Variety (Apr 1946)

PICTURES WcJpcwIay, April 3, 194^ Par Spearheading General Industry !|| ism Newsreeiers Move to Dissolve Theatre Pools RoK;;rdlcss of tbc final oulconie of Iho U. S. imti-li'iisl siiil li^'ainsl the I protUn;er-dislribiitoi"S. the disiJOPition on the part of the majors is to seek early dissolution of pools as con- Iracis run out or b'y miiluiil consent. Paraniounl. which is spearWad- Ing such a move and has already dropped pools In Brooklyn and Min- neapolis, is preparing; to eliminate llie one whicli CNists with Warner Bros, in Philadelphia. Par has four hoiiscs there pooled vvith WB, latter operatin;;. They are the Tower: Boo.scvclt, Nixon and Frankfort. Pre- viously Par di.ssolvcd it!i pool lyith RKO over two jyiiiiineapolis hoii.ses and, following expiration of the con- tract wilh Si Fabiaai coverini! the Paramount, Brooklyn, reiurncd to direct operation of the latter. Reported that it is Par's intention to dissolve all pooling arranijements ultimately. Of the close to 450 the- atres involved in such operations. P.-.r is repre-sented l>y the larfiesl number. It has pools with all other majors as \vell as various indepen- dehl exhibitors.- Other majors,. LoiDw's, Warners, RKO and National i20th-Fox), have not given so much thought to dis- solution of pooling agreements as has Par but, reported in' some quar- ters, there .seems to be a disposition in this direction. Reminded that the Big Five offei'ed to wind up all .^Is in conniection syith last year's nego- tiations for a new consent decree but that was not enough dc a con- cession lor the Department of Jus- tice. National has the least number of pools. Except lor one with RKO in Kansas City, this 2«th-coiUri>UeU cir- cuit is mostly hooked up oil partner- ships, or leasing arrangements. . Loew's is pooled with Par and others, including independents in N. Y. City,' Brooklyn, Waterbury, J Conn.. AtlaiUa, Louisville, Buffalo; Niagara Falls, Columbus and Pitts- burgh. Similar arrangem.ents with War- ners exists in Brooklyn, Philadel- phia. Pittstnu'gh, CtevetaiuJ;, Youngs- towo, O., and Jamestown, N. Y., ■while RKO is hooked up, again with Par and others, in Rochester, Troy, New York City, Btwklyn, Forest Hills. L>; L, Newark, Kansas City. Sioux. City, Denver and in various smaller Michigan towns. Van Dniten Tunis 'Turtle' Hollywood. April 2. Warners n?imcd John van Drtilcn to direct the screen vorsioh.of "The Voice of the Tiirtle," which he authored for the stage. Producer of the lilhv will be Alfred de Lia^rc, Jr., vvho iiioducccl the legit oiV; Broadway. Symbolic Bway TowerTeesOff Cancer Drive Korda-Grant InKe Proi Deal First Of Series of Units Co- production partnership ar- ranscmciit made with Cary Grant is first of a series of such deals slated to be announced within the next few wcck.<; by .\lexandcr Korda. British producer, while on the Coast recently, entered into pact with a number o£ both men and women name players to .star arrd share -in producing pix to be made primarily in England. Unusual feature of the Grant deal, which will likewise mark the others, is that interiors will be shot either at one of the two Korda studios in Englsnd or in. the U. S:. whichever suits the circumstances better. Grant., ill addition, says he aims to Aim, ex- teriors in the actual locale of the story, no mattisr where it Is, al- though that is seen as hardly teas- ible. Grant plans lo join Korda in Lon- don late this year, with production program .set to get underway early in \%Vl. Partnership arrangement doesn't aflcct Grant's current com- mitments with RKO. Korda is currently vacationing In Bermuda. He returns to New. York April 1.5 for four, days prior to go- ing to London. ; Film, industry's participation in the April driv.e of the Anxerican i Cai\cer Society got under way. in I Times Square. N. Y., yesterday (Tuesday) with dedication of . a ! symbolic tower by Gen. John Reed Kilpatrick. metropolitan - campaign ehairmait (or 1946. and pi'ez of Madi- son Sq. Garden Corp.. Nationwide theatre collections are slated to ;run from April 21-28. in an effort to help raise the $12,006,000 nationwide goal for this year. Times Square Tower, which \vill, be iised by the film industry through- out the campaign, was ofCicially ac- cepted • lor the ■ indtistry by Chai'les P. Skouras, national chairman. At- tending the ceremonies were Mayor William O'Dwyer, Orson -WcUesi Carole Lahdi.s and Dean Jagger. In a