Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Mar 1954)

3M'G3M Moves Forward on New Product With all productions for the entire 195354 releasing season scheduled for completion by March 1, MGM this week launched its 1954-55 producing schedule with preparation for eight important pictures to go before the cameras in April and May. At the same time Dore Schary, studio head, announced that 22 writers are currently assigned to scripts for other future productions. Rehearsals Start Soon Rehearsals for the new films will get under way in March, including “Jupiter’s Darling,” in CinemaScope, with Esther Williams and Howard Keel; “Green Fire,” in CinemaScope, Stewart Granger and Grace Kelly; “Many Rivers to Cross,” CinemaScope, Robert Taylor: “Deep in My Heart,” CinemaScope; Jose Ferrer; “Babylon Revisited,” in CinemaScope, Elizabeth Taylor; “King’s Thief,” Edmund Purdam ; an original story by Dore Schary, with an all-star cast. “Athena,” Jane Powell, Janet Leigh. With production of these films, final editing, music scoring and special color printing will be completed on the productions to be finished in March, including three musicals filmed in CinemaScope, “Brigadoon,” “The Student Prince” and “A Bride for Seven Brothers”; also “Valley of the Kings,” “Betrayed” and “Beau Brummell,” all filmed on foreign locations. Previously completed for the 1953-54 schedule, and nearing final laboratory preparations are “Rose Marie,” CinemaScope; “Panther Squadron 8,” “Her Twelve Men,” “Rhapsody,” “Flame and the Flesh,” “Executive Suite” and “Prisoner of War.” According to Mr. Schary, all the new films will be fashioned to exploit fullest advantage of the newest technical developments including new screen dimensions, advanced stereophonic sound, color photography and printing, as well as other scientific techniques resulting from MGM’s months of research and experimentation. Preparations Under Way Preparations for subsequent production also are under way with scripts completed on “In Missouri,” “St. Louis Woman,” “Moonfleet,” “Scarlet Coat,” “Love Me or Leave Me” and “Bad Day at Black Rock,” with current writer assignments including Sid Boehm to write “Rougue Cop”; Alex Coppel, “Night in Glengyle” ; Alan Jay Lerner, “Green Mansions” ; Comden and Green, “Cole Porter Cavalcade” ; Casey Robinson, “Montmartre” ; Jan Lustig, “O’Kelley ’s Eclipse”; Helen Deutsch, “The Glass Slipper”; Christopher Isherwood, "Dianne De Poytiers” ; Millard Kaufman, "Mail Order Bride”; Harry Brown, “Thunder in the Mountains”; Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, “The Big Sin” ; Isobel Lennart, "Two Girls from Bordeaux”; Sonya Levien and William Ludwig, "Hit the Deck”; Ruth Flippen, “My Most Intimate Friend” ; Karl Tunberg, “Ben Hur” ; Angus McPhail and Stanley Roberts, “Highland Fling,” and Maurice Zimrn, “The Prodigal.” Lichtman Gets Option For 25,000 Shares WASHINGTON : An option to purchase 25,000 shares of 20th Century-Fox common stock at $18.86j4 per share has been granted to A1 Lichtman, 20th Century-Fox distribution director, the company reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the option, according to the report, the purchase is limited to 12,500 shares in the first year, 1954, and 12,500 shares in the second, 1955. The current New York Stock Exchange quotation for 20th-Fox common is about $20 per share. "Saint's Girl" for Release RKO Radio will release Julian Lesser’s "The Saint’s Girl Friday” April 15, Charles Boasberg, general sales manager announced this week. The film stars Louis Hayward, Naomi Chance and Sidney Taffler. It was directed by Seymour Friedman. "Red Garters" Opens in Five Texas Situations Paramount’s new Western musical in color by Technicolor, “Red Garters,” kicked off a week of Texas premieres Monday with a two-theatre world premiere in Austin at the Paramount and State. In attendance were a group of the film’s stars, including Guy Mitchell, Pat Crowley, Gene Barry, Frank Faylen and Buddy Ebsen, who were greeted by Governor Allan Shivers on their arrival and in a day packed with activity featuring a giant March of Dimes rally. During the rest of the week the stars attended similar lavish premieres of the film in San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth at key Interstate Circuit theatres. Code to Be Debated Martin Quigley will defend the Motion Picture Code and Morris Ernst will argue for its abolition on “Report to the People” on WMCA, New York, on Monday, Feffi ruary 8, 9:30-10:00 P.M. Mr. Ernst, who is general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, is a well-known opponent of all forms of censorship. The program, to be presented by transcription, will be moderated by Mrs. Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, conductor of the weekly series. Alabama Theatre Moves The Strand Theater, Birmingham, Ala., has been reopened as the Newmar Theater. The latter’s old quarters will be rented out as a business establishment. The deal was made between Waters Theater Company, owners and operators of the Newmar, a movie house specializing in double features with an accent on Westerns, and the Acme Theatre Company, operators of the Strand. Push Platts For Stereo Sound Test The what-kind-of-soundwith -CinemaScope controversy continued to buzz along this week while plans were going forward for the regional stereophonic “mixer” sound tests. The meetings, scheduled to be held last week between Walter Reade, Theatre Owners of America president and circuit head, and 20th-Fox president Spyros Skouras, were to be held this week after being postponed because of a 20th-Fox sales meeting. Committees are to be formed in the east, west, south and middle west, each taking over operation of the test in its particulai region. Mr. Reade already has forwarded a prosposed list of exhibitors, five in each territory, to 20th-Fox, the company which has agreed to conduct the experiments for its CinemaScope productions. Comprising the committees will be exhibitors chosen by both sides, in addition to equipment manufacturers and officials of other companies producing in CinemaScope, as well as trade press representatives. Meanwhile, Mr. Reade was rebuked by at least one exhibitor for the recent showing of 20th-Fox’s “The Robe” at a Reade theatre in Morristown, N. J. without stereophonic sound, but with the “mixer” which channels the stereophonic tracks through one horn. In protest against the Reade action, Janies Coston, head of the IndianaIllinois Theatre Corporation, withdrew from membership in TOA and asked “any organization” to follow his lead if the exhibitor organization goes on record against stereophonic sound. In a telegram to Mr. Reade, Mr. Coston said “we are dumbfounded to see that you, the president of TOA, would take such action that would not only jeopardize our investment but endanger the only invention and first real improvement since the advent of sound that has brought the people back into our theatres since the big slump.” 20th-Fox received encouragement from another Indiana-Illinois Theatres executive, Alex Manta, who wired Mr. Skouras the following : “After six complete CinemaScope stereophonic sound installations, we feel that we are in a position to encourage you to hold fast to your determination to insist on proper presentation of CinemaScope the way it was developed and intended, with four-track stereophonic sound.” Another theatre circuit, Western Massachusetts Theatres, which had contemplated installing “mixers” in several of its houses, announced last week that it had dropped the plan and would instead install full stereophonic equipment. Samuel Goldstein, president, gaid he had sent an engineer to Morristown and had received a negative report on the “mixer,” as a result of which he was going to install the stereo equipment in at least 10 of his houses by the middle of this month. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, FEBRUARY 6, 1954 23