Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1957)

Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, July 24, 19i PERSONAL MENTION TV/i AURICE "RED" SILVERSTEIN, M-G-M home office executive, left New York yesterday for Madrid and Rome. • Joan Crawford and her husband, Alfred N. Steele chairman of PepsiCola, will leave here today aboard the "Cristoforo Colombo" for Italy and North Africa. • Mrs. Robert Joseph Nell gave birth to a son here this week at St. Vincent's Hospital. Father is a space buyer at Foote, Cone & Belding. • Rudy Monta, M-G-M studio attorney, returned to the Coast yesterday from New York. • Ralph Martin, of "Seventeen" will leave here over the weekend for a motor tour of New England. • Anita Ekberg and her husband, Anthony Steel, have returned to New York from Europe. They are enroute back to Hollywood. • Earl Wingard, M-G-M publicist, has arrived in New York from the Coast. Reade Interests Will Sell Theatre, Motel Special to THE DAILY ALBANY, July 23-The Congress Theatre Building and the Community Motel, in Saratoga Springs, will be sold at auction August 10. The Reade interests own the theatre and the motel. The theatre and 3-story building was built about 35 years ago by the late William E. Benton. The motel was constructed in 1952 by the late Walter Reade, Sr. The Reade circuit owns the Community theatre, a first-run located on the same street but several blocks north. The Congress recently had been operating weekends and will open full time July 24 for a two week run of "The Ten Commandments." 'Bernardine' Here Today "Bernardine," the 20th CenturyFox film which introduces Pat Boone, will open simultaneously today in 82 neighborhood theatres in the metropolitan New York area. Among the circuits featuring the picture are Skouras, Loew's, Century, Randforce, Brandt, Prudential, Island, Interboro, Moss, Cinema and J. J. Theatres, among others. Belafonte Happy 'Island' Does Well at Theatres In answer to recently published interviews concerning his starring role in Darryl F. Zanuck's "Island In The Sun," Harry Belafonte yesterday made the following statement: "I am happy that 'Island In The Sun' is doing well at the boxoffice. The statements attributed to me regarding the picture were taken out of context and grossly distorted." FWC-Evergreen Pacts Hit by Goldwyn Counsel Special to THE DAILY SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 Evidence purporting to show how Fox West Coast Theatres "bottled up" the exhibition market in Oregon and Washington was introduced today at Samuel Goldwyn's anti-trust suit before U.S. Judge Edward P. Murphy. With FWC president John Bertero on the stand for the sixth day, Joseph L. Alioto, counsel for Goldwyn, introduced contract and pooling agreements between FWC and Mrs. Hazel Parker, John Hamrick and John Danz, of the Evergreen Circuit, which indicated that while the trio operated as independents they actually operated as a closely knit team. Bertero admitted that prior to buying out all of the Evergreen shares, FWC controlled 54 per cent of the circuit before taking it over in 1953. 'Blue Book' Introduced Earlier Alioto got into the record, over the objections of the defense attorney Arthur B. Dunne, the "blue book" Bertero published and which embodied clearance schedules in FWC territory. Bertero denied sending the book to any distributors and said he merely had it published to "memorialize" the then recently defunct NRA Code Authority schedules. The witness admitted his company was under a 1930 Federal Court consent decree prohibiting it from communicating to distributors clearances which might injure independent exhibitors. Alioto's point was that FWC was imposing a fixed schedule of clearances on distributors and competitors which gave it a distinct advantage over potential competitors and in violation of the 1930 consent decree. Bertero denied this. 