Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1954)

2 Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, July 7, 1954 Personal Mention RICHARD WALSH, president of the lATSE, left here yesterday for Hollywood, where tomorrow he will debate lA administration issues with Roy Brewer, challenger for the I. A. presidency. • LoYD Wright, industry attorney and president-elect of the American Bar Association, will sail from New York for Europe with Mrs. Wright today aboard the "Queen Mary." • E. K. O'Shea, vice-president of Paramount Film Distributing Corp., was in Buffalo over the weekend from New York. • Harold J. Mirisch, vice-president of Allied Artists, has returned to the studio after having been confined to his home with pneumonia. • Ben Thau, M-G-M studio executive, returned to New York yesterday from Europe. He will remain here a week before leaving for the Coast. • Henry Berman, M-G-M producer, and Mitchell Leisen, director, left here yesterday by B.O.A.C. for London and Paris. • Harry Mandel, RKO Theatres national director of advertising-publicity, is in Washington from New York. • Barry Jones, British actor, and Noel Angley, writer, arrived here yesterday from London via B.O.A.C. Monarch. Columbia, Warwick Sued Over Film Title HOLLYWOOD, July 6.— Carvtth Wells, explorer-lecturer, today filed a Federal Court suit against Columbia Pictures Corp. and Warwick Productions for $750,000 direct damages, plus a like amount in exemplary damages, charging the defendents' use of the title "Hell Below Zero" damaged him in that amount. Wells asserts he used the title for a film he made in 1929 while conducting an expedition sent out. by the Chicago Geographical Society • and released widely thereafter. Wells also asks a preliminary injunction and an accounting on the Warwick production bearing the same title. Hunter y Former Para, Camera Heady Dies HOLLYWOOD, July 6. — C. Roy Hunter, 64, former head of the Paramount camera department, died suddenly last week following a heart attack in Pittsburgh while touring the East. Hunter was head of the Paramount camera department from, 1937 to 1944 when he resigned because of ill health. He entered the motion picture industry in 1916. Decrease in Univ. Shares Reported WASHINGTON, July 6.— Universal International in a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission here announced a decrease in tile number of securities outstanding, including warrants for the purchase of common stock of the registrant of the $1 par value. The warrants become exercisable on or before April 1, 1956, at $10 a share. The number outstanding, as of May 31, and as last previously reported on June 9, amounts to 77,S7Z warrants, excluding 2,500 warrants held in th€ treasury, U-I said. The amount outstanding as of June 30 is 64,658 outstanding, with 8,200 warrants held in the treasury. Warrants for the purchase of 7,215 shares of common stock were exercised during June and a like number of shares of common stock issued for which registrants received on each, $10 per share. RKO Begins 2-Day Sales Meeting Today Home office and Eastern sales executives will attend RKO's EasternCanadian two-day sales meeting beginning here today at the Hotel Warwick. Charles Boasberg, general sales manager, will preside. J. R. Grainger, president of RKO Radio Pictures, will describe current and future products. Other home office executives who will attend are Edward L. Walton, executive assistant to the president ; Nat Leyy, eastern-southern division sales manager ; Sidney Kramer, short subjects sales rnanager ; Frank Dervin, assistant to Walton; Harry Gittleson, executive assistant to Boasberg ; Frank Mooney, assistant to Levy ; Mike Poller, assistant to J. H. Madqtyre, western division sales manager ; Milton Piatt, assistant to H; H. Greenblatt, central division siles manager, and Leon J. Bamberger, _ sales promotion manager. Gabriel Pascal Dies In N,Y, Hospital Gabriel Pascal, 56, British film director and producer, who became George Bernard Shaw's official cinematic interpreter in 1938, died yesterday at Roosevelt Hospital after a three-week illness. A native of Arad, Hungary, Pascal was the only man to have persuaded Shaw to permit him to produce his plays on the screen. His first venture with a Shaw work was "Pygmalion," produced in England in 1938. Other screen versions of Shaw plays by Pascal were "Major Barbara" and "Caesar and Cleopatra." A requiem Mass will be celebrated in the Paulist Fathers Church for Pascal on Friday. Surviving are the producer's wife, and a brother in Italy. Mrs. Harry Sherman, 64 HOLLYWOOD, July 6.