Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1951)

Studios Weigh Effects Of Decision^ Wage Rise by WILLIAM R. WEAVER Hollywood Editor Hollywood got dealt with from three quarters and in three different ways last week. Only time will tell whether the motion picture came out better off or vice versa, but it was a week of vital events. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers dealt thoroughly and constructively with the physical aspects of the motion picture, its production and its exhibition, in a week-long convention at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. There isn’t the shadow of a doubt that the results of the delivery of 65 learned papers, the demonstrations of many items of equipment and the numerous discussions of methods and processes, will be beneficial to the motion picture and its industry. Film-Television Relation Affected by Decision Federal Judge Peirson M. Hall on Thursday handed down a decision in the longrunning case of Roy Rogers versus Republic Pictures, in which he granted the Rogers petition for a permanent injunction restraining Republic from making any of the pictures he made for the studio available for television exhibition. This decision, covered in full on page 13 of this edition, covers a question never before answered in a court of law and has to do with the immediate and distant relationship between the motion picture industry and the television business with respect to the flow of old films from theatres to television stations. The lATSE studio unions and the major studios found agreement on a new wage level, to prevail over a two-year period, which increases the major companies’ labor bill an estimated $11,000,000 per year, a sum which the studios must get from somewhere, and where else but from the exhibitor who will have to get it from the customer ? Whatever compensatory revenues the major studios might have got from the sale of old films to television, if they had decided under pressure to sell some down that river, appear to have vanished with the announcement of the Rogers-Republic decision. That same decision, if it leads to elimination of theatrical filmiS from television and thus ends the condition in which exhibitors have found themselves virtually competing with their own wares, presumptively could result in the sale of even more than the required additional $11,000,000 worth of admission tickets per year. If the preceding paragraph appears abstruse— and it certainly does — that is be cause the decision in the Rogers case and the lATSE wage adjustment had combined to have Hollywood in general rather completely confused at the weekend. The never even tenor of Hollywood ways had been violently disrupted, and it would be a while before the experts and the prognosticators, aided and abetted by their analysts, their statisticians and their attorneys, could pull the new picture of Hollywood affairs into clear focus. Nobody was very sure about anything, save the bromidic truism that there’s never anything the matter with the business that good pictures can’t cure, and that reliable old saw is in dire need of sharpening. Five Pictures Started But five pictures were started during the week. Philip Dunne started “The Way of a Gaucho,” Technicolor, for 20th-Fox, with Jacques Tourneur directing Gene Tierney, Rory Calhoun and others. “The Girl Next Door,” Technicolor, is being produced for 20th-Fox by Robert Bassler, with Richard Sale directing June Haver, Dennis Day and Dan Dailey. “Hear No Evil” is being directed by Joseph Pevney for U-I, with Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling in leading roles and with Leonard Goldstein credited as producer. Wallace MacDonald rolled “Okinawa” for Columbia, with Pat O’Brien, Richard Denning and others directed by Leigh Jason. Jerry Thomas began filming “Hold That Line,” Monogram, an item in the Leo Gorcey-Huntz Hall series, with William Beaudine directing. THIS WEEK IN PRODUCTION : STARTED (5) COLUMBIA Okiiia'.va MONOGRAM Hold That Line 20TH CENTURY-FOX Way of a Gaucho (Technicolor ) The Girl Next Door (Technicolor) UNIVERSAL-IN'TL Hear No Evil FINISHED (5) MONOGRAM Whip Law REPUBLIC Hoodlum Empire WARNER BROS. Where’s Charley (Technicolor) Room for One More The Lion and the Horse (color) SHOOTING (37) COLUMBIA The Marrying Kind Fourposter (Kramer Prod.) The Sniper (Kramer Prod.) The Mother My Six Convicts (Kramer Prod.) independent The Tightrope (Aspen Prod.-UA ; Reno) Without Warning (Allart Prod.) MGM Lovely to Look at (Technicolor) The Hour Of Thirteen (London) The Merry Widow (Technicolor) Skirts Ahoy (Technicolor) Young Man in a Hurry The Invitation Scaramouche (Technicolor) PARAMOUNT This is Dynamite Los Alamos ( Santa Fe, New Mexico) Sailor Beware (Hal Wallis Prod.) (formerly : “At Sea With the Navy”) Somebody Love Me (Perlberg-Seaton Prod. ; Technicolor) Shane (Technicolor) REPUBLIC An Old Spanish Custom (formerly: “Girl From Panama”) Bal Tabarin (Paris) RKO RADIO Tarzan, the Hunted (Sol Lesser Prod.) Clash by Night ( Wald-Krasna Prod.) The Korean Story Big Sky (Winchester Pic.) Androcles and the Lion 20TH CENTURY-FOX The I Don’t Care Girl (Technicolor) Lady in the Iron Mask (W-F Prod. ; Eastman Kodak color) UNITED ARTISTS High Noon (Kramer Prod.) UNIVERSAL-INT'L Oh Money, Money (Technicolor) Steel Town (Technicolor) The World in His Arms (Technicolor) WARNER BROS. San Francisco Story (Fidelity Prod.) She’s Working Her Way Through College This Woman Is Dangerous Retreat, Hell ! (United States Pictures) Crimson Pirate (Technicolor) lflllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll|IIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII||lllllllllll|lllll|lllll||||llllll|lll|l|llllllllll|l|l||ll!llllll||llllllllllllllll|l|||||||llllllllllll!l|i|||||||||||||||^ MOTION PICTURE HERALD, OCTOBER 27. 1951 47