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Television Harnessed To Benefit Pictures
by WILLIAM R. WEAVER
Hollywood Editor
The successful harnessing of television by the motion picture may not be so remote as is generally presumed, and may be accomplished first, appropriately, in Los Angeles, where the critter wears seven heads but already has been broken to halter.
Perhaps the most striking use of television is that made of it by the Pacific Drive-In circuit’s 16 installations in and around the city. Under terms of a trade deal with KLAC and KLAC-TV, independent radio and television station, the drive-ins use a 15minute music program featuring the station’s five disc jockeys preceding the first show, and a 10-minute program between shows. Reciprocally, KLAC and KLAC-TV plug the drive-ins throughout the day and evening, both vocally and with film trailers.
Television, Radio Plugs Total 522 in 6 Months
Scarcely less striking are statistics compiled by Columbia Pictures showing that television and radio plugs originating in Hollywood (all stations) during the past six months numbered 522, and paid off so well that effort of this kind will be intensified. (Columbia goes in especially for lending studio folk, technical and staff as well as talent, for panel and interview programs).
And more striking than either of these, for
the 24-hour span covered, is the fusilade of 10 and 20-second spots spread over all the outlets by Lippert Pictures every time a Lippert release opens locally.
Still to come, possibly to set the final pattern of television promotion, is the project nurtured by National Theatres’ Thornton Sargent which contemplates outright sponsorship of a standard half-hour show.
New Medium Is Useful In Economic Way
While progress on the exploitation side goes forward, the critter is proving pretty useful also in an economic way. The Screen Actors Guild, the Screen Directors Guild, the Screen Writers Guild and the AFL Film Council (that takes in about everybody) claim the coming of television has reduced the unemployment problem to a remnant of what it was. That is to say, television, especially television film production, affords a picture professional work of the kind he knows how to do when he can’t find it in the studios; for less money, to be sure, but work. It may be skimpy, but it keeps his hand in. And it’s a good, if stern, teacher.
Bit by bit, evidence piles up to indicate, as mere opinion so often does not, that television’s ultimate place in the motion picture scheme of things will be one of an advertising medium and training scliool, maybe proving ground, experimental laboratory. Could be a pretty good thing.
Seven Features Started
Seven features were started during the week, and six others were completed, bringing the shooting level to 32.
Warners started the tuneful “Desert Song,’’ color by Technicolor, with Rudi Fehr as producer, Bruce Humberstone directing, and with Kathryn Grayson, Gordon MacRae, Raymond Massey and Dick Wesson in the cast.
MGM started two pictures:
“Time Bomb,” with Glenn Ford, Anne Vernon, Victor Mattern and many others, is being filmed in England by Richard Goldstone, with Ted Tetzlaff directing.
“Rogue’s March,” produced by Leon Gordon and directed by Alan Davis, has Peter Lawford, Janice Rule and Richard Greene.
“Bloodhounds of Broadway,” 2t)th-Fox, is being produced by George Jesse! and directed by Harmon Jones, with Mitzi Gaynor, Scott Brady and Mitzi Green.
Columbia’s Sam Katzman began shooting “Jack McCall, Desperado,” directed by Sidney Salkow, with George Montgomery.
Vincent M. Fennelly went to work on “The Maverick,” a Wild Bill Elliott vehicle for Monogram, with Phyllis Coates opposite and with Thomas Carr directing.
Thor Productions, releasing through 20thFox, launched “Panic Stricken,” with Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright in the principal roles. Bert Friedlob is producing, Andrew Stone directing.
Yankwich Investigation Asked
Representative Richard B. Vail, Illinois Republican, has asked the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the official conduct of Federal District Court of Los Angeles Judge Leon Yankwich. The latter presided in the trials of writer Lester Cole’s damage suit against Loew’s, Inc.
THIS WEEK IN PRODUCTION:
STARTED (7)
COLUMBIA
Jack McGill, Desperado
INDEPENDENT
Panic Stricken (Thor Prod. -20th Fox release)
MGM
Time Bomb ( England)
Rogue’s March
MONOGRAM
The Maverick
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20TH CENTURY-FOX Bloodhounds of Broadway
WARNER
The Desert Song (Technicolor )
FINISHED (4)
MONOGRAM Sea Tiger REPUBLIC
Ride the Man Down 20TH CENTURY-FOX Night Without Sleep
WARNER BROS.
Danger Forward
SHOOTING (25)
COLUMBIA
The Outlanders ( Scott-Brown Prod.Technicolor)
INDEPENDENT
Lady in the Fog (Intercontinental Films London Lippert release)
MGM
Sky Full of Moon (Las Vegas)
Tribute to a Bad Man
Prisoner of Zenda (Technicolor) Plymouth Adventure (Technicolor)
Lili (Technicolor) Everything I Have Is Yours
MONOGRAM
Army Bound
PARAMOUNT
Road to Bali (Technicolor)
REPUBLIC
Thunderbirds
RKO RADIO
Hans Christian Anderson (Goldwyn Prod. -Technicolor)
20TH CENTURY-FOX
Tonight We Sing (Technicolor)
Stars and Stripes Forever (Technicolor)
My Wife’s Best Friend
Monkey Business (formerly “Darling I Am Growing Younger”)
Pony Soldier (Technicolor)
UNIVERSAL-INT'L
Magic Lady Gun Hand (Technicolor) Willie and Joe Beck at the Front Bonzo Goes to College City Beneath the Sea (Technicolor )
WARNER BROS.
Springfield Rifle (WamerColor)
The Iron Mistress (Technicolor)
April in Paris (Technicolor)
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MOTION PICTURE HERALD, MAY 10, 1952