Variety (March 1944)

Weilnesdayt M»rch 1, 1944 PICT0IIES Barrington Gain Says Facilities For New Distrib Not Available Now Barrington Gain, No. 2 man in the J. Arthur Rank organization, fol- lowing a surve.v of American mar- ket potentialities for British films, yesterday (Tuesday) told "Variety" that he has found that physical facilities for the proposed Rank dis- tribution setup were not available .In the XI. S. at this time. ' 6ain,'-'.who denied reports: that Arthur W. Kelly, head of Eagle-Lion Films (Rank sul>sid) was stepping out as head of this unit, stated that the Rank organization hoped ''event- ually" to set up its own distribution system m the U.. S. Several, proposals, are now under | consideration - by Rank, Gain . re- ported, and decision will be made in due. course as how the British orr ganization IS to operate in America. ■While, Gain said, the new Eagle- Lion unit was at the moment but a nucleus: it is planned to expand ''ultimately." suit of his survey, that there was -a ' substantial market for British prod- I uct in the U. S. | Kelly, meantime, left N. Y. for the Coast last Monday (28). He stated, prior, to. departure, that he planned to line up several inde- pendent producers under pai'tner-; ship—releasing arrangements; with product to be distributed by Eagle- Uon Films. Kelly from accounts, has a five- yew pact with'the Rank organiza- tion. Gain plans to return , to England shortly to make his full repoit to Rank. A Hot Problem .How to Ivoep c;io! in summer ■ is,,-.^ ' ■.problem.:-, worry|iig, {.'.film; ■hQiise dperatpr.s, with hot weatiieirV in' the; offing' ju-.u refrigeration .fluids .tied .lip ;by ;;waEti.iiid prioi"i- ■■;tiiBSv '. Freezing.iTii.xtur^.'i^ manufactured m large quantities for essential military use but not for theatres. Film circuits are flgaring on reviving the old system of blower 'tans over cakes of ice to lure customers into theatres when the weather heats up. U. S. Curious On Korda s Interest In UA and Metro U. S; Department of Justice is re- ported .iiive.stigating the interests which Sir: Alexander Korda has in both United Artists and in Metro's British production organization. Understood . tliat Wendell Berge; chief of the Department's anti-trust division, is questioning the situation because, of Korda's veto power m UA while at the same time under a long term contract to M-G. ■ Korda from, accounts, has a ftve- year contract , with: Metro with an option for an. additional-five years. It is said to include a profit- participation arrangement. Believed that the Government is going into the situation to deter- mine whether or not Korda's interest in both companies is of a nature which would be contrary to anti- trust provisions. Berge, and more" recently: U. S. Attorney General Francis Bitldle. are also alert to any. : possible "cartel", combinations which may start either now:or after the war. . PRC'S'MINSTREL MAN' —REACHING EEIC STAGE Hollywood, Feb. 29. PRC's "Minstrel Man," starring Benny Fields; is growing into, an am- bitious production, climbing from $80,000, its original budget, to; more than $200,000, a terrific figure on i that lot. Original orchestra of 20 pieces has been increased to 42, with Ferde Grofe wielding the baton. 'One heavy item of expense, was'the. film rights to the song,' "Melancholy Baby." KORDA ARRIVES IN N.Y4 HUDDLES MAYER EAST Sir Alexander Korda arrived in New York Monday (28) from Eng- land and will confer with Louis B. Mayer upon the latter's arrival from Hoilywood nox'. week. ' K oi is scheduled to stay in .N., Y. arolihct two \\pel;^ bPlore lefuiuin^ to Eng- land, IS meantime, huddling witk United Artists execs. His first production for Metro in England, "Perfect Strangers," rolls at the Denham studios next..week. Merle Oberon (Lady Korda); is duei in .New York this week. Ma ,;;' wh6 :;:yQj U Prexy in N. Y. Nate Blumberg, president of Uni- versal, has arrived in New York for five weeks of business cbnferences. While in ISSanhattaa he wil attend the meetings on thfr bas]ie lat>or agreement, scheduled to open March 6. Terrific Amus. Tax Collections Indicate Peak Show Kz m Dec. $imOOO Loan For Monogram Pix ; Hollywood. Feb. 29. Monogram's program of expansion has been greatly fortified by iSigriing new loan arrangements which will give the company itp ta $1.000.00(> credit for the period of one year. W, iRay,' Johrtstoi):, .president, and, George D. Burrows, v.p., announced tha.i the'.' credit will, be managed by SfecurityrFirst.; N'ational Bflnk hefe and participants in the deal are .Galj- fornia Bank of Los Angeles and Guaranty Trust CO. of New York. Eight new "A" pictwres are on the Monogram roster instead of si.v. in line with the new eiiqpansion .sched- itle„ announced by officials at a New ■r k saloq m o oting l a st month .