grand finale to the ceremonies. Bill Robin.son. current star of the Zanzibar. N. Y. nitery. tap-danced from Times Square to the Zanzibar on a ti-uck. accompanied by -Claude Hopkins and his orch and a group of Powers and Conover models. Carl Erbe and Bernard M. Kam- ber, . CO - producers of the big show of .stage, screen, night club and radio stars, scheduled for Car- negie Hall, N.. Y., April 19, named Ed Sullivan, N. \. Daily News col- umnist, as emcee for .the show. Sul- livan will also act a.s co-prbducer. Show, one hour of which will be broadcast over several major net- work.s, will be sponsored by the.in- dustry's-cancer division and will .sci-ve as an intro to the theatre col- lections during Easter Week, Erbe and Kamber are currently lining up other theatre and nitery owners to help stage the afTair. Max A. Cohen. Cinema Circuit prexy. was iiamed melropolitan area chairman for the Blister Week drive. Harry Brandt, special a<lviser to the national committee, has been named metropolitan area treasurer. BOB TAPUNGER Vf. OF WANGER PRODS. Hollywood, April 2. Further expansion of Walter Wanger's grov.ing filnv production enterprises was' .indicated today with the announceihent that Robert S. Taplinger has been appointed v.p. of Walter anger's Pictures, Inc. Taplinger comes from a pro- ducer's post at Columbia Pictures, which he recently resigned to enter the independent production Held. In his new association, he will pro-, duce and take over a heavy part of executive, prodiiction duties, to per- mit Wanger to spread bis personal activities more Avidely over his varied film interests Apart from the coiripany which bears liis name. Wanger is , asso- ciated with producc.r-director Fritz Lnng and Joan Bennett in the Diana I Corp.,. and vvith .Ingrid Bergman in ; the newly formed EN Corp; In ad- WOtFSON SEZ WONETCO I dition, he is branching into llim /n A liAT pAn oai n 'y'"*'''"^*'''" 'or .schools*and colleges IrLilJ NUl... rUK SALE Anieriea Film.s, Inc. Miami, April 2. Taplinger. just returned from New York, brings .several personally ^ Rumor of . .s.-ile of the Womt-tco .acquired story propcities to be made thcatiie. Cham ,m .south Florida i.s available to the Wanger comp;my. deniet by Miichell Wolf.son, head of .His own original story. "AllV; the circuit Trade reports had it I Ashore ■ that the chain was negotiating a deal with a major film company. "We are not cgntomplatiiig going «utsidc of our prcseot .setup for produetT he said, "and we'll coi> tinue our buying as we have in the past" Woinetco uses 20lh-Fox, Co- lumbia. Universal and United Artists product , recently was purchiiscd by -Metro for Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson. Dur- ing the war Taplinger .served thriec years as ofticer in the Ur S. Navy Photographic Service, which ho helped organize for the Secretary of the ^favy. Previously hff' was ex- ecutive assistant, to Harry Cohii, prez of Cpliimbia Pictures. CouthiuiMl from page 3 ; months* contracts with optioiis. Fee will vary according t6 location,-po- tential- audience, seating capacity, I etc.. but will be aroinid $3.5 to $50 ' a week. Levcn Itopcs to make an exhibitor out ol the same type of sinall businessman who miyht open a Tilling station and promise him about the s<>me veturii—$75 or $100 a week in a good location. With ah owncr-opci-ator all union regu- lations will be eliminated. Levcn states following a check with vari- ous-^siborbotliies. He s*cs an bwncr- opc'-ator running hi.s. hou,sc about 10 hours a day. Admis.sions will vai-y with the corrip«titiv'e situa- tion, ranging from a dime - to a quarter. Financing of Natco is no prob- lem, .since National Industries, parent holding company, through its subsid, Helene Curtis Industries, is Car and away the world's largest maker 6f hair dryers, permaneint wave machines and all the other gadgets that go into beauty shops. It even makes the sinks and lurni- ture, as \yell as cosmetics. for the trade. Founded and owned by Ger- ald and Willard Giflwitz, 39 and 37 years old. respectively. National. In- dustries has had hurled at'it anti- trust charges .that it. controls 89% of the beauty equipment business-i.n the U. S. It owns two large fac- tories and just acquired the. Bendix plant in Chicago from the Govern- ment for $2.1a«,00« , to hou.se 1.500 employees manufacturing the pro- jection equipment. Navy SlarUd *Em Out lit got into motion picture ap- paratus biz