— Funeral services were held here today for Mrs. Lillian Sherman, 64, who died in her sleep Sunday. She was the widow of the late producer, Harry Sherman. Clarify Prices At Music Hall Box-office prices at the Radio City Music Hall were inadvertently reported erroneously in the Motion Picture Daily's story yesterday on the New York City five per cent tax on admissions. Russell V. Downing, president and managing director of the Broadway showcase, said that weekday prices are: from opening to 12 noon, 95 cents; from noon to 6 p.m., $1.20; from 6 p.m. to closing, $1.60. On Saturdays, from opening to 12 noon, $1.05; from noon to 3 p.m., $1.45; from 3 p.m. to closing time, $1.75. On Sunday, from opening to 1 p.m., $1.45; from 1 p.m. to closing, $1.75. RKO Theatres Stock Day's Most Active RKO Theatres stock was a top performer on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday with trading in the issue aggregating 65,200 shares. The closing price was 7%, a gain for the day of The activity gave rise to reports, none confirmed, of dividend action and a possible liquidation of some properties. RKO Pictures in Demand RKO Pictures also continued in good demand with a turnover of 15,700 shares for the day, but closing without gain at 6%, almost a point more than the company is offering Howard Hughes for his 1,620,000 shares. National Theatres was another active issue with 30,500 shares traded, and a gain for the day of The closing price was 7j4. Maddox, Ohio's 1st Censor Head, Dies COLUMBUS, O., July 6.— James A. Maddox, 79, pioneer local theatreman and first chairman of the Ohio film censor board, is dead here following a stroke. Maddox was chosen chairman of the Ohio board when the body was organized 40 years ago. A native of Hillsboro, O., Maddox came to Columbus almost half-a-century ago as manager of the Princess Theatre. Later he became manager of the Colonial, leaving that post to join the censor board. While on the board he acquired managership of the Majestic and Southern theatres. He left the entertainment field in 1922 to become district manager of the Missouri State Life Insurance Co. Mrs. Mildred Wall, 53 LEWISTON, Ida., July 6. — Mrs. Mildred Wall, 53, Lewiston-Clarkston, pioneer theatre owner, died yesterday of a heart attack at Lewiston Hospital. She and her mother, the late Mary Pulver, operated four theatres in Lewiston and Clarkston. Mrs. Wall was formerly ■ president of Pacific Northwest and Alaska Theatres Association. Arbitration {Continued from page 1) draft a set of rules and regulations for arbitration, exhibition and distribution agreed to base the new formula on the 1952 arbitration proposals, covering clearances, runs, conditioning, contract violations, print shortage, competitive bidding and the pre-release of pictures. The sales managers committee of the MPAA and representatives of TOA, ITOA, MMPTOA and the Southern California Theatre Owners Association entered into the initial meetings on arbitration at the Hotel Astor meetings in May with the understanding that film rentals were not to be included on the agenda. After three days of convening at the Astor, at which Ralph Hetzel, MPAA vicepresident, was chairman, the sole agreement which was reached by both sides was in naming the joint drafting committee. Hetzel will conduct the Harvard Club session on Friday. Germans Prefer {Continued from page 1) A. Buschmann, editor of the Nurenberger Nackrichten, who were guests of the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Warner Brothers today. The visitors, touring the country, with San Francisco, Denver and Chicago on their itinerary enroute to New York and home, said : "We West Germans would rather see one American western than 20 Soviet-style propaganda films ; we can smell propaganda under the heaviest disguises." NATKE Head Visits Hollywood in August LONDON, July 6.— Tom O'Brien, M.P., and general secretary of the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees, has sent a cable to Delph Thomas, chairman of the Hollywood A.F.L. Films Council, threatening retaliatory measures if the American unions do not discontinue their campaign to exclude British and other foreign-made product from TV screens. "If you carry your campaign too far," O'Brien said, "British cinema projectionists may refuse to project American TV and feature films on British screens." O'Brien intends to visit Hollywood in August and is prepared to meet the Council for frank discussions. In the meantime, he advises Thomas to suspend the campaign and withdraw the threats in the the interests of international amity. Heavy Film-Star Aid For Patriotic Causes HOLLYWOOD, July 6. — Hollywood personalities made 1,762 appearances for the Government, Armed Services, hospitals and overseas installations, in the first half 1954, Hollywood Coordinating Committee president George Murphy today reported. More than 290 individual players took part, he said. 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, Yucca-Vine Building, William R. Weaver, Editor, Hollywood 7-2145; Chicago Bureau, 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley, (Advertising Representative, FI 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 of March 3, 1879. 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