The Exhibitor (1959)

MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR 27 July 15, 1959 in nearby Kentucky, with John Alexander, Buena Vista branch manager, as general chairman. Top prizes are 3 RCA color TV sets. . . . Welden Waters, newly appointed 20th-Fox branch manager, will make his home here in suburban Westwood. . . . Wally Allen, Chakeres Circuit booker, Springfield, O , is the proud grandfather of a baby boy born June 29. . . . TOC Booking Agency is to handle accounts for Lou Marcks’ new TriState Drive-In, Chesapeake, O. . . . Eugene Harvey is now doing his own booking and buying for his Drive-In at Craigsville, W. Va. COLUMBUS, O., NEWS — Herman Hunt, of Hunt’s CineStage, announced a limited six-weeks’ run of “The Diary of Anne Frank” at popular prices. . . . RKO Palace had near¬ capacity for the telecast of the Floyd Patterson-Ingemar Johannson heavyweight fight. The Palace and Ohio also showed films of the fight. . . . Walter Kessler, manager, Loew’s Ohio, presented the Shirley MacLaine trophy to Sally Perkins, chosen “Miss Fire¬ fighter” at the annual Firemen’s Ball. The stunt plugged the local showing of “Ask Any Girl.” . . . Milton Yassenoff, general manager, Neth-Academy circuit, has been chosen a member of the board of directors of the Dutch Uncles, local charitable organi¬ zation. One of the events each year is a theatre party for youngsters. CLEVELAND Cleveland exhibitors have formed the Leonard Greenberger Memorial Committee to perpetuate the memory of one of its leading second generation members and for the pur¬ pose of promoting various projects for the improvement of the motion picture industry. One of the first projects to be undertaken is a revival of the Cleveland Critics Circle Annual Award, which Greenberger spear¬ headed back in 1950 and which continued for several years. The best picture of the month shown at the downtown first-run theatres, as decided by vote of the three newspaper movie critics, competed at the end of the year for the best picture of the year. . . . William Tallman closed his 1400seat Ceramic, East Liverpool, without stating future intention regarding the property. . . . In Ottawa, the Rex, under the management of Donald Diehl, closed for the summer with a September re-opening in prospect. . . . The Hippodrome, which has maintained a top place in the local entertainment field without interruption for the past fifty years, this week underwent a change of ownership. Eastern Theatres Corporation, Newark, N. J., formally took over the operation of the house from Telemanagement Corporation. The new management, Eastern Hippodrome Theatre Corp., is an off shoot of Eastern Theatres. Jack Silverthorne, Hippodrome manager the past ten years, continues in the post as man¬ aging director. The same first-run policy that has always prevailed will be con¬ tinued. The new operators announce a ren¬ ovation program to include new carpets, refurbishing the seats and a new marquee. . . . Columbia booker John Majdiak, Jr., was married to Donna Perko Independence Day. . . . Contrary to first announcements, Irvin Sears, Paramount booker, did not move to Pittsburgh when the operational end of the local branch closed. . . . Ted Levy, former DCA branch manager, Detroit, temporarily running the local Seaway Film Distributing Company office while Arthur Goldsmith is absent on sick leave . . . Leo Berkhart, Crest, Crestline, was robbed of his boxoffice receipts for the fifth time in as many months. . . . Miriam Jennette has taken over Seen from left to right ere Frank Miller, main¬ tenance; Paul Allen, art department; Mitchell Wolfson, president; and Stanley Stern, head, real estate and insurance department, Wometco Enterprises, Inc., Miami, Fla. Wolfson recently presented 25 year service awards Vo these men at the Wometco Old Guard banquet at the Carillon Hotel, Miami Beach. the Morristown Drive-In, Morristown, O., and reopened it. Buying and booking is being done by Herbert Horstemeier Booking Service. . . . C. M. Howard has taken over operation of the Ada, Ada, which he pre¬ viously operated for Leo Yassenoff, of Co¬ lumbus. . . . Announcement has been made of the engagement of Arlene Marx, of Cleve¬ land, to William (Bill) Steel, son of Jerome Steel, owner of the Apollo, Oberlin, and the Star View Drive-In, Norwalk. DALLAS Blanche Boyle has retired from Frontier Theatres here after 20 years service with the company. For years she was feature booker for Southern Enterprises, which eventually became Paramount-Publix. In