via the war -when it was called on by the Navy to convert some of its facilities to making pVojcctors. With a large' experi- mental lab and tool shop, its en- gineers designed a new type liSm machine. When the war was over, the Gidwit-.:cs planned . to (orect projectors and go back 100% to beauty equipment. Shortage of 16m machines for school and comroercial use. however, brought many, calls "on them to continue -their manu- facture. Then Leven came along with the-autolnatic theatre idea and the engineering lab' v,ient to work once-more, with the Gidwitz. broth- ers going into the business whole- hog. Leven had been an exec- of the Coast chain, of Telenews ^newsreel) theatres, owned, by Hert>ert Scheftel, Design of the new machine is highly ingenious and completely difterent from flhn jukeboxes of the past. Special rdwinder is provided with it and film must be wound on special' reels to provide a continuous loop. Solenoid switch reverses the reels when one gets empty and the other full. It is claimed that a test machine has 'been operating contin- uously for months without a break- down except, occasional film break- age. To avoid breakage. National Industries' chemical lab is said to have developed a liquid automatical- ly brushed on the fllrii every three clays or so, which keeps it from get- ting brittle. Jubepix Alse In addition to the device for auto- matic theatres, Natco will turn out a film jukebox, with or without a coin device, and rear projection macliines for advertising films in stores, windows, etc. Automatic theatres and all the projection equip- ment will be handled bf the Helene Ciu-tis staff of 400 salesmen through- out the counti-y. If difficulty is eveotually encoun- tered in getting product Levcn •said, Gidwitz brothers are prepared to make deals with Hollywood in- dies for special pictures. Tliey are particularly interested in streamlined features, such as Hal Roach turned out and Arthur Kelly-Charles Chap- lin and Buddy Rogers are now mak- ing. Experiments are taking pUce with a device to use bigger reels and make longer show-s pos-sible or a two projector system with an automatic changeover. Exhibs are also free, Leven said, to meke deals /or u.se -of 16m ad-^ yertising films to supplement their nicome, Arrangements tor major product will be made by .exhibs with local exchanges, but the film will be air.Tiailed directly from New Yprk. Liberty Gets Barrymore HoUydood, April 2. Lionel eari^morc was signed by Liberty Films,, on loanout from Metro, for a top feartured. role in "It's a Wonderful Life."' Frank Capra will produce the pic- ture, which cc-stai-s James Stewart and Donna Reed. Johnston to Fight U^. Conunerce Dept. Move to Demote' Status of Fibn Biz Gen. Munson Honored .■Washington, .\prii 2, MPAA is preparing to (iKhl pijms of the- Commerce and State Dci);irl- mcuts to "dempte" the statii.s of comniercial motion pictures in their - pr;{anizatiohs as disclosed last \veck.- Eric Johnston expects to luiddic 'Red'Spots in Pix Dazzle Eyes OF Canada Solons Washington, April 2. Legion of Merit was awarded last week to Brig.-Gen. Edward L. Mun- j son for his work as head of the 1 , . , _ Army Special Services Division-1 t'"S week-.with SecreUiry or G«n). later known as the information .'"Prcc Henry A. Wallace to prev.-iit branch of the Morale Division.. . rthc euinmcrce motion p.clnic „nit. Citation siiid in part ihc award i headed by Nathan D;, Golden, n-om was for his ''dissemination of in-.| >"S'"8-. its autonomy. Feeling at formation to trwips by means of i MPAA is. th it the Commorcr sit- ladio. film and publication': and for 1 nation 'S. the most cnliciil ;ind creating the organization to do the should be halted without dcliiy, »l- yyoplt though contact has alj-eady bfOn made with Assistant Socretiii-y v->f State. Will L. Clayton vogardinj; the. proiJO.sed move downstairs of pi.x iii that agency. Several Los Angelc.s, conRi-o.--.>:i-i-icn hiivc also interested theniselvv.-i -in the matter and Inve writlon. to ilie departments ;n protest Thoy .nie afraid that pictures, wliicli dcpciid upon the export market for -lb*; of their gro.ss, will 'Tot get lIVo help . Jhey deserve, from the two (lepiirt- . nicnts under the new arran.!;('ii-iont.. One MPAA spokesman said of tlie ' proposed Commerce dept.' swili-iV: j "This would definitely be :i Hi mo- lion for the industry. \yp will try I to have the lonit maintained ,:is a separate entity. ■'In other ,c6-vintrics Rovernnionla glorify their motion picture indiis- trie.s. We mast hot let ours be de- moted in Washington. The indiisliy must maintain its proper .