Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

riple-Play LUMBIA Pictures, This Week Magazine I Columbia Broadcasting System pooled their ources last week in a unique collaboration to uaint the American public with the problems i fronting the discharged, wounded veteran. :ently a CBS-War Department radio show, ssignment Home,"' a regular Saturday after>n feature, was broadcast. This Week wanted do a story on the subject for its readers, itor William I. Nichols and executive editor ry Mason conferred with Frank Rosenberg, slicity and advertising director of Columbia, 1 Robert Heller, producer of the CBS "Asnment Home" series. The conference reted in a special issue of This Week, published [ Sunday, which told the story of the rening veteran in text and pictures. The phoraphs were shot, to fit a six-page layout, at Columbia studios with Columbia stars Lee wman and Janet Blair pictured as returning eran and his wife featured in the radio show ssignment Home." Reprints of the issue being sent to Congressmen, educators and er leaders of public opinion. It also will be tributed by the War Manpower Commission ough its 1,500 U. S. Employment Service ces throughout the country. Columbia Pices, meanwhile, is considering producing a ture film under the same title. I ropaganda in Reverse 'lERICAN film audiences will soon see tion pictures taken by the Nazis and dened to bolster German home front morale, st December, footage of Von Rundstedt's tensive" was captured from a German Army .eraman. The film was seized by Americans !pre the Nazi could destroy it. The pictures 'rer reached German screens. Instead, they U be seen for the first time in a new War De' tment short subject, "The Enemy Strikes," >iuced by Army Pictorial Service for release ;.rch 15 through War Activities Committee. ;nes of Nazi troops smoking American arettes, taken from the bodies of American cdiers, are included in the film. I Mexican Impasse '.ODUCERS in Mexico have appealed to Resident Manuel Avila Camacho for interven!!n in the third labor dispute to halt motion '' ture production since last Summer. They de^red last week that work was impossible unW: existing conditions, and termed the latest ficulty the most severe blow yet inflicted upon i : industry, now struggling with raw stock jrtages and other problems. The latest conflict was precipitated by the orced resignation of Enrique Solis as head ' the National Cinematographic Industry 'orkers Union, after he allegedly attempted to ^it the organization. He raided the union -idquarters, taking all portable equipment, inr.ding the archives, claiming justification on J : ground that numerous members still confl ered him to be their chief. He was arrest !, released under heavy cash bail and was in Better Theatres "Theatre owners have lost important law suits simply because they neglected to make protective contracts defining the legal obligations of architects, contractors or employes," declares Leo T. Parker, attorney, writing in Better Theatres, with this issue of MOTION PICTURE HERALD. How competent supervision of the construction and repairing of buildings avoids liability for certain injuries to patrons, and how exhibitors should contract for such work are explained in Mr. Parker's article on the basis of the latest court decisions. Among other articles in Better Theatres is an illustrated discussion by John J. Sefing of projection room planning. awaiting trial on a string of charges that included burglary. Jorge Negrete, actor and singer, secretary general of the players section, publicly accused Solis of looting the union of some $400,000 and demanded that he be compelled to render a strict accounting of union funds. Most of the studio laboratory employees refused to work, claiming they were unable to obey the union rule to be checked in and out each day. They said this was impossible without union archives, which were being held by the police pending disposition of the Solis case. Directors, technicians and scenarists threatened to quit the union and organize separately. Tribute IN a ceremony unique in film annals, 500 theatre exhibitors and film men of Southern California last week gathered at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to honor Mrs. Betsy Bogart with a testimonial dinner. Mrs. Bogart, a booker, was retiring after 30 years on Los Angeles' Film Row. The event, sponsored by the Heart Committee of the Variety Club, Tent 25, was attended by outstanding figures in the industry, including Charles P. Skouras, president of National Theatres ; H. M. Warner, president of Warner Brothers, by whom Mrs. Bogart has been employed for the past 16 years; Marco Wolf, of Fanchon & Marco Theatres ; George Bowser, Southern California head of Fox West