Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1954)

2 Motion Picture Daily Friday, November 19, 1954 Personal Mention DARRYL K. ZANUCK, 20th Century-Fox vice-president in charge of production, and Joseph Moskowitz, vice-president, will arrive here today from the Coast, enroute to Paris. • John Davis, managing director of tlie J. Arthur Rank Organization, postponed his scheduled departure from London for New York one day. He is expected now to arrive here tixlay. • .\rthur A'I. Loew, president of Loew's International, and Maurice Sn.vERSTEiN, regional director for Latin America, have returned to New York from Barcelona and London. Foster M. Blake, Universal Pictures Western sales manager, will return to New York today from Chicago. • Mrs. Wilma Totten, of the Managers' Round Table department of "Motion Picture Herald," will leave here today for Ferndale, Mich. • WiLLi.vM W. Howard. RKO Theatres vice-president, will leave here Sunday on a Western trip. • Russell Holman, Paramount Eastern production manager, left New York yesterday for Hollywood. • Richard Burton will sail from New York tomorrow aboard the "Liberte" for England. • Ed Lachman, president of Lorraine Carbons, will leave here today for Washington and Jacksonville. • Katharine Hepburn returned to New York from Europe yesterday aboard the "Lidependence." Tom Aspell, Jr., M-G-M manager in Los Angeles, has returned there from Grand Rapids, Mich. • Jane Powell, now Mrs. Pat NerNEY, will leave here by plane today for Paris on her honeymoon. • Sol C. Siegel, producer, is in New York from the Coast. Huntz Hall will arrive in New York today from Hollywood. Judy Garland has returned to Hollywood from New York. Goldenson, UCP President, Will Not Seek Reelection Leonard H. Goldenson, president of .American Broadcasting Paramount Theatres, Inc., announced yesterday that he would not be a candidate for re election as I) r c s i d cnt of United Cerebral Palsy, which is holding its fifth annual convention beginning today at the Hotel Alayflower, Washington. G o 1 d e nson, who has served as president of UCP since its founding in 1949, made the announcement at a luncheon for executives of news services, broadcasting networks and others at the Paramount Building. Marking the fifth year of United L. Goldenson Cerebral Palsy, Goldenson presented placques in recognition of five years of support of the cerebral palsied to the Associated Press, United Press, International News Service, The Advertising Council, National Broadcasting Co., Columbia Broadcasting System, American Broadcasting Co., Mutual Broadcasting System, DuMont Television Network, Alan E. Freedman, president of DeLuxe Laboratories ; Edward L. Hyman, vicepresident of United Paramount Theatres ; Herman Robbins, president of National Screen Service, and Dennis James, television star and master of ceremonies on numerous UCP Telethons. Elections Tomorrow Goldenson announced at the lunch that he had decided to make his current term as UCP president his last. The election of new officers will take place tomorrow, the second day of the three-day national convention. Scandinavia Nobility Dined by the AMPP Chicago Sales Meet Columbia Concludes Bader Nominated for AMPA Presidency David Bader has been nominated for the presidency of Associated Motion Picture Advertisers for the 195455 term. Other nominated officers are Martin Davis, vice-president ; Harold Danziger, secretary, and Hans Barnst5'n, treasurer. Elections will be held on Monday at a closed meeting of the organization. By Staff Corrcspoiident HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 18.— H.R.H. Prince Axel of Denmark, and the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, who arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday on the Scandinavian Airways first commercial passenger plane flight over the North Pole from Scandinavia to the United States, were honored today by the Association of Motion Picture Producers with lavish luncheon ceremonies at the Universal-International studio. More than 250 film stars, executives, organization heads, civic and state officials attended welcoming exercises which included the playing, of American, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish National Anthems, a formal greeting by the AMPP board chairman, Y. Frank Freeman, and an informal monologue by Danny Kaye. Greeted by U-I Officials U-I officials in the receiving-line, which included representatives of other than the host studio also, were Milton Rackmil, Alfred Daff, Edward Muhl and David Lipton. The American ambassadors of Scandinavian countries also were present. Hemingway Novel to McCarthy, Lowe Producer Frank McCarthy announced yesterday that he and William Lowe had secured an option on screen rights to the untitled novel which Ernest Hemingway is presently writing in Cuba. The novel has an East African background. Following a two-day visit with the Nobel Prize winner at his home near Havana, McCarthy said the novel would serve as a story basis for the motion picture safari project which CHICAGO, Nov. 18.