Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

Grosses React To Oscar Sweep For "Best Years" This year, for the first time since "Gone With the Wind" won the 1939 Academy Award, it was possible to gauge the effect of the Oscar-presentations on the box office success of a picture, when grosses on Samuel Goldwyn's "The Best Years of Our Lives'' began to soar a few days after the film had been honored with nine of the Academy's top awards. Most important, it was named the best motion picture of the year ; Fredric March was cited as the year's best actor for his performance in "Best Years of Our Lives" ; Harold Russell was honored as the best supporting actor, and William Wyler and Robert E. Sherwood took awards as best director and best writer, respectively. Theatres Leased To safeguard himself against violations of the i recent court ruling which ended fixing of admission prices and consequently put an end to the conventional type of roadshow, Arthur Sachson, Goldwyn sales head, has leased theatres across the country. Top admission charge is $1.80. In some spots, depending on the situation, it is $1.50. Two kinds of deals are made. Under one the producer takes over the house, pays all expenses and has the right to stay there as long as the picture makes money. Another, usually made with independent exhibitors, involves a 70-30 percentage deal, with the producer retaining the right to stay longer at an agreed price. Where "Best Years" has been shown it has considerably outgrossed "The Kid from Brooklyn,'' Mr. Goldwyn's last release, the Goldwyn office says. This despite the fact that '.'Kid" has an average of nine showings a day. In Minneapolis, where it grossed $17,000 for the first week, "Best Years'' grossed $22,407 for the first five days. Possible $1,000,000 at Astor At the Astor, where "Best Years'' now is in its 17th week, Saturday, March 15, was the biggest in six weeks, with a $8,745 gross. The previous Thursday was $3,300, and Friday, the day after the awards were announced, brought in $4,677. Mr. Sachson predicted that, if the picture stays at the Astor until Labor Day at an average weekly take of $30,000, "Best Years" would net $1,000,000 in that house alone. At the 1,200seat Chicago Woods, where "Best Years" in its 13th week is doing as well as "Kid" did in its second week, grosses also run high and an expected 26-week run should •net about $700,000, he said. At the 1,794-seat Capitol theatre in Cincinnati, where the average gross is about $12,000 a week, "Best Years'' now grosses about $30,000. The same holds true for the Colony in Miami, ordinarily a holdover house never earning over $3,500 weekly. Five Academy Cartoon Awards In 7 Years Is Quimby Record Tom and Jerry in a scene from "The Cat Concerto". Five Academy Awards in seven years is the enviable record of Fred C. Quimby, MGM Cartoon producer, whose latest offering, "The Cat Concerto", a Tom & Jerry Cartoon in Technicolor, won the Oscar as the best cartoon of 1946, at the Academy's presentation in Hollywood last Thursday night. In previous years Mr. Quimby produced the awardwinning cartoons, "The Milky Way" in 1940; "Yankee 943; "Mouse Trouble" Fred C. Quimby Doodle Mouse' in 1944, and "Quiet Please" in 1945. All of these one-reel subjects featured MGM's cartoon characters Tom & Jerry. In addition to producing the Tom & Jerry Cartoons, Mr. Quimby is executive producer in charge of short subjects at the MGM studios in Culver City, and heads the studio's cartoon department, established in 1936. Mr. Quimby's cartoon department has a staff of 150 persons who devote their time to the creation of the .miniature mixtures of mirth, music and mayhem. In addition to the Tom & Jerry Cartoons, Mr. Quimby's staff also turn out series featuring Barney Bear; Happy, the bloodhound; Butch, the pugnacious bulldog; Toots, the coy cat, and the lady known as "Red", who first appeared in "Red Hot Riding Hood". Technical Award Winners Named Hollywood Bureau The Research Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which annually bestows scientific and technical awards for "outstanding merit" last Thursday reported honorable mentions as follows : Harlan L. Baumbach and Paramount Laboratory for improved method for quantitative determination of hydroquinone and metal photographic development; Herbert E. Britt, for development and application formulas and equipment for producing loud cloud and smoke effects; Burton F. Miller and Warner sound and electrical departments for lighting generator filter. Also Carl Faulkner and Twentieth Century-Fox sound department for reversed bias method, including double bias method, for light valve and galvonometer density recordings ; Mole-Richardson Company for type 450 high intensity carbon arc lamp ; Arthur F. Blinn, Robert O. Cook, C. O. Slyfield and Walt Disney sound department for design and development of audio finder. Burton F. Miller and Warner sound department for design and application equalizer to eliminate relative spectral energy distortion in electronic compressors ; Marty Martin and Hal Hadkins, RKO miniature visual bullet effects; Harold Nye and Warner electrical department for development of electrically controlled fire and gaslight. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 22, 1947 27