Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1953)

2 MOTION PICTURE DAILY Wednesday, July 22, 1953 Personal Mention Reviews Walkout of British Extras Is Settled ALFRED DAFF, executive vicepresident of Universal, returned here yesterday from Hollywood. • Barrie Richardson, of Warner Brothers home offide publicity department, and Mrs. Richardson became the parents this week of a boy. e Jack Granara, head of tie-ups in the RKO Pictures studio in Hollywood, and Mrs. Granada are the parents of a boy born last week. • Eva Urdang, secretary to M._ B. Horwitz, president of the Washington Circuit, has returned to Cleveland following a three-month illness. • Herman Ripps, assistant to J. P. Byrne, Eastern sales manager of M-G-M, will leave here today for Gloversville and Albany. • William D. Kelly, head of M-G-M's print department, has returned from a New England vacation tour. • Norton V. Ritchey, president of Allied Artists' foreign subsidiary, will leave New York on Monday for London. Russell Holman, Paramount's Eastern production manager, is due in New York from the Coast today. • Barney Balaban will return to New York from Hollywood this weekend. Quigley, Jr., to Talk At Art Symposium Martin Quigley, Jr., editor of "Mo tion Picture Herald," will be the guest speaker at the Communication Arts Symposium to be held at Fordham University, New York, tomorrow. His talk is entitled, "New Screen Techniques and Ancient Moral Ques tions." Quigley is to be introduced by Rev. John W. Kelly, S.J., chairman of the Fordham University Department of Communication Arts, which includes courses' in journalism, radio, television and motion pictures. Variety's Barbecue At New York Tent More than 150 members of the New York Variety Club and their guests attended the tent's first barbecue in its headquarteres at the Piccadilly Hotel last night. The menu consisted of frankfurters, cold cuts, beer Coca Cola and other picnic fare. 'Knockout Parade9 Debut Joe Roberts' production of "Knockout Parade," featuring footage from five top fights, will open on Friday at New York's 49th Street Trans Lux and at San Francisco's Telenews. The All-American' ( U niver sal-International ) HERE is an October release on which exhibitors should be able to cash in when the gridiron season is nearing its peak. Although formula in some of the developments, especially in the winning of the big game in the last few minutes of play, the picture has sufficient new ingredients to please both followers and non-followers of the game. Tony Curtis gives a smooth performance as the grid player who, having been named an All-American at Mid-State, quits the college and enrolls at Sheridan after his parents are killed in a car accident on their way to see him play. At Sheridan, Curtis shuns football, preferring to concentrate on lis studies in architecture, but he eventually is drawn back into uniform through the influence of Lori Nelson, secretary to Paul Cavanagh, the dean of men. Shortly before the big game, Curtis is suspended for what appeared to be a barroom brawl, but he is vindicated through Mamie Van Doren, a waitress, and gets into the game to quarterback the final minutes, allowing his erstwhile adversary, Richard Long, to snatch the winning forward pass. Producer Aaron Rosenberg and director Jesse Hibbs were AllAmericans at the University of Southern California and their knowledge of the game is reflected in the unfolding of the story. The audience reaction at a sneak preview in New York was enthusiastic, the fans showing spontaneous interest throughout ; that's a good recommendation in itself. The collegiate atmosphere is not overdrawn and the characters are believable. A face familiar to TV audiences is that of Herman Hickman, who plays the role of the football coach. Others in the cast are Gregg Palmer, Stuart Whitman, Jimmy Hunt and Frank Gifford. Running time, 83 minutes. General audience classification. For October release. Al Steen Northern Patrol (Allied Artists) C CHINOOK, in his distinguished career, has triumphed over many insur■J mountable obstacles, but the cards are stacked against him in this picture. Some youngsters, big-hearted where dogs are concerned, may possibly go along with Chinook on this one, but the production offers nothing to increase their numbers. The dog goes through his paces with the usual obedient aplomb, but there is little for him to do, and relatively little footage to do it in. On the other hand, there are more two-legged performers than usual, using more footage than usual, and there are three or four story lines, instead of the usual one, none of the three or four leading anywhere importantly, and all of them routinely handled. Two of the characters involved in the confused narrative — a murderous drunk and a sexy gun-girl — have no proper place in a picture dependent on kids and dog-lovers for support. In the scrambled script by Warren Douglas, based on a story by James Oliver Curwood, Chinook and his Northwest Mounted Police master, Kirby Grant, find a man who seems to have hung himself, after penning a suicide note, right in the midst of cooking himself dinner. Grant deduces instantly that the man was murdered and sets out to discover by whom and why. An extensive succession of remarkably unconvincing occurrences are filmed before he succeeds. Lindsley Parsons produced, with Ace Herman in association, and Rex Bailey directed. Running time, 63 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, July 12. LONDON, July 21.