Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1941)

38 MOTION PICTURE HERAlD December 27, 1941 SOVIET FILM INDUSTRY NOT NAPPING WHEN NAZIS BOMBED, SAYS 'WORKER' Communist Paper Reports Studios Had Been Moved; Soviet Films Replace Nazis' in German Yorkville; FBI Moves in "The Soviet film industry was not caught napping when the bombs began to drop on June 22nd" says The Daily Worker, New York, considered No. 1 press mouthpiece of the Soviet Union in the U. S. "In the five months since then production plans have been revamped and in many cases expanded. Studios evacuated from Kiev, Leningrad and Moscow are now operating full blast in Kiubyshev, Kharabovsk, Tiflis and Novosibirsk. A new raw film manufacturing plant is operating in Kazan, reports the newspaper. The Communist paper added, "Entertainment films with war themes, of which many were scheduled even before the Nazi invasion, are being rushed to completion. Script changes have been made in some instances to convey imaginary enemies into real ones. When the invasion came, there were on hand half a dozen films suitable for the new mood which permeated Soviet film audiences. Several of them will soon be released in the United States, Canada and South America. "All of these shifts," said the Worker, "were relatively easy because the Third Five-Year Plan, when it was inaugurated in 1938, made provisions for the expansion and decentralization of the movie industry." Motion Picture Herald, on December 13th, reported that since June 22nd, according to Artkino, Inc., distributors of Soviet films in America, there has been an "increase" in Russian pictures which are "making money" in the U. S. Soviet Films Replace Nazis' A curious twist on the international scene where films are concerned, came this week with the announcement from Artkino that beginning on Christmas Day, the Casino Theatre in Yorkville, New York, former U. S. "home" for Nazi films, changes to Soviet pictures. Opening program feature is "Stalin Speaks." Since the U. S. declaration of war, the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors has modified its policy in respect to foreign films. According to Mrs. Edna R. Carroll, chairman, five Russian pictures have been approved, two of which are admittedly propaganda films, "A Day in Soviet Russia" and "View of the Soviet World." A court action is pending in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, against the board for refusing to pass two other propaganda films submitted by Artkino shortly after the start of the RussoGerman war. Mrs. Carroll indicated that while the two approved pictures are propaganda films, the board considers them as documentaries, since they are pictures of Russia's armed forces which are now allied with the United States in the fifilit against Hitlerism. She stated that the board is making a distinction between military and Communistic propaganda pictures. In view of present conditions, military propaganda is considered in a favorable light. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Walter Huston completed the commentary last week for the lull length documentary feature which Lewis INDUSTRY STUDIES ALIEN TRADING Since the FBI seized George Nitze, president of Ufa Films, Inc., distributors of Nazi pictures in the U. S., and the Treasury Department has virtually taken over Ufa operations, film industry leaders are faced with a problem concerning trading with aliens of another enemy cotmtry — Japan. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act, U. S. distributors are not permitted to deal with theatres owned or operated by Japanese, it was learned in Washington last Thursday. According to reports, industry executives are considering the situation and may act to obtain a close check of such theatres which are chiefly on the West Coast. Major film companies made a request last week to the Alien Property Custodian in Washington asking that the approximately $1,000,000 in drafts from foreign banks in enemy countries standing to their credit at the outbreak of the War be placed in a special fund and credited to them instead of going into a general pool. Milestone and Joris Ivens have edited from Soviet newsreeis which Artkino has distributed in America since June 22nd. The picture was to be released this week. The United States Government has taken no "official" steps to close down German-language theatres in America which have been showing Nazi propaganda films distributed by Ufa Films, Inc., and other agencies, a spokesman in the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York said on Monday. It is understood that those theatres which have closed since the U. S. declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy, did so voluntarily. Houses which didn't shut down altered their policy quickly, as in the case of Yorkville's Casino Theatre in New York, which shifted this week from Nazi to Soviet films. U. S. Takes Over Ufa The Treasury Department, however, literally "took over" the management of Ufa Films, Inc., last Thursday. Visitors entering Ufa's office in the RKO Building in Rockefeller Center, New York, have been stopped by a Treasury officer inquiring as to the nature of their business with Ufa. It is understood that Ufa's operations, since George Nitze, company head was taken by FBI men to Ellis Island, are being inspected by Treasury officials, and that the company's funds are blocked. FBI guards at the UFA offices in New York are "on guard" 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, check up of one of the Ufa film storage offices in New York revealed that the place was locked, identification of the office destroyed on the door front. It was understood that Treasury Department officials confiscated the reels in this and other Ufa storage plants. Elevator operators in the building admitted seeing "plainclothcsmcn around last Thursday," and also reported that employes of the Ufa storage office had not been seen since then. Other theatres which have been showing Nazi films prior to and since Hitler's regime in Germany, beginning with 1933, are the 96th Street Theatre and Garden in Yorkville, the Wagner and Mozart, in Brooklyn ; Hindenburg, Irvington, N. J., Transfer, North Bergen, N. J. ; Kino, Milwaukee; German Kino, Chicago; Little, Buffalo and the Princess in San Francisco. The 96th Street and the Wagner are continuing to operate, it is reported, playing old German film fare which cannot be construed as "propaganda." The remainder are reported to have closed down, but whether temporarily or permanently, could not be determined. In announcing the "switch" from Nazi to Russian pictures, the management of the Casino in Yorkville announced, "The Casino Theatre feels the public wishes to study films of this sort," referring to "General Suvorov," Soviet screen glorification of a Russian general who lived 140 years ago. "Provocative films," the announcement continued, "whether short of fulllength, documentary or fairy tale, propaganda or not, just so the picture makes you think, will be presented in times which call for a more serious slant to entertainment." Taylor Elected President Of ITA of Ontario Nat Taylor, president of Twinex Theatres Corp., of Toronto, operating 20th Century Theatres in Ontario, has been elected president of the Independent Theatres Association of Ontario for 1942, the previous incumbent being Harry Alexander, owner of the Lansdowne, Toronto, who recently joined forces with Famous Players. One of the new directors is Harry Firestone of Firestone Theatres Enterprises, subsidiary of Odeon Theatres of Canada, Ltd. M. L. Axler continues as secretary of the association and A. Polakoff, also of Toronto, succeeded Tom Walton as treasurer. Three Firms Chartered Three new firms have been chartered to conduct motion picture enterprises in Albany, N. Y. Thev are: Buckeye Theatre Corp., by David M. Broudy, F. P. Koppel and S. G. Myers ; Telemanagement, Inc., by Herbert Scheftel, Alfred G. Burger and Richard Reiss, and Budco, Inc., by Melvin B. Lambert, Marion Pitcher and Bertha Cohen. R. & N. Amusement Co. has been dissolved. • Shirley MGM District Head S. A. Shirley is resuming MGM district managership, after an illness, the company announced last week, in New York. He will have under supervision the Chicago, Minneappolis, and Milwaukee branches, succeeding J. E. Flynn, appointed central division manager. Axler Joins Allen David Axler has become assistant to Jules Allen, head of the Premier Theatres and the Theatre Holding Corporation, Toronto. He resigned from a sales post with United Artists, in that city.