Motion Picture Herald (1953)

Anthony Mann by WILLIAM R. WEAVER Hollywood Editor ANTHONY MANN says reports of the decline and imminent fall of the motion picture business are useful in the measure that they incite the production branch of the business to bestir itself, but shouldn’t be taken seriously enough to induce despair. He says the chief thing the film industry has to fear is by no means merely fear itself, as the saying goes, but television, severest of the hindrances inflicted upon it so far, but only, for all that, a hindrance, and to be seen as only that. It’s a thing to be faced, he says, with full understanding, with considerable resourcefulness, and with a great deal of energy. He has an impressive row of box office proofs that there are no problems in the present scheme of things that the right kind of product and promotion can’t cope with. “Bend of the River,” “Winchester ’73,” “The Naked Spur” and “Thunder Bay” are a few of them. Director Mann says it’s up to players, producers, directors and others to go out and sell their pictures directly to the people, by personal appearances in the secondary cities as well as the big ones, on the radio and on TV, in newsprint and on lecture platform, anywhere and everywhere within view and earshot of the public. He says this is a twoedged benefit. Sells Everyone on Vitality Of Their Art-Industry It prospers the picture, by pin-pointing public interest in it at the place and time of its exhibition, and it sells the players, directors and so on, once again, on the importance and vitality of their art and industry. It takes some re-selling now and then, he says, to keep Hollywood people from losing touch with the facts of their relationship to the world and its interests, and nothing brings them back to plain realities so effectively as a personal appearance tour. Given a correct property to work with, and a proper disposition on everybody’s part to follow through from shooting stage to selling season, it is not tremendously difficult to fortify a picture against failure at the box office if — a most important if — -it isn’t financed beyond its prospects. As he told a group of college students a fortnight ago, in an address bravely entitled “The Reason for a Successful Box Office Picture,” “It’s the cost and not the gross that determines the box office success of a picture.” Pointing out that only a relatively few pictures gross as much as $3,000,000 nowadays, he told his listeners that it’s good business to keep costs down close to the $1,000,000 mark. He said, “We have seen instances in recent years where pictures have grossed as much as $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 and still lost money. They just cost too much at the outset, and although the gross indicated that they were popular with the public, they never had a chance on the profit-and-loss sheet.” FOUR pictures were started during a dull week, and three others finished, bringing the over-all total of pictures shooting in Hollywood, inclusive of those being shot elsewhere than here by Hollywood producers, to a slim 22. Universal-International’s “Drums Across the River” is the week’s outstanding starter, being a production in color by Technicolor with Audie Murphy, Lyle Bettger, Walter Brennan and Lisa Gaye in the cast directed by Nathan Juran for Melville Tucker, the producer. Columbia’s Wallace MacDonald began photographing “The Massacre at Moccasin Pass,” directed by Fred F. Sears, with Phil Carey, Audrey Totter, Douglas Kennedy, Jeff Donnell and Charlita in the cast. Ben Schwalb started “Paris Bombshells,” a Bowery Boys rumpus for Allied Artists, with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the others directed by William Beaudine. Trinity Productions, independent, went to work on “Congo Killer” at the Key West studios, with Jerry Thomas producing and Seymour Friedman directing. Myron Healy, Karen Booth, Ross Elliot and Ralph Dumke are among the players. Asks Business Men Aid Fight on Delinquency HOLLYWOOD : Business men must aid in combating juvenile delinquency, Stephen Schlesinger, theatrical and TV film producer, told the Ventura Valley PTA group here last week. Mr. Schlesinger, furthering the expansion of his Fight Juvenile Delinquency Club, a theme in his Red Ryder TV film series, stressed the effect of delinquency on the theatre business more than most others. He cited the “senseless damage done to film theatres by juveniles.” More and more business men, through their various service clubs and other organizations, are realizing that it is up to adult leaders in the community to provide a safety valve for this misspent youthful energy. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIimillllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIIIII THIS WEEK IN PRODUCTION: STARTED (4) ALLIED ARTISTS Paris Bombshells COLUMBIA Massacre at Moccasin Pass COMPLETED (3) ALLIED ARTISTS Arrow in the Dust (Technicolor) Tukon Vengeance SHOOTING (18) ALLIED ARTISTS Ghost of O'Leary (Technicolor) COLUMBIA Black Knight (Warwick Prod., Technicolor) Mad Magician (Edward Small Prod., Technicolor, 3-D) INDEPENDENT Captain Kidd's Slave Girl ( Wisberg-Pollexfen Prod., U.A. release) River Beat (Abtcon Prod.) Americano (Moulin Prod., U.A. release) Duel in the Jungle ( Moulin-Assoc. British, Technicolor) MGM True and the Brave (Technicolor) INDEPENDENT Congo Killer (Trinity Prod., Keywest Studios) UNIVERSAL-INT'L Drums Across the River (Technicolor) REPUBLIC Valley of the Wild Stallion Rose Marie (Eastman Color, CinemaScope) PARAMOUNT White Christmas (Technicolor) Sabrina Fair REPUBLIC Fortune Hunter (Trucolor — formerly "Red Horizon") UNIVERSAL-INT'L Johnny Dark (Technicolor) Magnificent Obsession (Technicolor) The Far Country (Technicolor) Black Lagoon (3-D) WARNER BROS. Them (3-D, WarnerColor) Phantom Ape (3-D, WarnerColor) iiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Technicolor Studies 3-D Vectograph of Polaroid CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: Technicians of the Technicolor Corporation were here this week conferring with officials of the Polaroid Corporation on the utilization of the Vectograph 3-D process in conjunction with Technicolor. Polaroid officials, who developed the one projector 3-D process, claim it will be the “mechanical solution to 3-D” and estimate the system will be fully developed and ready for use in a matter of months. The process is said to require no additional equipment on the standard projector and to employ a right and left eye image on a positive print. Reported to be interested in the system are Paramount, Warner Brothers and MGM. Werners Sign Walsh Jack L. Warner, executive producer, has signed Raoul Walsh to a new long tend exclusive contract at Warner Bros. Mr. Walsh’s first assignment under the new pact is to direct the filming of the life story of General George S. Patton, for which the studio has received Defense Department approval. 30 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, OCTOBER 17, 1953