Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1956)

'OL. 80, NO. 2 NEW YORK, U. S. A., TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1956 TEN CENTS Base don Cash Balance Good Weather Helps. Too B'way Business Reported 'Excellent' As Many Summer Visitors Converge Schine Offers Profit Plan to 411 Managers participation Idea Places \Ien "in Business for Self" Special to THE DAILY GLOVERSVILLE, N. Y., July 2 I participation plan, whereby every Manager in the Schine Circuit is "virjally in business for himself," has een announced by J. Myer Schine nd Louis W. Schine of the circuit hich has its headquarters here. Bejre the plan was finalized, it was resented to all zone managers for disussion and, with the integration of II acceptable ideas, it was then prented to all local managers at four eld meetings. The Schine Managers Participation (Continued on page 5) Pickman Approves FOA Forum Idea Ks Step Forward The Theatre Owners of America howmanship forum "is a step in the Ight direction," Jerry Pickman, viceresident of Paramount Pictures, and hairman of the advertising and pubpity directors committee of the Mo(Continued on page 4) Johnston Due for MPAA Board Meeting July 16 ' The board of directors of the Moion Picture Association of America ivill meet in two weeks, it was retorted yesterday, to hear a report by ilPAA president Eric Johnston on vorld motion picture conditions and issues and to discuss a number of domestic industry matters. Johnston is scheduled to return to Vew York for the board meeting rom Spokane, Wash., where he curently is resting, on July 16. The MPAA board, it was said, will discuss ;uch issues as future sponsorship of /Oscar" telecasts, participation in iHOMPO, and hear progress reports jy its various committees. The influx of summer visitors to the city timed with good weather were reasons cited by Broadway theatre exhibitors, particularly at the Radio City Music Hall, Roxy and Paramount Theatres, for "excellent box-office business" over the weeknd. Retaliation TV Shows Hit Hollywood As 'On Decline' By LESTER DINOFF The television industry got in twin retaliatory pokes at the motion picture industry on Sunday evening when two programs, the Goodyear Playhouse's "The Film Maker" and General Electric's "Man With a Vengeance," on the National Broadcasting Co.'s and Columbia Broadcasting System's TV networks, respectively, depicted the film industry as callous, bitter, and skidding rapidly in business. The Goodyear program was based on a story written by Malvin Wald (Continued on page 4) Top grosser for the two days was the Music Hall, currently showing Columbia's "The Eddy Duchin Story," which rolled up $93,000. At the Roxy, where 20th Century-Fox's CinemaScope 55 production "The King and I" is the attraction, a two-day gross of $75,000 was reported. A five-day gross of $32,000 was at the Paramount, where Bob Hope is starred in Paramount's "That Certain Feeling." Charles Einfeld, vice-president in (Continued on page 4) World Series Rights To NBC for 5 Years National Broadcasting yesterday afternoon bought from the Commissioner of Baseball television and radio rights to five years of World Series and All-Star games, beginning July, 1957. The agreement replaces one which expires this year. Gillette Safety Razor will sponsor (Continued on page 4) REVIEW: Somebody Up There Likes Me M-G-M Hollywood, July 2 This hard-hitting picturization of the autobiography of the hard-hitting Rockv Graziano, former world's champion middleweight, looks like a box office knockout. The paying audience that witnessed the press preview at the Village theatre in Westwood had come to see "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," and was by no means pre-conditioned to a boxing story, but its reaction to this one rattled the rafters. That could be because this was so manifestly a true story, or it could be because some of the finest craftsmen in Hollywood had made it, but it couldn't be because favored performers were in the cast, for none were. Neither could color or special dimension account for the explosive applause, for the picture has neither of these. What it does have, in supreme measure, is integrity, impact, sheer theatrical entertainment. It figures to earn a fortune. The picture picks up Graziano in 1942 as the small son of a drunken ex-pugilist whose cruelty, together with the family poverty and slum surroundings, sets the boy off on a career of crime, liberally and literally detailed in the picture, that culminates in his winning of the middle (Continued on page 5) Delayed Warner Stock Buy Closing In Two Weeks Ben Kalmenson Exec.-V.P. ; Schneider Role in Doubt The deal for purchase of controlling interest in Warner Bros, from Harry M. and Major Albert Warner and other members of the family, has been slightly delayed by its complex nature but now is scheduled to be closed some time next week, a principal told Motion Picture Daily yesterday. Serge Semen Ben Kalmenson the First National enko, first vicepresident o f Bank of Bos ( Continued on page 5) Circuits in Tennessee, Commerce Chamber Seek Sunday Shows Special to THE DAILY JACKSON, TENN., July 2-The Ten Arken Paramount circuit, Malco Theatres and the Jackson Chamber of Commerce are cooperating for passage of a proposal to permit Sunday movies in this city. Many in this town (Continued on page 4) Five-Day Week, Other Benefits in Extras Pact From THE DAILY Bureau HOLLYWOOD, July 2-A five-day week, health-welfare and pension plan benefits, and a two-dollar daily increase are extended extra players in a new contract negotiated by the Association of Motion Picture Producers and the Alliance of Television Film Producers, the Screen Extras -Guild 'and bath organizations announced jointly today. The contract expires April 1, 1959, with the new wage levels retroactive to Jan. 2.