The Exhibitor (1966)

Para/s Weisl, Weltner To Gulf & Western Board NEW "YORK — The board of directors of Gulf & Western Industries, Inc., elected two top officials of Paramount Pictures to the Gulf & Western board of directors. The new Gulf & Western board members are Edwin L. Weisl, partner in the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, New York, who has been serving as chairman of the Para¬ mount executive committee, and George Welt¬ ner, who has been president of Paramount Pictures since 1964. Paramount Pictures Corporation was merged recently into Gulf & Western Indus¬ tries, Inc., following approval by shareholders of both companies. The Gulf & Western Board also declared a three per cent stock dividend, payable Dec. 15 to shareholders of record on Nov. 18. For¬ mer Paramount shareholders will participate in the stock dividend. Prior to the merger, Weisl had been a direc¬ tor of Paramount Pictures Corporation since 1938 and a member of its executive commit¬ tee since 1961. He is a director of several other corporations, including Cenco Instruments Corporation and The One William Street Fund. He is a Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and of Pres¬ byterian Hospital, Columbia University Medi¬ cal Center. Weisl holds several degrees from the University of Chicago. He is married, the father of one son, and resides with his wife in New York City. Weltner joined Paramount Pictures in 1922, following his graduation from Columbia Uni¬ versity. He held several executive positions in the corporation and became executive vicepresident in 1962. Weltner is married and the father of a son. He and Mrs. Weltner reside in Stamford, Conn. Raus’ Acting Guide A Winner HOFFYWOOD — Neil and Margaret Rau, long-time husband-and-wife writing team on the Hollywood scene, have found you can’t lose for winning following the sales record of their new Prentice-Hall book, “Act Your Way to Successful Fiving.” “We wrote it strictly as a guide to acting for the layman,” explain the Raus, “figuring the professional can take care of himself. But everyone from instructors for manager schools for theatre chains to beginning actors are us¬ ing it as a text book. Prof. Ralph Freud, head of theatre arts at U.C.F.A., for example, is telling all his beginning actors to read it.” “After all,” points out Karl Malden, “even a movie star starts out as a layman.” “Man” In Benefit Bow NEW YORK — The world premiere of Fred Zinnemann’s “A Man For All Seasons” at the Fine Arts Theatre in New York on Dec. 12 will be a gala charity benefit for Just One Break, Inc., the non-profit placement agency for disabled men and women, it has been an¬ nounced by Columbia Pictures, distributors of the film. The Fine Arts premiere will be J.O.B.’s 1966 fall-winter benefit, one of two major yearly functions sponsored by the agency to carry out its program to help the handicapped to achieve lives of dignity and independence through gainful employment. 'MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllUlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllimilllllimiMIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIllMI' The NEW YORK Scene By Mel Koneeoff EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE CEEEBRATING SOME ANNIVERSARY OR OTHER this year. Take, for instance, Norman Panama — he’s marking his 25th as a Hollywood writer-director — and he was in town to plug away on behalf of his forthcoming release, “Not With My Wife, You Don’t!” Some lunchtime observations made by Panama last week included: Time spent in editing a film after it is shot is not sufficient by many film makers (he put in nine weeks on “Wife”). Eye and instinct inform him when to call a halt, and previews confirm whether he is right or wrong. A director worth his salt does his own editing, said he. Everybody, stars and studios, is playing it too damn safe these days. The actor insists on seeing a finished screenplay before committing himself, and the studio wants to know who will be in the film before signing to make a property. Studios are most interested in packages, the magic word in Hollywood these days, not in pieces they have to put together. Opined Panama, there has to be liberality on both sides instead of playing it safe. Stars are afraid to go out on their own, and he couldn’t understand why a single star couldn’t carry a good story on his own. Producers and directors have to throw the dice as well or be left behind in the race with European picture makers. Talent must be developed in all areas, and perhaps this can be done through subsidies. After all, he reasoned, if they are given for oil, cattle, farm crops, etc., then why not to films. We’ll have a decreasing number of pictures if we don’t expand our efforts as well as less stars. He estimated that we only have 10 to 12 “bankable names” around today. The liberal aspects of the new Code were applauded by Panama because it allows picturemakers to operate more easily today, and although the rules have been more or less abandoned, one shouldn’t forget that “kids” are very important in today’s market. The industry has made a bundle by selling its pictures to television, providing stiff com¬ petition for itself. Now, we have to make better pictures to get people away from looking at “the box” and the competition we have provided for ourselves. Titles are “damned” important, he stated. They should be good enough to be remembered by the public. “The Big Brass” was the former title of “Not With My Wife, You Don’t!” The exhibitor is a guy who’s trying to make money, clean his theatre, and is uncaring about his projection. They don’t take pains to test projection equipment. Very rarely, he reported, is he able to attend a theatre and not have to go looking for a manager or his assistant to ask that the sound be raised or lowered or to have the picture framed properly. The practical solutions might be to have the Motion Picture Association of America send a sound and projection specialist around to theatres to check them and then not service films to theatres not approved. He admitted he didn’t know too much about exhibition. There should be some rule to require a projectionist to watch the screen at all times because a film has a tendency to slide out of focus if not checked properly and constantly. Movies today are moving into areas of believable character and reality and away from the established formula. Not every picture is for everyone, nor should it be, he believed. Virna Lisi, one of the film’s stars, is arriving from Italy to help in the promotion of his latest. One of the spots he will take her will be Washington. The Pentagon was very cooperative, providing heavy planes, and he wants to bring the Pentagon some lighter, differently-built equipment in the form of Lisi. Did you know that she is really a brunette? When they turned her into a blonde, her career zoomed, also proving the advertising state¬ ment that “blondes have more fun.” Future projects, all comedies, in preparation, for which no distribution is set as yet, include — -“The Piero Machine,” a satirical war comedy about which he is talking to Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and Karl Malden with a February start in mind; “A Little Bit Pregnant,” a college campus story touching on free love, contraceptive pills, and freedom of speech, for 1967; “The Lady’s Not For Framing,” possibly with Tony Curtis in Italy in 1968; “Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast,” also for 1968. Any good comedy, said Panama, has to relate to life and be about something fundamental. In his latest, the husband takes his wife for granted, being more interested in his career than in his bedroom activities. Some will remember that he used to be partners with one Melvin Frank for many years, but they broke up amicably because of the “peculiar economics governing independents.” There wasn’t enough in it to allow the both of them to live in the custom to which they would have liked to become accustomed. Other independent teams have had similar partings for similar reasons, he noted. BOOK REPORT: “ECSTASY AND ME” BY HEDY LAMARR. PUBLISHED BY Bartholomew House. Distributed by Taplinger Publishing Co. For the list price of $5.95, you can go through the experience of permitting film star Hedy Lamarr to unburden herself on the subject of her sexual behavior; her wheeling and dealing in the area of film making; and on some “names” and nobodies in Hollywood and elsewhere. Although Miss Lamarr professes to tell all frankly and honestly, there is an inclination to emphasize the sensational and sexsational. It makes for a different conversation piece. MAIL: ASIDE TO CONNECTICUT’S FAVORITE SON AND DAUGHTER, SPERIE and Nikki Perakos: Thank you for your good wishes. Have they improved the taste of Ouzo? Nikki, you looked as lovely as ever at the NATO convention. November 2, 1966 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR 12 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.