Motion Picture Daily (Apr-June 1956)

1! ednesday, April 4, 1956 Motion Picture Daily 3 PEOPLE W. C. Gehring, vice president of !tth Century-Fox, will be the princiifllvl speaker at a banquet given by e Theatrical Division of the Allied wish Appeal at the Bellvue Stratrd Hotel, Philadelphia, on April 9. le banquet will honor David ipowitz, outstanding Philadelphia chitect and philanthropist. Robert H. Klaeger, vice-president charge of TV commercial and inistrial film production of Transm, is vacationing in Chickasha, kla., and will return to the firm on m 16. David Warner has resigned as as';tant manager of the National Thea i Supply branch at New Haven to icome enrollment representative for 'onnecticut Blue Cross, hospitaliza m payment insurance plan. C. E. Boyd has been named man;er of the Ritz Theatre at Sarasota, a., succeeding Richard Leonard. >yd recently transferred from Philaplphia. Meanwhile, Leonard has ken over as assistant manager ol e Florida Theatre at St. Petersburg. Fred Kunkel, who began his show isiness career as an usher in Loew's :nn Theatre, Pittsburgh, and later se to assistant manager, has been tmed manager of the Harry Perry leatre in suburban Perrysville. In bsequent moves, John P. Harris has ;en transferred from the Perry to e Denis Theatre while Pat Hart, rmerly at the Denis, moves to the jowntown Harris Theatre. Ralph Lowe has replaced E. H. Ireland as manager of the Korn cirut's Hi-Nabor Drive-in, Houston, isse J. Plunkett, former circus prootion man from Gonzales, has been imed manager of the Lindale. M. T. irnell, from New York, goes to raco, Tex., as manager of the Grand beatre, and Jimmy Rawlins has been >pointed manager of the Port There. riedman Publicizing 10 Commandments' Samuel J. Friedman, Broadway ablicist, has joined Paramount Picires to direct the amusement publity for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten iommandments." He will work out : Paramount's home office under iaxwell Hamilton, who is executive sistant to DeMille. Prior to joining Paramount, Friedan was publicity manager for I.F.E. eleasing Corp. For Second Consecutive Year Universal Top Space Buyer In U.S. National Magazines For the second consecutive year, Universal-International during 1955 led all other film companies in the number of pictures pre-sold through advertising in national magazines and Sunday newspaper supplements, it was revealed yesterday in the David A. Lipton final compilation of the Publishers Information Bureau report for 1955. Of the industry's 88 pictures that were given national magazine campaigns during the year, nearly one quarter were from U-I, which pre-sold exactly 20 of its 1955 releases through national magazine advertising, it was explained. U-I used more different publications than any other film company, its campaigns covering 26 national magazines and Sunday supplements, according to the PIB report which revealed that U-I also led all film companies in dollar expenditures for national magazine display advertising. In commenting on the PIB report, David A. Lipton, U-I vice-president, pointed out that the company also was one of the leaders in other forms of pre-selling its product. "We believe that pre-selling of pictures is so important that we use every possible media in our compaigns to whet the public's interest considerably in advance of the release of our pictures," Lipton declared. During 1955, U-I augmented its national magazine advertising with two national billboard campaigns covering 46 markets and more than 400 communities throughout the country. The company also was a major user of TV spot time for national preselling of its product, utilizing spot announcements on a national basis two to three months ahead of the release dates on several of its important releases. In addition to its pre-selling, U-I also concentrated heavily on newspaper advertising for point-of-sale selling in all of the important territories throughout the country, Lipton said. WB 'Miracle' Party AA Sales Meetings To Benefit Canteen Open in Chi. Today New York's Cathedral Canteen, organized in 1941 and since that time host to more than 4,000,000 servicemen, will be the beneficiary of the "Motion Picture Theatre Party" to be held tonight at Loew's State Theatre, when Warner Brothers' "Miracle in the Rain" will be shown to a celebrity-studded audience. A feature of the evening will be the presentation of a scroll to the millionth serviceman to visit the canteen since the Korean War. "Miracle in the Rain," which was shot mostly on location in New York, is the first motion picture to film dramatic sequences inside St. Patrick's Cathedral. The picture opened at Loew's State last Saturday. Lockwood & Gordon CHICAGO, April 3.-Allied Artists' three-day national sales convention will get under way tomorrow at the Blackstone Hotel with sessions between Morey R. Goldstein, the company's vice-president and general sales manager, and division sales heads L. E. Goldhammer, Eastern; Nat Nathanson, Mid-West; James A. Prichard, Southern, and Harold Wirthwein, Western, and home office sales executive Arthur Greenblatt. "Crime in the Streets" and "The First Texan," AA June and July releases, respectively, will be screened for the delegation at night. Arriving from New York to participate in tomorrow's and Friday's meetings are Martin Davis, Eastern ad-publicity manager; Roy Brewer, AA exchange operations supervisor, and Manny Goodman, Eastern contract department head. Acquires Drive-in Goidsmith Detroit Studies Guarantees USIA in Move To Spur S.A. Distribution From THE DAILY Bureau WASHINGTON, April 3. The United States Information Agency is now studying the possibility of granting some guarantees for distribution of Hollywood pictures in several South American countries. This was revealed today by Turner J. Shelton, head of the USIA's International Motion Picture Division, who has just returned from a tour of South America. While there, Shelton said, he discussed with Robert Corkery, assistant vice-president of the Motion Picture Export Association, the problem of limited distribution of Hollywood pictures in South American countries where there is an exchange problem. It was suggested that the USIA might help through its Information Media Guarantee Program, Shelton said, and he brought the problem back for study. Part of Shelton's job is approving both the guarantee and the pictures which are distributed under the guarantee. Has Program in Jugoslavia The USIA now has a guarantee program operating for distribution in Yugoslavia. It announced recently that it would also guarantee some portion of distribution in Viet Nam. HARTFORD, April 3.-The A. J Bronstein interests of Hartford, drivein developers, have leased their East Hartford Family Drive-In Theatre, on Route 5, to Lockwood & Gordon Theatres. The 650-car capacity theatre was built by the Bronstein organization in 1954. The action takes the Bronsteins, headed by father-and-son team of A. J. and Joe Bronstein, out of active Hartford theatre management. National Federation Cites 'Golden Demon' The National Federation of Motion Picture Councils, Inc., composed of 90 Better Film Councils in major cities, has selected the Japanese color feature "Golden Demon" as the "outstanding foreign film of the year" to be shown at its annual convention, April 19-20, in St. Louis. The showing will be followed by a symposium on "Evaluating a Motion Picture," that will be addressed by Arthur De Bra, director of community relations of the Motion Picture Association of America, and a representative of Eastman Kodak, who will speak on the color effects in the film. Edward Harrison is releasing "Golden Demon" in United States. Other films to be shown at the convention include Cinerama's "Seven Wonders of the World" and Warner Bros.' "Giant." IFE Representative Cornish Retires Lee Goldsmith has been named sales representative for the I.F.E. Releasing Corp. in the Detroit exchange area, it was announced by Seymour Poe, executive vice-president of the company. Goldsmith, who recently resigned from Universal Pictures, has covered the Detroit territory for several years. HARTFORD, April 3.-Samuel P. Cornish, who has sold his interest in the Niantic Theatre Corp., Niantic, Conn., to Socrates Deligeorges and Alphonse Dubreuil, is Californiabound with Mrs. Cornish. The couple plans to live on the Coast in retirement, following some 45 years in the exhibition end of the film industry.