Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1954)

2 Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, July 6, 1954 Personal Mention ERNEST TURNBULL, managing director of Hoyt's Theatres, Ltd., of Australia, left New York yesterday for London via B.O.A.C. Mayflower. • Mary Cay Rembusch, daughter of Trueman T. Rembusch of Syndicate Theatres, Franklin, Ind., will be married Aug. 14 to WiLLiARi Johnson in St. Thomas R. C. Church, Indianapolis. • 'Bruce Ross, assistant production manager for Charles E. Skinner Productions, is the father of a daughter born to Mrs. Ross at Polyclinic Hospital here. Eugene Van Norman, of the Times Theatre, Milwaukee, was married there last week to Mrs. Hattie Johnson of Wauwatosa. • Oscar Morgan, Paramount general sales manager in charge of short subjects, will return to New York today from the Midwest. • Howard G. Minsky, Paramount Mid-eastern division manager, has returned to Philadelphia from New York. • Minnie Ginsberg, secretary to Alan F. Cummings, M-G-M exchange operations head, has left New York for Long Branch. • Vincent Flynn, M-G-M manager in Omaha, is in New York from there. • Herb Steinberg, Paramount national exploitation manager, will return to New York today from Philadelphia. • Robert Bassler and Erich PressBEKGEK, producers, have left New York for London via B.O.A.C. • Harold Zeltner, M-G-M New York salesman, has returned here from Florida. • Larry Callahan, M-G-M field auditor in the Atlanta territory, is in New York from there. • Nat L. Lefton, retired Cleveland distributor and now vacationing in the Hawaiian Islands, is recovering from an operation at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, Lihue, Kauai. Another Extension For SW Divestiture WASHINGTON, July 5.— The Justice Department has agreed to extend for another six months, until next Jan. 4, the Stanley Warner divestiture deadline. This will make the fourth six-month extension of the divestiture deadline, originally set at Jan. 4, 1953. So far, the circuit has disposed of 40 of the 54 theatres it was supposed to sell under the original Warner consent decree, justice officials said. Theatres Send Dates For III Distributor INDIANAPOLIS, July 5. — With the cooperation of members of the local Variety Tent and of Allied Theatre Owners of Indiana, the illness of Joseph Bohn, Realart branch manager and one of the real veterans of Film Row here, was made considerably less disturbing to him. Through the two organizations, Indiana exhibitors were urged to send in playdates to the Realart branch, operated in Bohn's illness by his wife. A list of available pictures accompanied the request. The reponse eased the worries of the stricken Bohn and his wife and is expected to be a big factor in his recovery. Seek to Lay UK Pay Dispute Before Gov't LONDON, July 5.— Tom O'Brien, head of the National Association of Theatrical Kine Employes, is using the industry debate over the entertainment tax remission division as a means of bringing his union's demands for increased wages to the attention of the government. O'Brien, for his part, claims a share, if not all, of the tax remission should go to raise the wage levels of his members and has asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to receive a union delegation for a hearing. The wage negotiations between NATKE and the Cinematograph Exhibitors Association have broken down and the dispute has been reported to the Ministry of Labor for arbitration. WASHINGTON, July 5. — Most provisions of the technical tax bill of interest to the film industry are identical in both House and Senate versions of the measure and cannot be changed in conference. They are now certain to become law. The Senate passed its version of the measure Friday. House-Senate conferees will get to work on the final bill late this week or early next and the final law is certain now to contain a provision permitting businessmen to write off more quickly any investment in new equipment and buildings. Whereas under present law, only half the cost of an item can be written off in the first half of the item's life, both House and Senate bills contain provisions allowing a two-thirds write-ofif in that period. Both bills continue the 52 per cent corporate tax rate through April 1, 1955. The House bill would require corporations with more than a $50,000 tax bill to pay part of their taxes currently— starting in 1955 instead of entirely in the following year. The Senate bill would do the same thing Eastern, Canadian RKO Sales Meeting To Start Tomorrow Members of RKO Radio's Eastern and Canadian sales staffs will arrive in New York today for a two-day meeting which begins tomorrow morning at the Warwick Hotel. Similar conferences were held recently in New Orleans and Chicago. Local sales executives also will attend the sessions which will be presided over by Charles Boasberg, RKO's general sales manager. J. R. Grainger, president of RKO Radio, will detail