for various distributors. His territory will include Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Detroit and Pittsburgh. Hubert M. Lyons, whose 26-year industry background includes positions with RKO Radio, United Artists and FBO, is division manager for the South. The Midwest division is headed by Harry H. Walders, an RKO Radio and United Artists executive for 16 years. He will cover Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Omaha, Des Moines, St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago. Alex Cooperman, former booker, office manager and salesman for M-G-M, Universal and Eagle Lion and branch manager for Lux Films until its recent acquisition by IFE, has been appointed Western division manager. He will be assisted by Ed Penn, sales-exploitation man for the Pacific Northwest. O'Connor Home Office NCCJ Chairman Thomas O'Connor, treasurer of RKO Theatres, has been appointed home office chairman of the amusement industry's campaign in behalf of the National Conference of Christians and Jews' "Brotherhood Week," Feb. 15-22, according to the amusement division's national chairman, Sol A. Schwartz, head of RKO Theatres. Name 'Brotherhood' Group for Albany Albany, Jan. 21. — Exhibitors of the Albany exchange area will attend a meeting in the Delaware Theatre Monday to arrange for industry observance of "Brotherhood Week," according to an announcement by exhibitor co-chairman Charles A. Smakowitz, who also disclosed that he had appointed an exhibitor committee. It comprised : Saul J. Ullman, Fabian division manager ; Leonard L. Rosenthal, Council for Upstate Theatres, Inc. ; Guy A. Graves, Fabian Schenectady city manager ; Charles Gordon, owner of the Olympic, Utica ; Frank Williams, head booker for Benton Theatres of Saratoga and Gus Lampe, general manager of the Schine Circuit, Gloversville. Business Too Slow, Oregon Censors Quit Portland, Ore., Jan. 21.— The Portland Motion Picture Censor Board will be abolished, reports its members, who state that in the past two years they found objectionable scenes in only 12 of 1,853 features and short subjects reviewed. The cost in time and money is too great for the results obtained, board members have concluded. FCC Is Asked to Grant W U Petition Washington, Jan. 21. — The Motion Picture Association of America and the National Exhibitors Theatre Television Committee today urged the Federal Communications Commission to grant Western Union's petition to include the question of inter-connection in the coming theatre television hearings. Western Union last week asked the Commission to add to the hearingagenda the desirability of requiring common carriers like the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. to permit other carriers to tie into their systems for TV relaying. MPAA and the NETTC told the Commission today they were primarily interested in obtaining exclusive frequencies for theatre television. But, they said, the Commission has already decided to consider whether theatre TV should be carried by common carriers rather than on exclusive frequencies and therefore it might as well consider all related issues, including interconnection. A. T. and T. is expected to file a statement strongly objecting to the Western Union proposal. Skouras Report on Global Trip Today Spyros P. Skouras' report on his recent global tour is expected to occupy the principal portion of the meeting here today of company presidents and their foreign department managers. It is expected that aspects of the international film situation will be delved into more thoroughly at another session of foreign heads next Wednesday. The meeting today, to be held at the Motion Picture Association of America headquarters, will be presided over by Eric Johnston. Services Here Today For CBS' Nila Mack Funeral services for Nila Mack, 62, producer of the children's radio program, "Let's Pretend," on CBS for the past 23 years, will be held today at Campbell's Funeral Church here, with interment in Arkansas City, Kan. Miss Mack died on Tuesday. The program won the Motion Picture Daily-Fame award as the "Best Children's Program" on radio in 1941, 1943 to 1947 and 1952. MOTION PICTURE DAILY. Martin Quig-ley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Terry Ramsaye, Consulting Editor. Published daily, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, by Quig-ley Publishing Company, Inc., l?.7(1 Sixth Avenue. Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Quigpubco. New York." Martin Quigley, President: Martin Quigley. Jr., Vice-President; Theo. T. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Raymond Levy. Vice-President; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Eecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager; Hollywood Bureau, Yucca-Vine Building, William R. Weaver, Editor. Chicago Bureau, 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley, Advertising Representative, FI 6-3074; Bruce Trinz, Editorial Representative, 11 North Clark Street, FR 2-2843. Washington, J. A. O'tten, National Press Club, Washington, D1. C. London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London WI; Hope Burnup, Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address, "Quigpubco, London." Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald; Better Theatres and Theatre Sales, each published 13 times a year as a section of Motion Picture Herald; Motion Picture and Television Almanac; Fame. Entered as second-class matter, Sept. 21, 1938, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; single copies, 10c.