— . $40,000 'Ape' Metio, 20th-Fo.x and David O. Seimisk are dickering for the screen rights 'to "The Delicate Ape," novel by .Dorothy ; Hughes. . Bidding reported in the. vicinity ot mom. There Goes Your Lake Hollywood. Feb. 29. -Among the' recent. ■:Storm casualties was an artificial lake, con.structed at a cost of $4,000 by 00 technicians and laborers for Columbia's "Mr. Winkle Goes to War" location in the hills, and wiped. out . in one nighi' toy .'fllrsl.'; Nature. . .;.;''.' . It will cost $4,000 more to build a new lake; REPORT WM. FOX PLANS PIX COMEBACK POSTWAR William Fox is planning to return to the film industry though possibly not.m any direct line of activity such as he was before as president of. the old Fox company. According to intimates, he is re ported wor king on a new develop - ment for pictures that would prob- abiy be introduced immediately alter tlie war is over. There is no indication as to what Fox has up his. sleeve but believed it may be an- other attempt at a wide-screen. He was active many years ago in trying to bring about a wide-screen for aU pictures and theatres. The Wrong Way Washington, Feb. 29. Show biz went through the roof in ; December, with a record-breaking; $167,400,000 for the nation. Figure is reflected in the $16,744,936 ■ in admissions taxes paid to the Bu-': reau of Internal Revenue last month ; and reported last week. Total is es- '' timated to be abolff 90% pix. and also includes legil, nitories, etc. Tax collection will remain a record until it is broken when the April figures come out in June. The 20% rate which goes into effect April 1 will send the tax soaring, although it;' will not reflect comparable business. To show how the industry is now. riding the clouds, the taxes collected fo/ December, 1942, biz amounted to only .$11,728,489. New York also did a sock job at the b.o. in December. 1943. Returns . for the Third New York Revenue Dis- tricf. all of Manhattan above 23rd street, show taxes of $3,033,552, as ■ contrasted with $546,463, the same ' month a year earlier. To this total, Man hattan ticket specs added an- . TmrR-$22,897-tonjncle-Sanrs~Bifer^— Broadway's niteries, jammed to the ■ eaves, turned in $232,151 to the , Treasury, which is something extra special. It will be interesting to see whether the new 30% tax on night club tabs total-six times the above figure, which is at the 5%.: rate. Coin operated devices fell off In December, with $322,818 in taxes as against $413,111 « year before. Tax on phonograph records sold arbuiid the country in December was a lustv ' $256,235. ; Hollywood sticking it^ head in the sand to watch the parade go by is not an amusing spectacle at this day and date. It's too much like the Hollywood which has been ceasele&sly kidded. ' Specifically, we're talking about the re- cently reported studio edict issued on the Coast that (1) no picture which has not- been on release for one year shall be avail- able for radio broadcasting, and (2) no star shall be allowed to participate, in the broad- casting of any other studio's film. According to "Variety's" information four companies subscribe to this bifarious studio attitude toward radio. They are Warners, Metro, Paramount, and Columbia. Each of them currently has plenty tied up in. mu- sical pictures. Musical films pop to the front right away because they will obviously be the first ob- jective of any counter-attack radio may care to launch. But maybe Hollywood thinks radio is helpless in the matter? Hollywood will find out. Pictures, a business which lives on and by publicity, is again dangerously close to completely banning its product and stars to one of the greatest, and certainly the fast- est, publicity mediums ever devised. The idea is ridiculous. Why? Because three successive weeks of bad business in the theatres and every studio on the Coast will be begging to get back on the air. It was only in the issue of Feb. 2nd that "Variety" reprinted one of Sime's 1930 edi- "tTJTials, a paragraph-of which-saidi '- Bipirs Tax Troubles To Have Day in Court Hollywood. Feb. 29. Willie Bioff's . federal, income tax> evasion case i.<: set for March '4^be- fore Judge Ralph E. Jennev, accord- ing to Charles H. Carr, U. S. At- torney for this district. Carr made the statement to deny a .published report ;fr6»iii''C tilt' .ease had been 'quashed by : the Dept. of .Justice, .He, declared the ac- tion could not be dismissed by Wash- ington Ijetore consulting local ofli- cittls. "// the picture hiisiness is so new that it has bragged over its profit last year, with- out knowing what it is going to he this year, that should be the lesson jor that. Nor should the picture man he obsessed with the erroneous belief the general public depends upon him jor entertainment. This country thrived before pictures." So here is another example of the picture business feeling its weight, intending to throw that weight around, and absolutely ignoring that good will. Within