activity at the studio and outline plans involving forthcoming product. A screening of "Susan Slept Here" has been scheduled for the first day. The Technicolor comedy goes into release July 24, following its world premiere in San Francisco on July 14. Highlights of other RKO productions have been prepared for showing to the sales personnel. From All Sections Those arriving from Eastern division offices are Robert J. Folliard, Eastern district manager, from Philadelphia, and the following branch managers : Hattan F. Taylor, Boston ; Barney Pitkin, New Haven; Charles Zagrans, Philadelphia ; Dave C. Silverman, Pittsburgh, and Joe B. Brecheen, Washington, D. C. Canada will be represented by Jack LaboWj, Canadian district manager, who headquarters in Toronto, and branch managers Myer Nackimson and Harry Cohen, Toronto and Montreal, respectively. Another two-day sales conference has been scheduled for Western and Rocky Mountain area executives in San Francisco on July 12-13. with respect to firms with more than $100,000 of tax liability. Both bills permit a firm to carry one year's losses back two years — rather than the present one year — to get tax refunds from the earlier, more profitable years. Both bills would permit firms to pay on the basis of a 52-week or S3-week year, helping out many theatre firms which keep their books on a weekly basis for business purposes but most now keep separate books for tax purposes, since law requires returns based on a period ending the last day of a month. The final law would levy a new one per cent per month charge on underpayments of withholding or excise taxes into depositary accounts and cut from four years to three the time limit for assessments or refund claims on excise taxes. All corporations would be given an automatic threemonth extension, under both bills, of the deadline for filing income tax returns, providing they file an appropriate form with the Treasury and pay an estimated tax. Both bills set up clear rules for the first time — though slightly difference rules in each bill — for taxing partnerships. Tradewise . . . {Continued from page 1) many theatres would have had to close. A great many more are hanging on now only in the hope of an upturn soon. The plan we have in mind could bring that about, I believe." • Rembusch feels that productiondistribution companies are needed to underwrite the plan and that the program could be so arranged as to permit exhibitors to participate locally. A break-down of costs indicates that it could average out to around $9,000 per picture advertised on the program. Should that estimate be sustained, the project appears to be wholly feasible costwise. It is to be commended also, and is deserving of the most serious consideration, as well, for the stimulus It is capable of providing to all those interested in contributing something extra in the way of helping to sell films and the theatres to the public at this crucial period in their existence. Enthusiastic, effective promotional work is sorely needed. The Finneran-Rembusch plan may well show the way. Atlanta's WOMPI Holds Anniversary ATLANTA, July 5. — The Women of the Motion Picture Industry Club of Atlanta celebrated the anniversary date of WOMPI's first meeting in Atlanta with a dinner at the Atlanta Variety Club. The occasion climaxed a membership drive initiated April 4, which has garnered 12 new members. The club's total membership is now 105. NEW YORK THEATRES RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Rockefeller Center 5 'THE STUDENT PRINCE" I ! In CinemaScope starring { • AnnBLYTH • Edmund PURDOM S I I * and the Singing Voice of MARIO LANZA t J Color by ANSCO An M-G-IVI Picture > J and SPECTACULAR STAGE PRESENTATION J — . wIaner BROS WILLIAM k WaLMJUfS ^HlGHa^MlGHTY CINEMaScOP^ «oWarnerColor IDHN WAYNE -cuuRETREyOR-lARAiNE DAY robertSTACK jANSTERUNG-ranHARRIS-ltOBERT NEWTON-OAViD BRIAN k wAYNE-faiOWSfBODucnoN PARAMOUNT TECHNICAL TAX BILL CERTAIN TO BECOME LAW: NO CHANGES MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Terry Ramsaye, Consulting Editor. Published daily, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 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. J. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Raymond Levy, Vice-President; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; Al Steen, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; G'us H. Fausel, Production Manager; Hollywood Bureau, YuccaVine Building, William R. Weaver, Editor, Hollywood 7-2145; Chicago Bureau, 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley, Advertising Representative, Fl 6-3074; Sam Lesner, Editorial Representative, 400 West Madison St., DE 2-1111. Washington, J. A. Otten, National Press Club, Washington, D. C. London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London W. 1; 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 tjf March 3, 1879. 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