Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

2» SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, October 8, 1949 Hollywood Newsreel West Coast Offices — 6777 Hollywood Blvd.. HoDywood 28, Calif. — Ann Lewis. Manager PRODUCTION PARADE By Ann Lewis annnnwiiHiiitiuiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiimiiiiiiiHiii»^ iiiiiiihiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiu Lx>uis Calhern, veteran Broadway stage star, has been signed to a long-term contract at MGM and his first assignment will be the role of Buffalo Bill in "Annie Get Your Gun," starring Betty Hutton. Arthur Freed is producing and George Sidney directing. * * * Director George Marshall signed a new pact with Paramount providing for him to direct a picture a year for the next two years. Contract marks Marshall's thirty-sixth anniversary as a motion picture director. * * * Producer Barney Sarecky, who will produce and direct the series of six one-reel Western Kid Comedies in color for Lippert Productions, will also make two features for the company. They will be "Radar Patrol" starting Oct. 17, and "Tales of Captain Kidd" starting Oct. 31. * * * John Lund, on loanout from Paramount, has been set by MGM for one of the starring roles in "Duchess of Idaho," to be produced by Joe Pasternak. The Technicolor film co-stars Esther Williams and Van Johnson. * =i= * Producers Jack H. Skirball and Bruce Manning have signed Jane Cowl as Claudette Colbert's aunt in their RKO release "Blind Spot." * -l! * "Birthday Party," first of a series of five short subjects for children and youth groups, was placed in production by the IProtestant Film Commission, with Paul F. Heard producing and Edward L. Cahn directing. * * * "Shoplifter," scheduled to go before the cameras October 17, will be Director Charles Lamont's fourth assignment for Universal-International this year. Producer Leonard Goldstein is presently rounding up a cast. "Storm Center," which Jerry VVald is producing for Warners, will star Lauren Bacall. Stuart Meisler will direct from a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs. Production is due to start sometime this month. * * * William Bendix is getting private lessons from Al Sommers, Coast League umpire and chief instructor at Bill MacGowan's famous school for umpires at Cocoa, Fla., to prepare for his forthcoming starring role in Columbia's "Kill that Umpire." This will be one time when Bendix, a rabid Brooklyn baseball fan who heckled many an umpire, will have to account to the "umps" for his decisions. H« * * "Redwood Forest Trails," an original, has been purchased by Republic and assigned to Associate Producer Franklin Adreon as the second of five western films to star Rex Allen. * * * Raoul Walsh leaves for England to seek locations and backgrounds for "Captain Hornblower," which he will direct for Warner Bros. The picture is based on the famous character in C. S. Forrester's best-selling novels, and most of the filming will be done at the Elstree Studios in London. No cast or producer has been set. Hi ^ * Another director on his way to England and points East is Victor Saville. He is setting up final preparations for Technicolor filming of MGM's "Kim." Actual locations described in the Rudyard Kipling classic are to be used. Leon Gordon is producing, with the cast to date including Errol Flynn and Dean Stockwell, who will portray Kim. Frieda Inescort and Sheppard Strudwick have been named for supporting roles in the forthcoming Paramount film, "An American Tragedy." Engel Riding Herd With TZ Scripters on JO Films Constituting a virtual one-man revival of scripting prosperity, 20th Century-Fox Producer Sam Engel is currently riding herd on a round dozen writers working on treatments and screenplays for 10 high-budget pictures slated on Engel's production schedule for 1949-50. The producer is working with Charles Marquis Warren on preparation of "Royal Canadian Mounted Police Story," Eleanore Griffin on "The Foreign Service Story," John Collier on "21 Bow Street," Phoebe and Henry Ephron on "The Jackpot," Philip iCharlot and Leonard Hoffman on "International Criminal Police Story," Dudley Nichols on "Ransom," Art Cohn on "FBI of Horse Racing," Richard Wormser on "Fire," Dale Eunson on "Accustomed As I Am," and Gwen Davenport on "Spare the Rod." Engel is also producing "Night And The City," currently before the cameras in London. Technicians, Stars, Off for Africa Location A crew of skilled film technicians and three top screen personalities have been dispatched to Equatorial Africa by MGM for the filming of H. Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines," 90 per cent of which will be made in the heart of the Dark Continent. The stars are Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson. A staff of nine men, including Director Compton Bennett and Cameraman Robert Surtees, already is in Nairobi, making final plans for the start of filming Oct. 17. Rights to 'Old 880' Acquired by 20th-Fox Twentieth Century-Fox has acquired screen rights to "Old 880," an account by St. Clair McKelway of the career of a counterfeiter who confined himself to the manufacture of a few onedollar bills as he needed them. The story was published recently in the New Yorker, based on Treasury Department Files. Julius Blaustein is scheduled to produce the film, and Edmund Gwenn and Walter Huston are reportedly being considered for the leading role. W id mark Added to 'No Way Out' Richard Widmark has been set for an important role in 20th-Fox's "No Way Out," which will star Anne Baxter. The story deals with the ordeal of a Negro interne in a metropolitan hospital when a patient who has insulted him dies under his hand. Vidor to Direct King Vidor will direct Warners' "Lightning Strikes Twice," adapted by Lenore Coffee from Margaret Echard's novel, "Man Without Friends." Myrna Loy Set Myrna Loy will appear opposite Clifton Webb in 20th-Fox's screen version of "Cheaper by the Dozen." Sensible Exploitation Salient Box-Office Factor A successful motion picture must have several important attributes to make it "box-office" — a good story, top-quality performances and direction, a professional production job and, most of all, sensible exploitation. After 20 years as an actor and now also a producer with two Republic pictures to his credit ("Angel and the Badman" and "The Fighting Kentuckian"), John Wayne is well qualified to speak with authority. Exploitation, he feels, is a very important ingredient in box-office success and should be carried on vigorously by producers, distributors and exhibitors. "Regarding the stories," he said in an exclusive STR interview, "I think that any yarn which deals simply with genuine and significant people can be developed into a good film. I also believe that short stories, through their very brevity, make the best motion pictures, for they aren't cluttered-up with contrived situations that add nothing to the picture as a whole. Hackneyed situations, characterizations and dialog are, of course, unfailing signs of a poor picture, no matter how expensive it is. You can fool the public once or twrice by camouflaging the same old plot with big-star names and lavish production, but essentially it is a short-sighted and extravagant policy . . . and even good exploitation won't help put it across." Wayne, for the past 2 years among the 10 top box-office stars by exhibitor acclaim in STR's "Leaders of the Motion Picture Industry" poll, believes that "as a producer one must protect and enhance the value of a film with a big star, but I do not believe in overloading the production with a number of big names. For one thing, it's a needless drain on the budget and, too, the public wants to see new faces." John Wayne