Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1946)

8 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, October 26, 1946 NATIONAL NEWSREEL Reade Ousis Local Checkers That the Walter Reade circuit in New York and New Jersey was making good its order not to "tolerate" local checkers in its theatres was verified this week. The Circuit, Confidential Reports said, has been ousting such local checkers from its houses. Confidential has taken no action beyond notifying the distributors. At the Circuit headquarters it was said that the stand against local checkers was nothing new, but had been in effect for several months, and that it was not demanded that the checker come from towns 100 miles away or more, but from a community that was not immediately adjacent. The Circuit further said that it was endeavoring to ascertain the source of a leak which gave out "wrong" information on receipts at Morristown, which resulted in consideration of a tax change on seat taxes from 25 cents to $1 a seat. Price Bids Engineer Meet Seek 3rd Dimension By JAY GOLDBERG Hollywood Bureau Development of television is a goal to which the engineering minds of the industry should strive, iByron Price, board chairman of the Association of Motion Picture Producers told the Society of Motion Picture Engineers at its 60th semi-annual convention in Hollywood this week. Price spoke at the opening session Monday. Stressing the importance of engineering in taking the early motion picture out of the sphere of novelties, Price said: "I even venture to say that if sound and color and other mechanical improvements had never been attained, the motion picture never would have survived except as a small sideshow of American life. "Nor could the motion picture of the present day, with all its miraculous qualities, expect to survive if research simply sat on its hands . . . dreaming that perfection had been obtained. The effective capture of the third dimension alone provides a goal worthy of the endeavor of the best minds among you." The convention saw several wartime technical devices demonstrated at one of its sessions in the Paramount studios on "Paramount Night" and listened to talks led by Dr. C. R. Daily of that studio's engineering department. At another session the navy described means to permanently preserve films shot in action. ' A Warner Bros, award to be presented to an individual film company for outstanding contribution to the motion picture art was announced by President Don E. Hyndman. The newly elected officers were installed at a luncheon Monday. They are : Loren L. Ryder, president; Earl I. Sponable, executive vicepresident; Clyde R. Keith, editorial vice-president ; W. C. Kunzman, convention vice-president ; Edmund A. Bertram, treasurer ; G. T. Lorance, secretary. They take office Jan. 1. Davis, Rank Aid, Tells Of Odeoit Expansion Plan A four year expansion plan for Odeon Theatres in Canada which will call for 64 new houses at a cost of $6,000,000, was outlined in Toronto Monday by John Davis, J. Arthur Rank representative here from London. The new houses will be added to the present 105 Odeon units now in Canada and will cover first run outlets in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria, with the Toronto house scheduled to open in about IS months. Davis also said that Rank product, which will total 18 releases in Canada this year, will be raised to 35 next year and that the organization would buy product in the open market when available. He discussed the formation of movie clubs for juveniles in 34 suburban theatres of the Odeon chain in Canada, praised the freedom of the British screen and industry from restraint and said that no new theatres would be built in England during the next five to seven years due to material shortages. Even houses which were bombed can not be repaired, he said. Nomikos Hires Lawyer, Threatens Counter Suit Asserting that the distributors who are suing him on fraud allegations in connection with percentage pictures are "attempting to use the courts of the United States to permit them to conduct indiscriminate fishing expeditions through e.xhibitors' books," Van A. Nomikos this week announced in Chicago that he planned a counter suit. The exhibitor stated that he had retained Seymour Simon of the law firm of Schradzke and Gould not only to act in his behalf in the suit which the majors filed against him, but had instructed Simon to file a complaint against Paramount, Loew's (MGM), 20th Century-Fox, United Artists, Warner Bros, for damages suffered by his theatres because of allegedly illegal restraints in the Chicago area. INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS gponsors Programs Advance Data Audience Classifications 53 The Community Relations Division of the Box-Office Slants 39 Motion Picture Association counsel is schedul Feature Booking Guide 46 ing a series of lectures on previews for its Feature Guide Title Index 46 National Organization of Community groups. Hollywood ^ First of the lectures was held last Monday Newsreel Synopses 44 ^j^^ Museum of Modern Arts with Stuart Regional Newsreel Blackston's "Silver Shadows" as the March Selling the Picture. , ..j^j^^^j^ Movks" and Warners' Shorts Booking Guide ^ c j *u • * Short Subjects Reviews 44 "Okay for Sound as the pictures. Terry Theatre Monagement 26 l-iamsaye was the speaker. The programs are under the direction of Marjorie Dawson. Jurisdictional Strike Hit by Donald Nelson Declaring that no logician can "ferret out the flimsiest excuse" for jurisdictional strikes such as the one now going on in Hollywood, Donald M. Nelson, president of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers, in a speech at the New York Board of Trade dinner in New York Wednesday night, said that the interunion studio fight could go on for "nine months unless the government steps in." The former WPB head said that American management has learned to accept collective bargaining but resents "collective bullying," and that management has "learned but apparently American labor has not" that people will not stand for too much concentration of power in any one man or any one group. He pronounced the strife between management and labor since the end of the war a "national disgrace." Referring to the Hollywood strike, Nelson pointed out that the fight is between two AFL unions, with the dispute arising over differences of opinion regarding the status of 350 workers. Not even labor leaders themselves, he added, can offer a valid reason for this condition, in which many thousands of people are partly or wholly out of work and management is forced into the role of a helpless by-stander, "feebly trying to cooperate toward a settlement ,although they are threatened by 'both sides of the argument." Strike Front Quiet, Pickets Walk Posts Hollywood's jurisdictional strike between the Conference of Studio Unions, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes over who should erect interior studio sets, continued quiet this week with CSU pickets walking their posts and laboratory technicians continuing to respect CSU picket lines. Spokesman for the studios indicated that fewer of the lATSE laboratory technicians, who had slowed down production by forcing the studios to work blind without benefit of rushes, were crossing lines to return to work, but Business Agent John Martin of their local reportedly had written the laboratories for conferences on wages and working conditions. This move indicated a new phase of the action, for it was understood that the laboratory technicians had no difficulties with the studios but have refused to cross CSU picket lines, even {Continued on Page 13) SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW Title and Trade Mark Registered U. S. Patent Officr Published every Friday by Showmen's Trade Review Inc., 1501 Broadway, New York 18, N. Y. Telephone LOngacre 3-0121. Charles E. 'Chick' Lewis, Editor and Publisher; Tom Kennedy, Associate Editor; Jamo A. Cron, General Manager; Ralph Cokain, Managrinf Editor; Harold Kendall, Exjuipment Advertising Manager; West Coast Office, 6777 HollynTood Boulevard, Hollywood 28, California; Telephone Hollywood 2055; Ann Lewis, manager. London Representative, Jock Mao Gregor, 16 Leinster Mews, London, W. 2; Australian Representative, Gordon V. Curie, 1 Elliott St., Honif bush Sydney. Australia. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. AW contents copyright 1946 by Showmen Trade Review, Inc. Address all correspondence to the New York office. Subscription rates: $2.00 per year in the United States and Canada; Foreign, $5.00. Single copies, ten cents.