'Jet' Magazine Campaign Howard Hughes' "Jet Pilot," the RKO Radio Picture being released by Universal Pictures, and scheduled to open nationwide Sept. 19, will receive national magazine advertising in 26 Dublications with an estimated circulation of 200,000,000 million readers. M. P. Daily picture Rouben Mamoulian Mamoulian Scores Theatre Operation By FLOYD STONE Director Rouben Mamoulian told trade writers yesterday at the M-G-M home office he wanted to talk to the industy about the sad state of exhibition, the need in motion pictures for movement, and the need in Hollywood for what it lacked, foresight. He said he'd been to six theatres on the Coast and several here and was "appalled." There apparently are no more ushers to greet you or show you around, he finds, and he was told exhibitors can't afford them. Hits Theatres' Condition "And the condition of the theatres! How do you expect people to leave the comfort of their own homes for this— for nothing glamorous, nothing festive, or, to put it bluntly, even clean? "I think it is a part of our business of selling pictures, the theatres. And it is most important now, with the closings, for the whole business to get together and correct this." As for movement in pictures, he stressed it as the medium's inestimable advantage. Large screens have meant less movement, deplorably, and more reliance on dialogue. This reliance on dalogue, as he sees it, now means less in pictures for a world market, and certainly is television's asset. Sees Foresight Lacking As for foresight— of which Hollywood has not enough— it is shown by loss of the cold war to television, which now is the national habit. Hollywood made mistakes originally with sound, then with prosperity, and then by underestimating its opponent. Now it can at least stress the difference, he pleaded. "There has got to be more experimentation. We have widened censorship. We can give more human values. We widened the gap with the wide screen; we can widen it more with quality. Television relies on talk; we can give people the . of Drive-in^ Rain Insurance Available Henry Friedman, industry insu ance agent, has advised operators i drive-ins in the Philadelphia area th rain insurance is now available for tl first time, providing for 100 per ce coverage of expenses, or 60 per ce of anticipated gross income. © Named Bridgeport Manager Charles Kliman has been name manager of the Candlelite Drive-I Bridgeport, Conn., succeeding Brun Weingarten, who has been shifte back to the Norwich-New Londo Drive-in, Montville, Conn., by E. ^ Loew's Theatres. © Opens Norwich Drive-In Ray Stone, Webster, Mass., busi nessman, has opened the Norwic Drive-in, first outdoor theatre withii Norwich, Conn., city limits. As ai opening night attraction, he offeree free admission to the first 100 cars regardless of number of occupants In addition, free balloons and lolli pops were distributed to youngsters © Opens in New Jersey The Eric Corporation opened it newly-built Manahawkin Drive-In a Manahawkin, N. J. 1 essence of the great pictures of the past: the movement, the pantomime, the color. And not too much talk. "This is not a plea for spectacles.1 Nor for depression. There are so many! pictures these days where everybody! is just a stinker. I do believe the industry is here to uplift, not toij depress." Mamoulian directed "Silk Stockings" for M-G-M and now is discuss-i ing, as a free-lance, possible new assignments. Showplace of the Bast FOR YOUR SCREENINGS • Three Channel interlock projection • 16, 171/2 & 35 mm tape interlock • 16 mm interlock projection CUTTING & STORAGE ROOMS MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor: James D. Ivers, Managing Editor; Richard Gertner, News Editor; Floyd E. Stone, Photo Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager. TELEVISION TODAY, Charles S. Aaronson, Editorial Director; Pinky Herman, Vincent Canby, Eastern Editors. Hollywood Bureau, Yucca-Vine Building, Samuel D. Berns, Manager; William R. Weaver, Editor, Telephone HOllywood 7-2145; Washington, J. A. Often, National Press Club, Washington, D. C; London Bureau, 4, Bear St., Leicester Square, W. 2, Hope Williams Burnup, Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; William Pay, News Editor. Correspondents in the principal capitals of the world. Motion Picture Daily is published daily except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, Telephone Circle 7-310O. Cable address: "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, President; Martin Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary. Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres and Better Refreshment Merchandising, each published 13 times a year as a section of Motion Picture Herald; Television Today, published daily as a part of Motion Picture Daily; Motion Picture Almanac, 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. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign. Single copies, 10c.