Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1944)

ispend Mexican roduction in New nion Dispute LUIS BECERRA CEUS Mexico City n inter-union dispute between sections of the :ican National Cinematographic Workers Union the Studio Workers this week caused a susdon of all production for the second time this he argument followed the ousting of Enrique s, film labor leader, as head of the studio kers union. The Cinematographic Workers •ged, in full page paid newspaper advertisers that Mr. Selis and his followers were :ing to separate the Studio Workers Union i the main body of union workers in the film is try. 1 answering advertisments addressed to the ernment and the public the producers disced all responsibility for the stoppage of duction and placed the blame on the unions, is believed, also, that the producers are ngly opposed to proposed pay increases asked the directors and writers groups. Headquarof the Cinematograph Union in Mexico City week were being guarded night and day inst possible clashes between members. The uting factions are to interview President Avila lacho, who is expected to intervene to force a lement. he Association of Mexican Producers recently atened to halt work until the Federal Governit decided not to increase taxation on the istry by five per cent and until the recently anized directors union was abolished, [iguel Casas Aleman, subsecretary of the Inar, induced the producers to hold back on r suspension and to allow the Government to sider their grievances, at a meeting of their -esentatives and those of the players, laborites, ■ctors, laboratory and studio workers and techans. The producers consider the directors' )n a serious peril to them. The union is moving lemand a minimum fee of $3,150 for each protion. V hose American companies which are preparto dub in Spanish certain of their productions the Latin American market, an action that aroused some opposition by elements of Mexifilm unionists who consider it disadvantageous ipetition for Mexican pictures, have a stout de ler in the person of Miguel Aleman, Secretary he Interior. Ir. Aleman has declared that he does not con:r such dubbing competition for Mexican protions. His is the principal Government detment. V peculation is rife along Film Row about the I gnation of Carlos Garrido Galvan, important ure figure, as manager of the Operador de itros, S.A., which William Oscar Jenkins, ilthy American who is prominent in Mexican ibition, the National Bank of Mexico, this ntry's largest private bank, and the Financiera :ional, the Federal Government's fiscal agency. ?ntly organized to operate a circuit of 21 itres, six of them first run, here. Ir. Galvan has been manager of the industry's k, the Banco Cinematografico, since _ it was iblished here six years ago. He retains that tfe. Operator's new manager, appointed at a rrt meeting, is Manuel Espinosa Iglesias, minent exhibitor of Puebla City, near here. )r. Wassell" Held Over .!■ New York Rivoli \.s a result of a box office upswing, Cecil B. Mille's "The Story of Dr. Wassell" will remain i the New York Rivoli for an additional three i I possibly four weeks instead of being withdrawn . gust 7 as previously announced. The Technicolor •duction starring Gary Cooper is now in its > hth week and may play a total of 12 weeks. MEXICO HAS PRODUCED 402 FILMS SINCE 1931 Mexican film men are accustomed to count the age of their business from 1931 with the production of the first spoken picture, "Santa" ("Saintess"). From 1931, when but three pictures were made, to the end of last year, Mexico had produced 402 pictures. The business is calculated to represent an investment of some $40,000,000, and the yearly attendance at the 1,035 theatres throughout the country is about 85,000,000. The industry received from its own bank, the Banco Cinematografico, loans and credits to the total of $1,015,000 this year up to June 30. NBC Telecasts Democratic Convention Coverage The National Broadcasting Company last week telecast the Democratic convention in Chicago over television Station WNBT in New York. In addition to the televised shots of the delegates arriving at the convention, and of the aspirants for the vice-presential nomination, "The Democratic Party on Parade," a 30-minute documentary film also was telecast. "The Democratic Party on Parade," which was made specially for the occasion by the RKO Television Corporation, traces the Democratic party back to Jefferson ; with considerable footage devoted to the careers of Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Old Pathe stock of Democratic conventions since the turn of the century was used in the film. Paul Aley, formerly with MGM's News of the Day and now on NBC'S staff, supplied the commentary. Four crews of Pathe camera and sound men photographed the convention for NBC's television coverage by arrangement with RKO Television. The films were flown from Chicago for telecasting over WNBT with WRGB of Schenectady and WPTZ of Philadelphia also participating in the television broadcasts. Television Studio Design Discussed at Seminar The effect of new developments