Variety (Feb 1947)

Wefcerfsy* Feferamy 5, 1947 INDIE P A Meet Vows to Wage ffwood Figlit Until Full Recognition Is Aclnewd Seattle, Feb. 4, 4 The Hollywood labor situation was reviewed by the International Al- liance of Theatrical Stage Employees at its regular' midwinter sessions held throughout the week, with agreement reached to continue the jurisdictional fight until full recogni- tion is given IA's position. Organi- zation of television was also dis- cussed at length. IA prez Kichard Walsh told Variety that an aggres- sive campaign was being mapped but specific plans were not an- nounced. General routine appeals were on, the agenda, ' Reports of vicepresi- dents attending showed thafe. ali locals were in sound condition, with members fully employed and many locals recently having negotiated new contracts with satisfactory wage increases. ■<. ' " Move to organize' 16m and jl5m commercial workers in Washington and Oregon as members of the IA was launched. As part of the pro- gram, members are to be.trained in photography suitable for television broadcasts, which Robert : Priebe, manager of KRSC, recently an- nounced may begin next week.*. ' : Walsh left Saturday XI) for Holly- wood. General secretary-treasurer William P. Raoul and nine vice- prexies attended sessions, with a banquet given today (4). Buyer Saks Eat Pact Hollywood,' Feb. 4. Enterprise handed Charles Boyer a player contract calling for two pictures annually for seven years. First chore under the new pact will be in a Lewis Milestone produc- tion* still untitled and slated to roll in April. After that, Boyer will fly to France for his first visit since 1939, when he was released from the French army. Fox Theatres Trustees - Settle Old Claim oi Stock BuyiaN.Y.for 250G Claim of the trustees of Fox Thea- tres Corp., longtime bankrupt, against United Artists Theatre Cir- cuit and Skouras Theatre Corp., has been settled in the New York fed- eral court for "$250,000. With the approval of Judge John C. Knox, the two theatre chains will pay over that sum to Kenneth P. Steinrich and Leopold Porrino, FTC trustees, to wind up purchase of the class A stock of Metropolitan Playhouses, Inc., originally put through in 1934. Under the terms of- the '34 deal, the two theatre circuits pacted for the stock at an overall price of $850,000, of which FTC's share was fixed at $150,000, theft paid to the company's receiver. FTC'S/oreditors subsequently objected to the prop- osition and spun out the long legal tangle until the added $250,000 was finally* agreed upon. Additional coin will be distributed to FTC's creditors and stockholders by the trustees. MPA Surveys Labor Picture ■ Hollywood, Feb. 4. ' New survey of Hollywood^; 10 major studios is being conducted by the Motion Picture Assn. to ascer- tain the number of workers on the lots and to get a clearer view of the overall labor situation. Most recent survey, nine months ago, showed 21,000 employes, but conditions have changed considerably during that period. Unofficial opinion is that the number of workers has decreased. Production schedules on the big lots have been cut down, partly because of heavy backlogs and partly be- cause of the trimming of "B" prod- uct. Members of the MPA are Metro, Paramount, Warners, 20th-Fox, Co- lumbia, Goldwyn, RKO, Republic, Hal Roach and Universal-Interna- tional. These studios employ about 75% of the industry's personnel. Non-members of the MPA, em- ploying the other 25%, are Mono- gram, Eagle-Lion, PRC, Enterprise, Disney, General Service, Techni- color,' Cinecolor and several others. LACK IF STARS DELAYS FILM CStt ACCEPTS IBEW . LOCAL'S RESIGNATION Hollywood, Feb. 4. Withdrawal from Conference of Studio Unions of Local 40, Interna- tional Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, has been accepted, with CSU contending that the local lost its autonomy when the international took over local last week. • Screen Actors Guild membership held second vote of confidence, Sup- porting action of board of directors in current strike. Members had been asked to vote in secret ballot refer- endum on three questions dealing with SAG policy and plan of inter- faith council calling for national AFL leaders to effect settlement of jurisdictional fight. Famniis With Cartooaists Guild Famous Studios, animated car-toon producers, signed a One-year con- tract with the Screen Cartoonists 'Guild in New York last week (31) providing for a 25% hike in wages. Pact also called for two-week vaca- tions, severance pay of one-half day per month of service and sick leave. New basic minimums are $125 per week for animators, $75 for assistant animators, $125 for scripters, $44 for painters and $103 for cameramen. SCG is currently carrying on nego- tiations with Terry-tune Studios, New Rochelle, N. Y. UA PRODUCTION OF Til MULLED BY BIGGIES Deal is being mulled,by United Artists execs for production in England of three pictures, according to Dave Coplan, general manager of UA for Great Britain. Coplan ar- rived Monday (3)'on-the Queen Elizabeth for huddles with UA dis- tribution veepee Grad Sears on the possibility. Coplan wouldn't reveal the na- ture or titles of the films, but said that if the deal went through they would be produced and distributed by UA. He added that British film business, although off from wartime peaks by about 6%, is continuing excellent, Coplan will remain in New York for four weeks. .