Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1948)

wper Market *"0W they've done it. They've put free 6mm shows in grocery stores. In Trenton, I J., the 12 stores of the Russell Markets lain, self-service supers, have reserved •sections of the stores for free screenings, offered for children who must be accompanied by an adult. Shows are scheduled three days a week, including Saturday mornjing. Local exhibitors are up in arms, claiming that their box offices have already felt jthe effect of the free shows, particularly Saturday matinee time. They've called upon Allied Theatre Owners of New Jersey to investigate, pointing out that the free shows violate a local ordinance governing amusements, particularly in regard to sanitation and fire regulations. Nobody Here Washington Bureau THE CHAIRMAN of the Syrian Committee of Film Censorship has a complaint: there aren't any American distributors' offices in Damascus. As a consequence, Syrian theatre owners must go to Beirut, in Lebanon, twice a week for their pictures and there's considerable objection to that arrangement, according to the Department of Commerce. Syria is anxious, reports the Department, to have American companies open branches in Damascus under Syrian or American management. Two Fires IN CANADA recently a theatre was destroyed by fire and the manager got everybody out of the house by calling a routine, "practice" fire drill, never mentioning the blaze in the basement. In Somerville, Mass., last Friday a theatre audience refused to leave the house though repeatedly warned that the place was on fire. Do the psychologists want to make anything out of that? The house in Canada that was destroyed was the Odeon circuit's Kent theatre in Moncton. Approximately 350 people, including 250 children, were in the house for a Saturday matinee. When theatre manager L. R. Conrad smelled smoke and found the blaze, he gave instructions to his staff to telephone the fire department, placed his ushers at strategic positions throughout the house, and then went out on stage to announce a "fire drill." The children obediently left their seats and filed to the exists, few suspecting the real nature of the drill until they came out on the street and met the fire department. . , "I don't know how the manager did it," the local assistant fire chief said. "By the time we got there the whole auditorium was filled with smoke." In Somerville, although the screen went blank when the projectionist left his booth to warn the ushers and although the ushers told the audience of the fire, few left the house. And why? Several patrons later stated that they thought the warning was a ruse so the management could avoid awarding the radio-record player to the holder of the lucky ticket. Last Straw EAGLE LION is having a fit about its new telephone number. The company doesn't like it, wishes it hadn't been changed, and would just as soon have the old one back again. Changing that number was the straw that bruised the camel. The whole nightmarish story starts back when the company had New York offices at 625 Madison Avenue— quarters where press agents, sales personnel and auditors had to carve their way through a wall of human flesh to reach their desks. Then the company moved to roomier quarters, taking two floors in a building on 46th Street. That was all right for a while and then everyone on the twelfth floor had to move to the fifteenth and everyone on the fifteenth had to move to the twelfth and tempers were raw. Complicating matters, there were only two telephone lines for the company and each of those had different numbers. Finally everybody had his own telephone and everyone was happy until last weekend. Then the telephone company changed the number of the phones again. New stationery had to be printed and the whole cycle started over again. PLaza 7-1600, if you want to sympathize with them. Art vs. Politics THE CENTRAL Committee of the Communist party last week slapped down Shostakovich, Khatchaturian and Prokofieff, the "big three" of Russian music, by accusing them and others of creating and encouraging anti-democratic works, failing to rid their works of ideological errors, and of composing "unharmonious" music. The Russians want something that they can hum as they're leaving the theatre. The Committee said the "big three's" works "smell strongly of the spirit of the modern bourgeois music of Europe and America" and that's bad. In the composers' defense it may be stated that only Khatchaturian is bourgeois enough to stand a juke box success. His current "Sword Dance" is being played by every disc jockey in town. That must make Stalin squirm. PEOPLE J. Arthur Rank, British film executive, and George Ivan Woodham-Smith, director of the Rank Organization, plan to sail from England March 5 on the Queen Elizabeth for a six-week stay in America. N. Peter Rathvon, president of RKO, and Mrs. Rathvon, were hosts Tuesday at a birthday luncheon for Margaret Truman, daughter of President Truman, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Monday was named a member of the National Health Assembly, which will meet in Washington in May to work out details for a 10-year health plan in the United States. Sir Philip Warter, chairman of Associated British Picture Corp., Ltd., was to sail from England Thursday on the Queen Elizabeth for a six-week visit to this country, during which he will confer with Warner executives on joint production in England. Harold S. Dunn has been appointed circuit sales manager for Eagle Lion Films by William J. Heineman, vice-president in charge of distribution. Sir Michael Balcon, British producer, will be guest of honor at a dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London, February 26, to commemorate the knighthood bestowed upon him for his services to the British film industry. Frederick W. Du Vall, assistant treasurer of the Motion Picture Export Association in New York, was named treasurer Tuesday, succeeding George Borthwick, resigned. H. M. McCrone, theatre engineer in Canada for the past two years, has been appointed general sales manager of the Drive-In Theatre Equipment Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. L. O. Daniel, Jr., formerly manager of the Delman theatre in Houston, Tex., has returned to Dallas, to handle public relations for I. B. Adelman Theatres. E. B. Brady has been appointed president of the Drive-In Theatres Equipment Corporation, Cleveland, Ohio. Alan E. Freedman, president of De Luxe Laboratories, Inc., New York, has been elected Commodore 'of the Knickerbocker Yach Club of Port Washington, N. Y. John G. Walsh has joined Eagle Lion as a salesman in Cleveland, and Joseph Rosenberg has been appointed a company salesman in Los Angeles. Winston Loewe, formerly with Paramount, Warners and Samuel Goldwyn,. Monday will become Dallas branch manager for Eagle Lion. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, published every Saturday by Ouigley Publishing Company, Rockefeller Center, New York City 20. Telephone Circle 7-3100; Cable address "Ouigpubco;. New York", Martin Ouigley, President; Red Kann, Vice-President; Martin Ouigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; Terry Ramsaye, Editor; Martin Ouigley, Jr., Associate Editor; James D. Ivers, News Editor; Charles S. Aaronson, Production Editor; Ray Gallagher, Advertising Manager; David Harris, Circulation Director. Bureaus: Hollywood, William R. Weaver, editor, Yucca-Vine Building; Chicago, Editorial and Advertising, 120 South LaSalle Street, Telephone Andover 6449, Urben Farley, Advertising Representative; Washington, J. A. Often, National Press Club; London, Hope Williams Burnup, mcnager, Peter Burnup, editor, 4 Golden Square. Correspondents in the principal capitals of the world. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. Other Ouigley Publications: Better Theatres, published every fourth week as a section of Motion Picture Herald; Motion Picture Daily, International Mo+ior Picture Almanac and Fame. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, FEBRUARY 21, 1948