Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1956)

this week m ^Jdodiiwood ^cene PRODUCTION ° THAT ACADEMY TELECAST AGAIN . . . Started— 9 Columbia — Garment Center; The Man Who Turned to Stone. Independent — Crime Beneath the Sea (Nacirema Prods.) Paramount — The Joker Is Wild. RKO Radio — Escapade in Japan (Color). 20th Century-Fox — The Lonesome Gun (Regal Prods.); Man from Abilene (Brady-Glaser Prod.); Island in the Sun (Zanuck; CinemaScope; DeLuxe Color). Universal-International — Pay the Devil (CinemaScope). . . . Completed — 9 Independent — Pawnee (Gross-Krasne; Eastman Color). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — Lizzie (Bryna Prods.). 20th Century-Fox — Fury at Rock River (Regal Films; Regalscope); The Restless Breed (National Pictures; Eastman Color). United Artists — The Ride Back (Associates & Aidrich); Trooper Hook (Fielding Prod.); The Kraken (Levy-Gardner-Leven); The Big Caper (PineThomas; Gambling Man (Bel-Air Prod.). . . . Shooting — 33 Allied Artists — Gun for a Town (Jerold Zukor Prod.); Love in the Afternoon; Jeannie (CinemaScope; Color). Columbia — The Cunning and the Haunted; The Bridge on the River Kwai (Horizon-American); The Admirable Crichton (London Films); Fortune Is a Woman; The Story of Esther Costello (Valiant Films); Interpol (Warwick Prods.); A Town on Trial (Marksman Films). Independent — Kill Me Tomorrow (Amalgamated Prod.); One Man's Secret (Amalgamated Prod.). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — Designing Woman (CinemaScope; Color); Harvest Thunder (CinemaScope; Color) Ten Thousand Bedrooms (CinemaScope; Color); Something of Value; Raintree County (65mm; Color). Paramount — The Delicate Delinquent (VistaVision); Flamenca (VistaVision; Color). RKO Radio — The Girl Most Likely (Eastman Color); The Lady and the Prowler (Color). 20th Century-Fox — Boy on a Dolphin (CinemaScope; Color); The Girl Can't Help It (CinemaScope; DeLuxe Color); The True Story of Jesse James (CinemaScope; DeLuxe Color); Three Brave Men (CinemaScope); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (CinemaScope; DeLuxe Color). United Artists — Bail Out at 43,000 (Pine-Thomas). Universal-International — The Land Unknown (CinemaScope); Night Passage (Technirama); Man Afraid (CinemaScope). Warner Bros. — Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.; A Face in the Crowd (Newton Prods.); The Sleeping Prince (LOP Prods.). HOLLYWOOD BUREAU Nine pictures were started, and nine others finished, to wind up the week with a total of 42 in shooting stage. “Garment Center” is a Columbia picture, shooting in New York, with Harry Kleiner as producer and Robert Aldrich as director. Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Richard Boone, Gia Scala and Valerie French are in the cast. Columbia producer Sam Katzman Hollywood, Monday Esteemed Editor: At this point on the calendar the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is without a sponsor for its Awards Nomination telecast. According to report, and subject to change, Oldsmobile, which has sponsored both this and the Awards Presentation telecasts for the past two years, is satisfied to settle for one crack instead of two. That fact would appear quite informative about the sales impact of a program as inconclusive as the Academy nominations. This lack of a sponsor brings no tears to professional Hollywood. There was deep feeling against this curtain-raiser type of program from its inception. It was be started shooting “The Man Who Turned to Stone,” directed by Leslie Kardos, with Victor Jory, Ann Doran, Charlotte Austin and Jean Willes. “Crime Beneath the Sea,” a Nacirema Production, went into production with Mara Corday and Pat Conway in principal roles. Norman Herman is producing, and John Peyser is directing. Paramount’s Samuel J. Briskin went to work on “The Joker Is Wild,” directed by Charles Vidor, with Frank Sinatra, Mitzi Gaynor, Jeanne Crain, Eddie Albert, Ted DeCorsia and Beverly Garland. “Escapade in Japan,” RKO, is being filmed in Japan by Arthur Lubin, producer-director, with Teresa Wright, Cameron Mitchell, Jon Provost and Philip Ober in the cast. Darryl F. Zanuck started the first of his independent productions for 20th-Fox distribution, “Island in the Sun,” directed by Robert Rossen. It is being shot in the British West Indies, in CinemaScope and DeLuxe color, with James Mason, Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Collins, Michael Rennie and Diane Wynyard in top roles. “The Lonesome Gun” is a Regal Production for 20th-Fox release, with Daniel B. Ullman as producer-director and Herb Mendelson as associate producer. Rex Reason, Margia Dean, Beverly Garland and Keith Larson are leads. “The Man from Abilene” is a BradyGlaser Production for 20th-Fox, with Scott Brady, Mala Powers and Bill Williams in top parts. Scott Brady and Bernard Glaser are coproducers, and Edward Bernds is directing. “Pay the Devil” is being produced by Albert Zugsmith for Universal-International. It has Jeff Chandler and Orson Welles in major assignments, directed by Jack Arnold. lieved by a probable majority of the Academy’s well-wishers that one annual parade of Hollywood personalities across the television tube was about as many as was good for the Academy and the personalities. After the March telecast of the Award Presentation, the Academy will be free to make whatever arrangements its board of governors see fit on future uses of TV for the present three-year contract will have expired. The present administration has done a good deal of talking about getting the telecast freed from commercial connection of any kind, but the Academy elects officers annually and the present slate may not be making the decisions when time for that particular decision comes around. Maybe the next slate will persuade the industry to pay for its own telecast, Hollywood would like that. • Excitement was stirred last weekend by the report that “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” the first feature picture from the MGM backlog to be telecast in Southern California, had bested all of the programs on all six of the competing TV stations, collectively, through its 150 minutes on the air. The figures, compiled by the American Research Bureau, were frightening in their significance with respect to where the entertainment interest of the citizenry had been Friday evening. The statistics indicated a viewing audience numbering about 2,000,000, and it rated the program at 53.8 over-all. Even an inexpert statistician can figure out that these numbers indicated a total listening audience of about 4,000,000, for all seven Los Angeles TV stations, and it seemed there couldn’t possibly be anybody looking at motion pictures in theatres. But the American Research Bureau hadn’t researched the theatres. This morning, when the district managers of National Theatres checked the weekend business, the Friday night report showed no trace of having been damaged by the telecast. The report of the Metropolitan Theatres circuit for the evening in question showed the same. It was the same story all around the town. The incident has more than common meaning. Station KTTV, which telecast the picture, is owned by the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles News-Mirror, which are jointly owned, and the station has spent about $100,000 in exploiting the televising of the first film from the MGM backlog. Conditions were right for the film to put the theatres out of business for the evening. It didn’t, and if that one didn’t, it appears probable none will. —WILLIAM R. WEAVER MOTION PICTURE HERALD, OCTOBER 20, 1956 27