in television studio design on future television programs was discussed at the Television Seminar of the Radio Executives Club in New York last week. Speakers included James D. McLean, sales manager of television broadcast equipment, General Electric Company ; Robert E. Shelby, development engineer, National Broadcasting Company, and Edward C. Cole, professor, drama department, Yale University. Chicago Station Plans Television Theatre Station WGN, Chicago, has started plans of a post-war studio theatre structure that will take advantage of expected developments in television. In its $10,000 prize contest competition for the design of the 2,000-seat theatre, the station points out that it is the intention to produce television shows on the new studio stage. Times-WQXR Deal Approved The Federal Communications Commission last week approved the transfer to the New York Times of all the capital stock of Station WQXR, New York, and frequency modulation Station WQXQ, for approximately $1,000,000. _ Announcement of the purchase agreement, subject to approval by the FCC, was made February 2 by Arthur Hays Sulzberger, president and publisher of the Times, and John V. L. Hogan and Elliott M. Sanger, president and vice-president, respectively, of WQXR. New Technique of Television Differs From Film, Radio Hollywood Bureau Television production technique has more in common with the motion picture than with radio, but differs fundamentally from either, according to the experience of Patrick Michael Cunning. He has been producing television shows in Hollywood for six years now and is standing by with his Television Productions studio ready to supply shows to television stations when, where and as they go into operation. The Television Productions studio, occupying two floors of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce building, resembles in some degree the miniatures department of a film studio (for miniature sets are used alternately in television production) and to lesser extent a radio studio (for television, like radio, utilizes microphones and allied mechanisms). But both resemblances are slight. Wardrobe used for television must conform with special color requirements, makeup is of special kind, and sets are printed in a graduation of greys. Other differences abound. New Demand on Actors But it's in the matter of performances by players that television imposes a new demand upon actors, director and producer. There are no retakes in television, no second tries, and no cutting out of faulty footage or additions of corrective material. An actor required to be picked up by the camera on the point of going into a fit of rage or other violent emotion gets no run at it — he's got to get into it instantly, and out of it just as instantly when the camera leaves him. The same goes for all the other emotions. In six years, during which period hundreds of individuals interested in the future of television have joined with Cunning in working out techniques, a company of players qualified to meet these requirements has been assembled. With regulars and part-time members, this latter group including many prominent picture players, the company numbers hundreds. It is the objective of this company, which started out as a workshop and still retains the informality of that beginning, to supply complete television productions, inclusive of necessary sets, players, director and equipment, to independent television stations anywhere and everywhere. In practice — and a number of productions have been supplied to stations in Hollywood and elsewhere, some of them for sponsored telecasts — this service compares in outline to the roadshow, one-nighter or stock company, of stage tradition. Unlike that unit of entertainment, however, this likewise selfcontained unit requires of its personnel that each of the members be versed in the doing of all the kinds of work involved, a provision of versatility which has been the keynote of the Cunning success. Oldest Institution of Kind Oldest institution of its kind in the west, possibly in the nation, the Cunning studio is a center of the mounting interest in the prospect of television, now approaching something of a rush in this film-and-radio capital. To the studio are coming experts in the older fields of endeavour, flanked by advertising agency men preparing for what's to come, and Mr. Cunning has named 24 of these to membership on an advisory council which meets weekly to compare notes, contribute ideas, participate generally in the continuing production of the several productions televised each week, 20 to 40-minute plays falling mainly in the dramatic-narrative category. This is the one, Cunning experience indicates, destined to take top rank in post-war televised entertainment. Start Television School The NBC and Blue networks in Chicago are offering engineers a course in technical television, to be taught by Clarence Radius, former chief instructor of RCA Institute's Chicago school and now head of the audio-video engineering department of the school's New York branch. I JTION PICTURE HERALD, JULY 29, 1944 41