Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1946)

THE HOLLYWOOD SCENE SEEK AND FIND, SAYS BERNHARD Production Slackens as Strike Takes Toll; 39 Pictures Shooting Hollywood Bureau Production slacked oft' to a new low for the year in the fourth week of the Conference of Studio Unions' strike against the 10 major studios, slipping from an over-all total of 41 pictures in shooting stage to 39. The number of pictures taken to cutting rooms again exceeded the number placed before the cameras, eight to six, as the restrictive influence of the studio picketing and related pressures made itself increasingly felt. Although studio executives have been technically accurate in the reiterated assertion that the strike has not halted shooting on pictures in work, none has denied that properties ready for start of shooting have been held up in several instances, both because shortage of manpower poses the prospect of prolonged shooting schedules, with attendant budgetary increase, and because there is as yet no positive assurance that the settlement of the jurisdictional dispute at root of the conflict is near at hand. On the contrary, the production community's elder executives continue to credit the possibility that the present strife, duplicating in many respects last year's eight months siege g>i the studios, may eventuate in a complete shutdown of the studios as a preliminary to establishment of labor peace. "Mother Wore Tights" Goes Into Work at 20th Century-Fox The most impressive of the week's new undertakings, as to budget, is "Mother Wore Tights," a Betty Grable vehicle in Technicolor, which went into work at the 20th Century-Fox studio with Lamar Trotti producing and Walter Lang directing. The cast of this provocatively titled enterprise includes Dan Daily, Jr., Connie Marshall, Mona Freeman and Michael Dunne, with others to be added as the shooting progresses. In view of the concentration upon the Technicolor laboratory by the CSU pickets, and the defection of the IATSE laboratory workers in sympathy with them, the Town views the starting of this picture in pigmented medium as particularly courageous. RKO Radio started two pictures during the week. "Build My Gallows High" is a vehicle for Robert Mitchum, one of the Top Ten Stars of Tomorrow designated by exhibitors in this year's Motion Picture Herald poll, and it, is being produced by Warren Duff, with Jacques Tourneur directing. The cast includes Jane Greer, Richard Webb, Virginia Huston and others. "Thunder Mountain," featuring Tim Holt, back on his home lot after being lent to 20th Century-Fox for "My Darling Clementine," has Martha Hyer, Dick Martin and Steve Brodie in the cast. Herman Schlom is producing; Lew Landers directing. Producer Hunt Stromberg, whose current "Strange Woman" is reviewed in this edition, got into production at the Samuel Goldwyn studio, his native General Service lot being inoperative for the duration of the strike, on "Personal Column," which he is making independently for United Artists release. The film co-stars George Sanders and Lucille Ball, with Sir Cedric Hardwicke in principal support. Douglas Sirk is handling the directions. MGM Begins Shooting On "Undercover Maisie" MGM, which has managed, like Paramount, to keep its laboratory functioning despite labor troubles, started "Undercover Maisie," with Ann Sothern in the title role as usual, and with ( Barry Nelson, Mark Daniels, Charles D. Brown, Bill Phillips and Dick Simmons, the latter regarded by the studio as one of its most promising young players, in support. George Haighr is producing, with Harry Beaumont directing. Producer-director Frank Borzage trained Republic cameras on "Gallant Man," with Don Ameche, Catherine McLeod and Roscoe Karns in the principal roles. Additionally, 20th Century-Fox resumed production of "Forever Amber," which had been suspended some months ago, although "resumed" and "suspended" are perhaps not quite accurately employed here. Actually, the studio scrapped all the footage filmed and started all over again, substituting Otto Preminger for Director John M. Stahl, Linda Darnell for Peggy Cummins in the title role, and Richard Green for Vincent Price in the male lead, not to list lesser alterations. The film is off now to a $3,500,000 budget, and in Technicolor as has been previously announced. by WILLIAM R. WEAVER in Hollywood Ever since Production nestled down in the cradle of the Hollywood Hills and started supplying entertainment for the world at large it's been a custom of producers, confronted with the perennially voiced and manifestly sound suggestion that it would be well for a man making pictures to confer with the men who exhibit them, to agree blandly that intimate personal contact with the retailers of their wares would be most helpful to all parties concerned, and to go on then to ask how a man chained to his executive desk by the chores of his art might possibly manage to accomplish the feat. Practicable Solution Now Is Found In all this while nobody's come up with a wholly practicable solution of this problem, but now it's been done, and the gentleman with the answer is, of all things, a producer who has been maintaining intimate personal contact with exhibitors throughout all his 32 years and not only intends to keep right on doing so but also has authorized disclosure of his wide open secret to any and all producers of product in this or, any community. Jack Bernhard says he solves the problem by the simple expedient of attending exhibitor conventions, national, territorial or local, and talking and listening to all the exhibitors present about his, their and the industry's most vital subject — the product and the market. It's as simple as that, and doubtless this fact will come as a shock to just about everybody in this cloistered capital. Producer Bernhard, who cut both his first and second teeth on the knotty problems of this business, being born the son of a longtime Warner vice-president, Joseph Bernhard, doesn't regard his answer to the producerial dilemma of distance so excitingly as the foregoing may suggest. The excitement is supplied by his interviewer, who's been broaching the subject of exhibitor-contact to producers for years and on this occasion got the first solid response. To him, it's almost ample justification for getting out an extra. Should Know Distributor As Well as Exhibitor • • Nor did Producer Bernhard close the conversation with the formula for maintaining exhibitor-contact. He went on to remind that there are three principal branches of the business, and that it's a producer's obligation to know the distributor as well as the exhibitor, acquainting himself fully with the state IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM I"!I"IIII»IIII"IIIIIIIIIIIIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIH 32 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, NOVEMBER 2, 1946