-taiuting with the Government." , As the Commerce motion pieliire (liiit .stands today, it is only two .steps boiow the office of the Secre- tary of . Commerce, .so Golden (-;in carry his fights for the indu.stiy dir reetly to the top. Under the pro- po.sed change, it would be live lay- ers removed from the top. delinitoiy weakening its position. Ttie clianMc . would move it into a General Prod- ucts Division which would contain a lio<lgepodge of non-related items, including typewriters, otiice furni- ture, etc. ' . . In the Slate Department, plan Ls to end . the iiidcpchdcnt coinni.ixlity status of pix and move it into :i large unit built on a gcogrnphicul biisis. Montreal, April 2. The old cry of "Reds under the bed" was. rai.sed today '2) in the Provincial Legislature...Both Premier Maurice Diiplessis and Liberal op-: position leader Adelard Godboiit charged that the Reds were running rampant in the National. Fihn Board and that the tenor of the NFB (llms did not. meet the iequireincnls of the province. The charges were filing vi'hcn the Government brought in a bill to set up a Provi.iicial Publicity Bureau which will include film production. Both leaders claimed that .some of the NFS. flickers had Cnmmiini.stic tendencies with the Premier adding that the censors had received in- structions to snip any Red-matter' that the Reds on the film board might sneak in. The bill was pas.se<l unanimously. Usual Fall Guys Federal bodies like the CBC. NFB. and Canadian Information Service .(revamped . Wartime . Information Board) ai-e eonstint targets for Canadian politics. The spy probe where it was discovered' that some of the .suspects were at one time associated with these oiitlits, has aggravated the .situation. . These outfits are also often char- ged with being propaganda machiiies for the Liberal government iii jjower in Ottawa. Only over the weekend, the opposition. Progressive Conser- vatives meeting in annual conven- tion in Ottawa made this charge again.st the NFB. CBC and CIS and said an investigation of the three bodies would be asked in the House of Commons. Schine Adds Another Hotel; Hern^ Bobbins Into Resort Biz Also J. Meyer Schine added another hotel last week to the four he al- ready owns and to the Schine chain of 160 upstate New York theatres, Latest acquisition is the. 17-stoi-y RiU-Carlton. Atlantic City, at a price of $2,250,000. Schine said there would be no Chang? in the present Rilz nianafie- nient. Other hotels he owns are the Roney Plaza. Miami Beach: BocS Raton, Boca Raton, Fla.: .McAllister, Miami; and the Ten Eyek, Albany N. Y. Syndicate headed by John Hay 'Jock) Whitney, is .said to be ire- claiming the Boca Riiton from Schine with the iitlention of making it a public coimtry club. Another showman, Herman Rob- bins, head-of National Screen Serv- ice, is planning to convert his 96- iirooin estate, Robbins Roost, on Lake Champlain,'N. y.. into a resort Inn. His son, Normiin, recently out of service,. will be. man.iger. Harry Brandt and a syndicate last year .similarly went into the iip.stiite N<!w York resort business, buying the Sagamore Inn.- on Lake George. BROCK TO EEIN SLIPPY' . Hollywood, .^pril 2. -Republic handed Lou Brock pro- duction, reius on "Slippy McGec," based on a novel by Marie Conway Ocml^r, ■» Albert KcUey .will direct and Don- ald Barry will play the male lead, starting May 15. L A. to N. Y. Murray Baker Diana Biirrymorc Charles Boycr Norman Corwiii ^. Cheevcr Cowdin Raymond Crp.s.sctt Joan Dalryinplc .lack Dcmpsey Ray Evans Phil Pi.scher F.d Gcrshman Lillian Gish Robert Goldstein. Martin Goscli June. Haver Mann Holincr Jose Iturbi Charles Kullman Jay Livingston J; G. Mayer Louis B. Mayer E. J. Manhix Ray Mcnhannick Normare Moray Maury Paiil AI Pcarce ' Brock Pcmbertoi) Artie Schwartz Robert Sherwood Frank Sinatra Edna Skinner Jo Stafford Axel Stordahl .loan Tetzcl Harold Vcrmilyca J. k. WaUace Marcia Walter Glenn Wealoit Lawrence Weingarlen 'Vera Zorina N. Y, to L. A. Neil F. Agnew Morey Davidson Robert Gessncr Ilerbert R. Mayes ArfhuV Michaud .Tames ■ A. Mulvcy Robert J. Ncwmuii Mark NiewmDii Edward C. Raflcry Lnna Turner Harry M. Warner Jack L. Warner N. Y. to LONDON iPlaiie) Leland Iliiyward Joseph HaMn Harry Kosincr Steven Pallos Hal -Wallis