Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1952)

C of C Makes Deep Bow In Direction of Screen Hollywood Bureau The Hollywood week was rife with oratory, most of it favorable. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, an organization of world-renowned effectiveness, made the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first motion picture theatre in the community the occasion for a banquet honoring the film industry. The Chamber’s president, Terrell C. Drinkwater, spoke glowingly of the motion picture’s contribution to the fame and fortune of the city in which it spends, he said, more than $175,000,000 annually on payrolls alone. He said, “The industry’s Federal, state and local tax bill is astronomical,” and he mentioned its “annual advertising budget of $66,000,000.” Statistically and otherwise, the Chamber of Commerce president said a good many better things about the industry than it usually says about itself. Skouras Sees Screen Still Dominant Entertainment Responding to the Drinkwater address, Charles P. Skouras, chairman of the board of directors of the Theatre Owners of America, and recipient of a scroll on behalf of Exhibition, said, “In spite of rumors, it is my belief that no other medium of entertainment can replace the motion picture,” and went on from there to cover reminiscently the high points of the past quartercentury. Motion Picture Association of America president Eric Johnston, who also received a Chamber of Commerce scroll, delivered the major response for the industry, uttering many a constructive quote as concerns the picture business itself, and quite a passel of others useful to TV writers. Jackson Takes Shot at Hollywood Over Reds All the Chamber of Commerce outgivings were of the pro variety, a pleasant change of pitch, but Representative Donald L. Jackson took steps to correct that condition the following day. Addressing the Kiwanis Club, this California member of the House Committee on Lhi-American Activities chose to say, “As long as guilds and unions keep on their membership lists men and women identified with Communism, Hollywood will be regarded in an unfavorable way. They must clean house.” Congressman Jackson, who became known locally as a man of a few million words during the telecast committee hearings last year, didn’t get as much newspaper space as the Chamlier of Commerce event did, but that wasn’t his fault. The news turned favorable again at the weekend, when the visiting Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was the industry’s guest at an all-studio function held at the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer studio Saturday. Representatives of all the studios foregathered for this function in a display of cordiality and single-purposeness unsurpassed. Five Features Started The start of five features and completion of eight others brought the count of pictures in camera stage down to a meek 27 at the weekend. Scott-Brown Productions, releasing through Columbia, started “The Outlanders,” Technicolor, starring Randolph Scott, with Harry Joe Brown as producer, Roy Huggins as director, and with Donna Reed and Claude Jarman, Jr., in the cast. MGM’s John Houseman turned cameras on “Tribute to a Bad Man,” directed by Vincente Minnelli, with Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gilbert Roland, Gloria Grahame and Vanessa Brown. Universal-International began filming “Willie and Joe Back at the Front” in Japan, with Tom Ewell, Harvey Lembeck and Mari Blanchard, directed by George Sherman, Leonard Goldstein producing. William F. Broidy launched “.Sea Tiger” for Monogranr, with Frank McDonald directing Marguerite Chapman, John Archer and the others in the cast. Vincent F. Fennelly started “Barbed Wire,” Monogram, with Will Bill Elloitt and Phyllis Coates heading a cast directed l)y Lewis Collins. Mary Pickford Buys Screen Rights to Anti-Red Story Scheduled to return to the screen in Stanley Kramer's production of “The Library,” Mary Pickford, part owner of United Artists, may reenter production later on her own, it was learned in Hollywood last week. Miss Pickford has acquired the screen rights to “Under the Red Star,” an original by Ivan Lebedeff and George St. George which is described as a “highly dramatic and antiCommunist” story. THIS WEEK IN PRODUCTION: STARTED (5) COLUMBIA The Outlanders ( Scott-Brown Prod.-Technicolor ) MGM Tribute to a Bad Man MONOGRAM Barbed Wire Sea Tiger UNIVERSAL-INT'L Willie and Joe Back at the Front (Japan) FINISHED (8) COLUMBIA Wagon Team Strange Fascination (H. H. Prod.) The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. ( Kramer Co.Technicolor ) INDEPENDENT Invasion U.S.A. (American Pictures Prod. — Unite<l Artists release) MGM Letter from the President MONOGRAM The Rose Bowl Story ( Cinecolor ) PARAMOUNT Tropic Zone (Technicolor ) UNIVERSAL-INT'L It Grows on Trees SHOOTING (22) INDEPENDENT Lady in the Fog ( Intercontinental Films — London — Lippert release) Hellgate (Commander Films Prod. — Lippert release) MGM Prisoner of Zenda ( Technicolor) You for Me Plymouth Adventure ( Technicolor ) Lili (Technicolor) Everything I Have Is Yours REPUBLIC Ride the Man Down RKO RADIO Hans Christian Andersen ( Goldwyn Prod.-Technicolor) 20TH CENTURY-FOX Night Without Sleep Stars and Stripes I'orever (Technicolor) My Wife’s Best Friend Monkey Business (formerly “Darling I Am Growing Younger”) Pony Soldier (Technicolor) The Snows of Kili■manjaro (Technicolor) UNIVERSAL-INT'L Bonzo Goes to College City Beneath the Sea (Technicolor) WARNER BROS. The Iron Mistress (Technicolor) April in Paris (Technicolor) Danger Forward The Story of Will Rogers (Technicolor) The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima ( WarnerColor) MOTION PICTURE HERALD, APRIL 26, 1952 35