— The studio extras' dispute which halted M-G-M production at Elstree and led to the Rank Organization giving layoff notices to employes at Pinewood was settled here today. Under the agreement, 119 of 220 original strikers at the M-G-M studio will receive 21 shillings per day over the fixed scale of two guineas per day for extras. The cases of the others will be considered "critically" by a joint employer-employe panel. It is anticipated that all studios here will be working normally again by tomorrow. The British Film Producers Association had sided with M-G-M in the dispute and barred the striking extras from obtaining employment at other studios. The Film Artistes Association, the extras' union, ordered a protest strike which slowed production at all studios. Commenting on the settlement, M-G-M officials denied that it signified any retreat on the part of the company which, they said, was willing at all times to submit the dispute to arbitration, while objecting strongly to the extras' breach of a standing agreement and their resort to strike action. The strike originated with extras who were required to wear armor on the set of M-G-M's "Knights of the Round Table," They asked an increase of one guinea per day and struck last month when the demand was refused. 30-Million Readers Seen for 'Annual' WB Confab Starts in Philadelphia Today PHILADELPHIA, July 21. — A two-day meeting of Warner Brothers' Central sales district will open here tomorrow under the chairmanship of Jules Lapidus, Eastern and Canadian division manager. Fall and winter product and WarnerSuperScope, the company's newly developed widescreen process, will be discussed. Attending will be William G. Mansell, Central district manager, and branch managers James Abrose, Cincinnati ; Ernest Sands, Cleveland ; Claude W. McKean, Indianapolis; Charles Beilan, Philadelphia, and Jerry Wechsler, Pittsburgh. Home office executives present will, include Norman H. Moray, short sub Overseas Managers Here for U-I Talks Corkery Back From Rio This Week Robert Corkery, assistant vice-president of the Motion Picture Association of America, is due in New York this week from Rio de Janeiro where he has been representing the MPAA in regard to the remittance of $9,000,000 in blocked currency. While the MPAA here yesterday had no official information on the progress of the negotiations, it was believed that Corkery's return was significant of success. Meanwhile, Irving Maas of the Motion Picture Export Association, gave a report here yesterday to foreign department managers on his recent world tour. MOTION PICTURE DAILY Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Terry Ramsaye, Consulting Editor. Published daily . except Saturdays. Slv, and holidfyl by Ouigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue. Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100 Cable address: Qu'SP^o. New York " Martir f ouilleV President Martin^ Jr. Vice-President; Theo, T. Sullivan. Vice-President and Treasurer; Raymond Levy Vice-President; Leo J Brady. k T ™" p Cunn^/sham Fecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager; Hollywood I Bureau Yucca-Vme Building. wflHnrr. R <^J'^^^X^J^^^c^BviT^yx. 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley, AdvertisingRepresentative, Ft 6-3074; Bruce Tr.nz, Editorial Representative, 11 ffiffirt' FR 2-2843 wlsWngton, j A OUen, National Press Club. Washington. D. C. London Bureau, 4 Golden So,, London WI; Hope Burnup Manager; Peter Burnup FH^Sr cable addres • ''Quigpubco. London." Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald; Better Theatres and Theatre Sales, each. published 1 S times ; a 5 Motior Picture ' Herald? Motion Picture and Television Almanac; Fame. Entered as second-class matter. Sept. 21, 1938, at the post office at New York, N. of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; single copies, 10c. Arthur Doyle, Universal International manager in Japan ; Emanuele Zama, head of the company's office in Italy, and James Alexander, of the Uruguay branch, have arrived in New York for a series of conferences with Alfred E. Daff, executive vice-president, and Americo Aboaf, foreign general sales manager. Following the home office meetings the three will vacation briefly before returning to their respective posts. jects sales manager; I. F. Dolid; Bernard R. Goodman, supervisor of exchanges, and Robert A. McGuire, auditor of exchanges. Climaxing a year-round program of editorial features on motion pictures, "The American Weekly" will publish its second yearly "Movie Annual" on Sept. 13. The publishers estimate that 30,000,000 persons will see it. Timed to appear during a period when most studios will have major productions in circulation or close to release date, the feature will contain up-to-the-minute pictorial and editorial material, including reviews of current films, previews of new pictures, news concerning the stars and information regarding technological developments. year as a section Y., under the act