Coast Theatres, and Dave Bershon, prominent independent exhibitor, who was master of ceremonies at the banquet. The highlight of the evening came when Mrs. Bogart was presented with the cancelled mortgage on her home, $4,000 in War Bonds, $500 in cash, and a life pass to all Fox West Coast theatres. Hands Off London Bureau DAVID O. SELZNICK's application to enjoin Vivien Leigh from appearing in a London stage play to be produced by her husband, Laurence Olivier, was denied Monday by Justice Romer of the British High Court in London. Of the defense arguments, presented by the London firm of Joynson-Hicks and Sir Walter Monckton, the Justice said : "Selznick has acquired a rare, delicate and somewhat exotic plant and claims there is risk of endangering its bloom if other hands tend it." The court said Mr. Selznick's remedy lay in an action for breach of contract but commented that the producer had, in fact, given Miss Leigh permission on previous occasions to appear in other person's productions. In New York the eastern office of Mr. Selznick's Vanguard Films, Inc., issued a threepage press release relating the history of the controversy. The action will be continued, the release said, Mr. Selznick having been advised by his London attorneys that the High Court ruling on an interim injunction had not prejudiced the action for a permanent restrainer. The release cited cooperation extended by the studio to Miss Leigh when her husband was in the British armed services and said it was expected, now that he had been released, that she would return to America and make additional films for the Selznick studio. Navy Newsreel A SPECIAL newsreel division has been created for the Navy, expanding regular Navy newsreel activities, by Captain Gene Markey, head of the Navy Pictorial services. The division will produce special features for the American newsreels from footage which has not been released in the regular way. Claude Collins, War Activities Committee newsreel coordinator, said in Washington this week that the new setup would enable the newsreel companies to obtain more footage than ever from the Navy. The second issues of all five newsreel companies this week were devoted entirely to films on Manila. A team of British newsreel cameramen, headed by E. J. H. Wright of Paramount Sound News, and selected by the British Newsreel Association, is en route to Burma, assigned by the British Ministry of Information, to cover the British 14th Army fighting in Burma. MOI also sent a team to cover the British Pacific fleet. Social Note Chicago Bureau THERE are new faces at the press receptions given by distributors for visiting film celebrities in Chicago. They are representatives of the railroad passenger agents who help obtain traveling accomodations for industry people bound east or west. ;pTION PiCTURE HERALD, published every Saturday by Quigley Publishing Company, Rockefeller Center, New York City, 20. Telephone Circle 7-3100; Cable address "Quigpubco, New " -k." Martin Quigley, President; Colvin Brown, Vice-President; Red Kann, Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, Secretary; Terry Ramsaye, Editor; James D. Ivers, News Editor; William G. Formby, HHd Editc, Ray Gallagher, Advertising Manager; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 5; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Building, Hollywood, 28. William R. ;|; aver, editor; Toronto Bureau, 242 Millwood Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, W. M. Gladish, correspondent; Montreal Bureau, 265 Vitre St., West, Montreal, Canada, Pat Donovan, 'respondent; London Bureau, 4 Golden Square, London W I, Hope Williams Burnup, manager; Peter Burnup, editor; cable Quigpubco London; Melbourne Bureau, The Regent Theatre, T Collins St., Melbourne, Australia, Cliff Holt, correspondent; Sydney Bureau, 17 Archbold Rd., Roseville, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, Lin Endean, correspondent; Mexico City Bureau, :£ Carmona y Valle 6. Mexico City, Luis Becerra Celis. correspondent; Buenos Aires Bureau, J. E. Uriburi 126, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Natalio Bruski, correspondent; Rio de Janeiro ,.,eau. R. Sao Jose, 61 C. Postal 834, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Alfredo C. Machado, correspondent; Montevideo Bureau, P. O. Box 664, Montevideo, Uruguay, Paul Bodo, correspondent; ' >e Argus Montevideo. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. All contents copyright 1945 by Quigley Publishing Company. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Other igley Publications: Better Theatres, Motion Picture Daily, International Motion Picture Almanac, and Fame. *DTION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 3, 1945 9