New York she supervised the feature booking for that com¬ pany’s theatres in 11 southern states. She held the post of shorts booker here at the time of her retirement. . . . According to results of a survey just completed, Texas leads all other areas in the nation with operating and planned installations of motion picture projection equipment to handle the super-widescreen 70 mm film. There are seven theatres in the State currently equip¬ ped for the widescreen projection and an additional 10 theatres have plans to install the equipment this year. The Texas 70 mm installations are the Tower and Wynnewood, Dallas; Tower and Uptown, Houston; Broad¬ way, San Antonio; Liberty, Beaumont; and Tower, Corpus Christi. ... A September start in Texas for John Wayne’s “The These king-sized levis were used recently by the Gateway, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for a "Guess the number of stitches" contest held in con¬ nection with the showing of United Artists' "Alias Jesse James." Winner received a free pair of levis and passes to see the Bob Hope film. Alamo” was confirmed by the actor in Dallas. Wayne stopped at Love Field between planes en route to Shreveport, La., for the world premiere of his newest completed picture, “The Horse Soldier.” ... A Dallas legislator, Representative Ben Lewis, is complaining about what he calls an “integration movie” being shown at an Austin, Tex., theatre. The picture: “South Pacific.” . . . The board of directors of the Texas Drive-In Theatre Owners Association are starting a study of what can be done to correct certain irre¬ sponsible practices of state radio and tele¬ vision stations in broadcasting tornado alerts. The specific practice found objectionable by the board are the announcing of tornado alerts without specifying the area of the alert and failure in many cases to give the all-clear after it has been issued by the weather bureau. They say that such alerts have a drastic effect on the attendance at drive in theatres. The warnings keep the public indoors. . . . Interstate Theatres throughout Texas are being swamped cur¬ rently by an unprecedented demand for movie discount cards, which permit two specific age groups to attend movies at a discount of up to 50 per cent per admission ticket. The bargain price policy, an innova¬ tion introduced by the Interstate Theatre Circuit, was originated to alleviate the enter¬ tainment budget of “tween agers” 12 through 17 years of age and later put in effect for “senior citizens 60 years of age or more. This marks the fourth year for the movie discount cards for the junior movie goers and the second year for the “senior” age discount plan. JACKSONVILLE Joe Charles, manager, Capitol, has won the enthusiastic approval of children in his weekly stint as emcee of the Thursday morn¬ ing matinees at the San Marco. . . . Carl Carter presented a screen program at the Ribault Drive-In under a “crime does not pay” advertising banner featuring the show¬ ing of four gangster motion pictures. . . . Corrine Sweeney replaced veteran staffer Linda Spence in the 20th-Fox office when the latter moved to Connecticut. ... At a recent meeting of the IATSE executive board in Cincinnati, O., a special tribute was paid to the memory of the late John N. Spearing, local labor leader who served as the union’s Southeastern representative from 1930 until his death early this year. . . . Bob Bowers, Allied Artists manager, returned to his post after a brief period of hospitalization. . . . The St. Johns, one of the city’s first-run showplaces since its construction in 1941, is destined for sacrifice to the building boom which is reshaping Jacksonville’s business area. The theatre and a group of adjoining shops has been purchased for an estimated $600,000 by the Barnett National Bank which is situated next door. . . . Mary Hart was installed as president of the local WOMPI, recently. MIAMI, FLA., NEWS — Five Bermuda movie houses were closed until further no¬ tice, following a Negro boycott demanding equal seating rights. A Negro picket line marched in front of the company’s main theatre nightly with a policeman being hit with a flying rock on one night, but with peaceable demonstrations the other nights. The Bermuda General Theatres Company announced all its houses will remain closed to avoid possibility of an incident. It offered to meet with the boycott leaders to work out a solution. Only two of the company’s theatres — both in Hamilton — have sections reserved for whites. The company has an