• Independent producers without .di- rect studio affiliations" have been running into trouble recently in lining up name players for their pix. Number of them have been forced to delay production on that account. Difficulty is that rising production costs have made the producers chary of going ahead with films that don't have proven b.o. names. They can't see—nor can their banks and finan- cial backers—investing $1,500,000 or more in a pic that doesn't carry the insurance of a high-ppwered mar- quee draw. • :' A few years back the indies were enabled to attract name players by offering a shar'e of the film's income. That's such an accepted procedure now that It is no particular induce- ment. Stars get so many such offers that they merely sort them out, and some indies necessarily get. passed by in the process. One of the principal reasons, how- ever, for scarcity of players avail- able to unaffiliated producers is the number of stars who own a share of their oiyn units and are tied in with a producer, director and, sometimes, writers, on a regular basis._ .Indies who have no such standing- tieups are the ones who are getting frozen out on star names - . Getting hurt most in the present scuffle for top players are the inter- mediate units, many of which release through United Artists; that can't offer the attraction of a story prop- erty made from a bestseller or Broadway hit and with a production budget up over $2,000,000. dlitiie Drive Against Immoral' ■:.; Psx His Industry Plenty Worried Autry Opens Offices Hollywood, Feb. 4. Gene Autry Productions officially opened offices on the Columbia lot yesterday (3), and Armand Schaefer immediately bought "The . Bar B Stallion" for their indie unit's first production. Shooting is expected to start May 1, with Autry due here Feb. 11 after rodeo dates in Texas. 20th Pays $250,000 For New Sherman Novel Purchase price for Richard Sher- man's novel, "Not So Long Ago," ac- quired by 20th-Fox last week, is understood to be $250,000—the price tag placed on "it "by the agent, Har- old Ober. Darryl Zanuck has as- signed William Perlberg to produce the film, with the tentative starting date set for late this year. Yarn is of the tribulations of a young married couple from the 1933 bank holiday to 1946, with the .final maturing of their love against the background of the times. It will be a five-part Good Housekeeping se- rialization, starting in May, and will •be published as a book by Little Brown next fall. 3 INDIES INCOEP. Hollywood, Feb; 4. Three new indie production com- panies filed incorporation papers here in county clerk's offices. Outfits are Heritage Films, San- tanna Pictures Co. and Ensign Pro- ductions. L.A. City Council Nixes Meddling in Walkont Los Angeles, Feb. 4. City Council refused, by a vote of 11 to 3, to interfere with the studio strike in Hollywood. Civic fathers tossed out a resolution, in- troduced by Councilman John R. Roden, demanding that both sides in the film labor war submit to ar- bitration. Opponents of the resolution con- tended that the Council, is a legisla- tive body*and has no. right to butt into industrial battles. You Too Can Be A Dr.€aUupf«r$S9S Every producer his own Dr. Gallup—at $395—is the offer being made currently by the special prod- ucts division .of General Electric. GE has devised and is selling for $395 an "opinion meter" similar— but considerably simplified—to that used by Gallup's Audience Research Institute for determing reaction of a selected- cross-section audience to each foot of a picture as it rolls by. GE's meter is similar to Gallup's in that each member of the audience holds in his hand a little circular gadget on which can be indicated the degree of enjoyment—or lack of it—of the film as it is thrown on the screen. All of the- reactions from the various "stations," as they are' called, are electrically averaged and indicated. On Gallup's machine, the results are continuously recorded by a stylus device, while on GE's meter they show on a large clock, marked zero to 100, and must ■be copied down. Gallup contraption is used by a flock of producers, including David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn, to assist in editing their pix. Gallup gets a' national cross-section audi- ence together for a preview and pix are cut according to parts these guinea-pig spectators like and dis- like. About 80 persons are used by Gallup. GE gadget comes equipped to handle opinion of 12 people, but additional hand recorders, can be (Continued on page 27) Briefs From the' Lots Hollywood, Feb. 4. Eagle-Lion opened 12 new cutting rooms and will have- two new pro-, jection rooms in operation in three weeks, at 'a total cost ol $150,000 . . . Bobby Driscoll, moppet, inked as Eddie Cantor's son in "If You Knew Susie" at RKO . . . John G. Smith, former jockey and current racetrack steward, signed as technical advisor on racing sequences in Sol Lesser's "Show Me a Land." . . . Joe Her- nandez assigned as background an- nouncer of racetrack scenes in "Gallant Man" at Republic . . . Frank Borzage's next production at Republic will be "Fall oh Your Knees," based on a novel by Mar- tha Cheevers . . . Shimen Ruskin, checked in from New York for a comic role in "Dark Passage" at Warners. PRC inked John Sutherland to produce the next yarn in the "Michael Shayne" series, a mystery with a racetrac'i background, slated to