The Exhibitor (1959)

14 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR July 8, 1959 research. Fund raising for the hospital and labora¬ tories will begin earlier this year to insure the maximum returns from the combined drive. Last year, 1958, total income of $550,258.67 from the Christmas Salute and the Audience Collection showed an improvement over the 1957 total of $547,703.20. Eugene Picker, chairman of the fund raising and finance committee, said, “It was not as great an advance as it could have been in view of the additional support we received from the circuits.” David Niven will narrate the 1959-60 au¬ dience collection trailer, which National Screen Service will again distribute. Picker reported other income as $635,598.55 from the Special Activities Committee; American Guild of Musical Artists; the Per¬ manent Charities Committee; the Motion Picture Association of America; the Screen Actors Guild; and the Actors’ Fund of Amer¬ ica. The directors were informed that every patient room is equipped with radio and TV outlets, TV sets are in all lounges, and mo¬ tion picture programs are presented twice Industry Toppers Visit Hospital; Need For Added Support Stressed SARANAC LAKE, N.Y.— Abe Montague, president, Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, Saranac Lake, N.Y., told the directors and “stockholders” of the industry’s sanatorium last fortnight that “we have resources to in¬ sure operation at our present level for two, or at the most three years.” “We can’t stop here,” he said, “We must go forward. Our base of operation has now become so broadened and refined that there is no better physical plant for the care and treatment of all chest diseases anywhere in the world. In fact, there are indeed few hos¬ pitals of any kind that can claim to give equal care; to have as sincere and respon¬ sible an approach to the all important factor of personal attention to patients — and cer¬ tainly none that have brought their rate of discharge on a par with our own.” J. Edward “Ned” Shugrue, executive di¬ rector, presenting the operations report for the 1958-59 year, added that monthly operat¬ ing costs were increased to approximately $21,000 as against $18,000 for the previous 12-month period. Higher costs, he said, re¬ flected additional nursing personnel made necessary by the adoption of the 40-hour week and by the changing over of the third floor to accommodate non-TB cases. Shugrue said that the American Hospital Association’s recommendations had been followed and we feel sure that the AHA survey this year will result in a new certificate of accreditation.” He reported that the hospital’s medical di¬ rector, Dr. George E. Wilson, had secured two resident physicians to join the staff, and pointed out that 106 patients were admitted to the hospital in the past year, more than at any other period in its history. In his medical director’s report, Dr. Wilson said that there were 10 patient deaths during the year, all non-TB; and that the number of patients on May 31 last stood at 61. The average length of stay for patients was 128 plus days. Morris Dworski, director of the hospital’s research laboratory, reported that certain vaccine experiments with guinea pigs have progressed so satisfactorily that the next step would be to try the vaccine on human volun¬ teers. In his opinion, the place to do this “would be in Peru or Chile where the tuberculosis rate is particularly high in the men employed in the mines.” The Will Rogers experiments have been concerned with the development of vaccines prepared from dead whole bacilli and ex¬ tracted fractions of the tubercule bacillus, and, according to the Dworski report, the results have shown that the vaccine from the living BCG is a “more effective immunizing agent” than other tested vaccines. Dworski’s report covered the problems which halted the research project, under a grant from the Montague Foundation, for the “post mortem study of whole lungs in photo¬ graphs of serial sections and enlarged stereo¬ scopic projection.” While Dworski is contin¬ uing his own work, it is not known when this research operation at Will Rogers will be reactivated. In the year ended March 31, 1959, the research laboratory made 6,008 lab examinations. Clinial examinations rose to 5,364. Treasurer S. H. Fabian divulged that two special funds, aggregating $800,000, had been set up to provide for new construction and Fox Studio Activity Brings Building Boom HOLLYWOOD— A $1,500,000 building booir is currently underway at 20th Century-Fox sij studio, with more than one thousand work¬ men constructing sets for 12 separate mo ». tion picture and television projects. The mas¬ sive set construction program is the biggesl at the studio since the advent of CinemaScope six years ago. Twentieth’s vast backlot, swarming with electricians, prop men, carpenters, plasterers and molders, has been completely redone for the outdoor adventure drama, “The Oregon Trail.” Just north of this multi-million dol¬ lar set, bulldozers are grading eight acres of land for Walter Wanger’s forthcoming spec¬ tacle, “Cleopatra,” for which sets alone will cost some $400,000. Majority of the activity is centered around “Journey To The Center Of The Earth, which stars Pat Boone, James Mason and Arlene Dahl. On the lower moat set, plaster¬ ers are fashioning subterranean caverns 4C feet high and 20 feet below the ground, a football field in length. Sets for Jerry Wald’s “The Best Of Every ? thing” include a New York office and New : York apartments, and Jack Cummings’ pro¬ duction of “The Blue Angel” is shooting on a music hall set. In addition, workmen are mak¬ ing ready multiple sets for “The Hound Dog Man” and “Beloved Infidel.” An entire South Seas village has been sel up for the “Adventures in Paradise” teleser¬ ies, and studio workmen have built two 65foot yachts as part of the setting. The same series has a coral reef set and a yacht’s in¬ terior set on one of 20th’s soundstages. Another teleseries, “The New Frontier,’ will be filmed partially at the Studio’s Sarser Lake where art directors have designed an iceberg setting. Twentieth is also putting oul sets for “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis’ and “Five Fingers” teleseries, and the RegalScope production of “Five Gates to Hell.” ~ 1 weekly. Distributing companies are provid¬ ing books and novels of recent publication Coca Cola provides “Coke” and playing cards, and MGM Records and 20th Century’s record company are sending LP’s for use by the patients. The corporate members for 1959-60 are an¬ nounced as R. J. “Bob” O’Donnell, Montague Max A. Cohen, Si H. Fabian, William J German, Robert Mochrie, Arthur Mayei Herman Robbins, Richard F. Walsh, and M Murray Weiss. German heads the nominating committee, and it is understood five or six new directors will be proposed. A $1,000 check for the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, a gift of the Radio City Music Hall Rockette Alumnae Association, was recently presented to A. Montague, president of the Memorial Fund, by Mrs. B. Allen Magee, past president, and Mrs. Harold Fricke, right, treasurer of the organization of former dancers. The ceremony took place in the office of Russell V. Downing, who is both an honor¬ ary member of the Rockette Alumnae group and a member of the board of directors of the hospital. Many prominent industryites and members of the board of directors made their annual visit to Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, Saranac Lake, N.Y., recently, and among them were, left, left to right, Abe Montague, Jules Livingston, George Eby, Robert Snyder, Herbert J. Bennin, Al Glaubinger, and Eugene Jacobs; while on the right, left to right, are Moe Silver, Sam Rosen, and Harry Goldberg.