and without the trade, is not won or held by arrogance. The short-sightedness of this latest anti- radio order is either disheartemng or ag- gravating, depending how you look at it. It makes a Hanley Stafford of us because in this instance Hoilywood is doing a Baby Snooks, except that it's riot funny, ■ If the studios get too fresh, radio can make them pay through the nose for their impudence. All the networks have to do is order all tunes from pictures off their webs, then let the studios' music house affiliates take the long way around plugging their songs. And supposing radio gets sore enough to try and induce sponsors to en- tirely give up doing excerpts from pictures? How many one year old films mean any- thing on the air anyway, and under these circumstances what would the sponsors care? The whole thing can lead to a senseless battle and pictures would be in the wrong. It would be wrong because it -would be trying to isolate itself from other branches of showbusiness at a time when there was never more need, and opportua[iity, for the interlocking of all of these branches. "Restraining stars from broadcasting in any other studio's pictures." Doesn't a good picture from any studio help all studios? Help the industry? Has anyone stopped to remember that? How much does a studio spend annually to publicize a star, a star that goes on the air in someone else's pic- ture? Why is that hard to take? Here's 50, 60, 80, 100 radio stations for nothing. Where does it hurt? When has it hurt? Name a picture so hurt. It's reported that Warners and Metro have a special reason for wanting to hold back product and players from broadcast- ing, that each of these two studios would like to sell package deals to a sponsor.. Which is any studio's privilege. But why antagonize people in the doing? Anyway, that explains Warners' and Metro's notio n of how to g o abou t setting up a radio deal. This leaves Paramount and Columbia, each with their top cost mu- sicals about to burst around the country. Are these two going to turn down chances to get either of their pictures on the air or the songs from these films? The Kate Smith show did a scene from a Paramount picture last week and announced another one, from the same company, for this week. The whole thing doesn't make sense. For that reason Hollywood better stick one thing m its hat. They used to estimate, in good times, that 80;000,000 people weekly attended the picture theatres in this coun- try. Right now it's probably more than that. No matter. Whatever that total at- tendance figure may be, let Hollywood re- member that radio plays to more people in two nights than pictures do in a week. Friend, that'.s- publicity. The fastest in the world. That helps make pictures tick. Why wind the clock the hard way? Sid. WarDepLtoOK Scripts on Jap Atrocity Films Washingtem, Feb. 29. War Department has ceme through with new directive on Jap atrocity films, allowing Hollywood a wide leeway in producing the pictures. Ruling , provides that Jap atrocity Sims, which include sections dealing with the Army, shall be reviewed here in scenario form, just as other war pix are. However, there \vill»be no effort to curb atrocity sequences so long as they are probable and in line with the facts. Directive was requested by Allyn Butterfield, who reviews stories for the Army, so that the industry could know exactly where it stood. 'There will be no trouble." Butter- Seld said, "so-long.as the studios use reason and don"t go hog wild The scripts and films will be reviewed' the same as other war pictures." Butterfield said he was waiting to see the. : finished ■ versions of ■ Re* public's "Death IVIarch," and 20th- Fox's, "Purple Heart." While OWI set up its policy on the atrocity pix on the Coast couple ot weeks back, this is the first pro- nouncement from the Army since the disclosure of the mistreatment of prisoners after the surrender at Bataan. I^ome time back, the Army created a policy for newspaper stories on atrocities which called for them to be based on accurate first hand_expetiences_and_pers£mal_Efe^ ports. Butterfield pointed out, how- ever, that this would,not fit Holly- wood since films are primarily fictional in nature. 4 RKO THEATRES^ FEB. 22 RECORD, TOPS NEW YR. RKO Theatres circuit hit an all- time high for gross receipts in the New York houses last Tuesday (22), Washington's Birthday. Some 40 RKO houses grossed $115,000 for the .day as compared with around $70,000 New Year's. 'Touhy' Facelifted By 20th for FBI Approval Hollywood. Feb. 29. After six months on the shelf, "Roger Touhy," 20th-Fox prison pic- tuie, 1, being revised by Bryan Foy to meet the approval of the FBI. Federal bureau ob,icctod to several sequenees. cJeislihg with tlie, gangs^^^ escape .and' siib.sequont.capture. Pic- tu're; v;ill be relea.scd if riGcesSary de-. letion.s, added scenes are okayed.