start Feb. 10. William Beaudine will direct, with Hugh . Beaumont continuing in the top role ... Stephen Ames draws production reins on "Sacajawea," tale of the Indian maid "who guided the Lewis and Clark pioneering expedition in the Pacific Northwest. Outdoor scenes will -be filmed in Oregon, in Technicolor. Genevieve - Haugen Nosseck, author of the yarn, is do- ing the screenplay. ' Metro will satirize the whodunits in "The Cuckoo Murder Case," a short subject to be produced by Fred Quimby and directed by Tex Avery . . . Chester Conklir. draws a comic role in "Jesse James Rides Again" at Republic . . . Buddy Shaw suc- ceeded Nick Tro-'.ti as casting di- rector in charge of extras at Re- public . . . Boris Karloff inked for a heavy role in Hunt Stromberg's "Personal Column." . . . Lewis Allen was assigned to direct "For Her to See" at Paramount . . . Warners re- sumed shooting on "The Woman in White," delayed by an accident to Alexis Smith . . , Jack Elliott Pro- ductions' first tunefilm, "The Dan- ger Ring" resumed work " after a three-month halt for script changes. George Blair will direct "Dare- devils of the Sky," to be produced by William J. O'Sullivan at Repub- lic. . .Arnold Grant was named chair- man of the board of Four Leaf Clover Pictures, new indie outfit which will tee off with "Las Vegas." ...Mark Dennis, moppet, draws his fifth role at Columbia in "Major Denning's Trust Estate," to be di- rected by Robert Gordon. . .Charles Winninger- will play his fourth role with Deanna Durbin in "For the Love of Mary" at Universal-Inter- national.. .Stan Ross, nitery per- pormer, makes his film pic, "Broad way Baby," produced by Sam Katz man for Columbia.. .Fortunio Bona- nova gets the star male part in the Spanish version of "Blue Angel," to be made by Pan American in Mexico City, with Maria Felix as femme topper. Next for Roy Rogers-at Republic will be "Springtime in the Sierras," slated to start Feb. 10, with William Witney directing and J. Edward White as producer. Dale Evans will be femme lead. Move by Los Angeles Catholics to boycott films for a month as a pro- test against "immoral pictures" was viewed yesterday (Tuesday) with extreme gravity by industry execs on both coasts. Aside from the im- mediate economic effect on films— which could be considerable with the boycott threatening to extend to 6,000,000 Sodality members through- out the country—picture execs are greatly concerned over the implica- tions in the strong Catholic action. Primarily disturbing is the ad- verse reaction to the entire indus- try brought about by the Catholic move which appears to be aimed— at the moment, at least—at only two pictures: Howard Hughes' "The Outlaw" and David O. Selznick's "Duel in the Sun." Despite assur- ances of Archbishop John J. Cant- well of Los Angeles that'he would not seek a boycott of all films, in- dustryites fear that there cannot help but be. a bad aura attached to the whole of Hollywood's output by the Sodality action. It is pointed out that, despite some criticism of other films during the year, the percentage of pix at which there could be any justifiable finger- pointing was negligible. For the 405 releases in 1946 of the 11 top com- (Continued on page 29) Changes in 20th-Fox ■ • Policy, Via Decree, Set for Sales Tails First postwar general sales con- vention of 20th*-Fox, scheduled for Feb. 17, 18 and 19, at the Hotel Astor, N. Y., will deal with changes in 20th's sales policy necessitated by the anti- trust decree. Meet will be attended by about 75 men, including all home- office sales execs, division and branch managers and Movietone pro- ducer Edmund Reek, Terrytoon, pro- ducer Paul Terry, and March of Time producer Richard de Rochemont. Tom J. Connors, veepee' over sales, is slated to handle the new sales policy and will also announce com- petitive plans for the different 20th branches for 1947. An entire session will tie devoted to advertising plans, presided over by Charles Schlatter, ad-pub chief. It's expected that all sales' accessories on pix to be re- leased until the end of spring will be ready to show the sales staff by the time the meet tees off. ■ . - Spyros Skouras, 20th prexy, will report to the salesmen on his trip to the Coast, where he's currently huddling with production chief Darryl F. Zantfck and Joseph M. Schenck, and looking over new product. COHEN, DIETERLE MEAI ■ 'JENNIE' GROUP EAST Hollywood, Feb. 4. Joseph Gotten trained east yester- day (3), fol,lowed by William Dieterle and art director ' Joseph McMillan Johnson today (4), as vangiiard of group* to work on "Portrait op Jennie" for David O. Selznick in New York. Entire film is to be made in Gotham, with most of unit going east from Hollywood. Joseph August, the cameraman, trains out tomorrow (5): studio technical adviser James Stewart and production manager Dewey Starkey leave Friday; Jennifer Jones is expected to le^ve over the weekend. Producer David Hemp- stead and author Peter Berneis fly east Monday (10). Reps Lesser in Europe David Griffith, former rep of In- ternational Pictures in London, has been named to represent Sol Lesser Productions in England and on the Continent. He was appointed by Lou Hyman, Lesser distrib chief, who returned to New York from London Monday (3). Griffith was at one time head of First National Pictures in England. He'll headquarter for Lesser in Lon- don, covering Europe out of there..