— Following a day of individual group meetings between home office executives and branch representatives, Columbia Pictures' annual sales convention will come to a close tomorrow night after five days of sessions. Delegates from the field will return to 38 sales offices in the United Statep and Canada to continue liquidation of the current product and to prepare for the handling of future product of which they were informed at the meetings. The large delegation of home office executives will leave for New York over the weekend. Contest for ^Chalice' Premiere Starts HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 18.— A nation-wide contest to obtain a Hollywood premiere in the coming Yuletide season gathered momentum today when cities and towns from coast to coast set out to sell more Christmas Seals per capita — the winner to get the film opening. Typical was the point blank challenge issued by the community of Sarasota, Fla., to Lake Jackson, Tex., saying it was going all out to obtain the world premiere of Warner Brothers' "The Silver Chalice." Lake Jackson had announced at the outset of the contest that it was in the running. Compo's Ad Warns Of Ticket Tax Effect On Local Retailers The 31st in the series of Council of Motion Picture Organization ads in Editor & Publisher to be published tomorrow states that if municipalities take over all or part of the 20 percent Federal admission tax which the government gave up on April 1, "they will be putting a roadblock to local retail business which Congress went to great pains to remove." "Proof of Congress' intention "to help local retail business is clearly set forth in the record," the ad says. "For instance, explaining the purpose of amusement tax relief, Rep. Daniel A. Reed, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, made the following statement on the House floor : 'This bill is necessitated by the serious economic condition confronting the motion picture industry.' He was supported by Rep. Jere Cooper, ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, who said : 'Statistics indicate that motion picture theatres mean greater prosperity to merchants in their vicinity'." Backed by Statistics Citing figures to prove the local economic importance of theatres, the ad points out that in 1953 film theatres spent in their local communities a total of $605,400,000. Some of these local expenditures were: $160,400,000 for local stafif payrolls; $216,800,000 for rent or realty taxes; $103,200,000 for service and utility expenses, and $72,300,000 for advertising and promotion. "Retail merchants," the ad continues, "realize how important to their business a prosperous movie theatre is. In the last six years, when thousands of movie theatres were closing and the existence of thousands of others was threatened, merchants in many places moved vigorously to preserve their movie houses, in some instances financing the theatre owner, in others taking over the operation of the theatres themselves. "Obviously it would be folly," the ad concludes, "if local taxing authorities, by imposing a local admission tax, balked the help to local business which Congress so generously gave." NEW YORK THEATRES he and Lowe set up with the author early in September. The film will be produced independently by McCarthy, at present a Twentieth Century-Fox executive, and Lowe, formerly editor of "Look" Magazine. A distribution deal is under discussion with Darryl F. Zanuck and Twentieth Century-Fox. The new novel is Hemingway's first since "The Old Man and the Sea." RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL _ Rockefeller Center BERVrN s "WHITE CHRISTMAS" : in VistaVision starring BING CROSBY DANNY KAYE ROSEMARY CLOONEY VERA ELLEN Color by Technicolor . A Paramount Picture and SPECTACULAR STAGE PRESENTATION •••••••• IN Pf RSON •• • • »v to IJMGKIE CliASfm • AND HIS ENTIRE TV CAST fON SCREEN CBNEmaScoPE WARNERCOLOR? • SLSN LADD in ]>RUM BEAT * m. • FARilMOUNT second-class matter Sept. 21, 1938, at the post office at New York. K Y.. under the act of March 37l879.' Subs^riptiM"rItes^peryear$6 I^Th COpl£S| lOc* '