Variety (July 1949)

20 Pirn RE^ WfdnetMlay, July 6, 1949 Cfips from Film Row NEW YORK Robert Mochrie, RKO’s distribu- tion v.p., sboves off next week on a series of regional sales meets with Buffalo his first stopover. Accom- panying him throughout his trek will be Harry J. Michalson. short subject sales chief; Sid Kramer, JVlichalson’s aide; M. G. Poller, sss’t to Mochrie, and manager of exchange operations A. A. Schu- bart. Three-day Buffalo meet starts Monday (11). From there, troupe goes on to Toronto, July 14-P'S; New Orleans, July 18-19; Chicago, July 20-22, and San Francisco. July 25-27. Division chiefs Nat Levy, Charles Boasberg and Wltlter Branson will attend conclaves in their sectors. The Majestic, Brooklyn, for the past eight years owned and ^operated by the Siritzky (Mrcuit, sold to Eagle Show, Inc., headed by Louis B. Stackell. Berk & Krumgold, theatre realty brokers, agented the deal for Siritzky, who sold out in order to confine their ^ theatres to showing foreign prod- uct only., Built in 1904 by E. D. Stair of Detroit, the Majestic opened with Montgomery & Stone in 'The Wizard of Oz.” The theatre has been closed for an extensive over- hauling, including airconditioning. VANCOUVER A $1,000,000 ultra modern ho- tel and theatre will be built in Prince Rupert by a company with J. Arthur Rank hookup. Prince Rupert, 1,000 miles north of Van- couver, at present is a closed Famous Players situation with only a 700 - seat house there. No comment has been made officially by Odeon reps here on whether they will operate the new hou.se. Hymie Singer, operator of State here and Rio in Victoria, plans a new $50,000 night clubi Plans to bring in big-name acts. the exhibitor is hurt or helped by it. It says it wants to know if “on the company’s lower levels there i.s an abuse of the discretion that Mr. Lichtman placed in the local tnanager's and salesmen's hands” and expresses confidence it can correct any abuses. Gilbert Nathanson again chair- man of arrangements committee for Northwest Variety club’s an- nual golf tournament Aug. 12. ST. LOUIS Jimmy Grisina. of the Frisina Amus. Co.. Springfield, 111-., copped the Central Illinois Country (^lub Assn, golf crown, defeating Larry 1 Moeller. Peoria. 111., 5-4, in a j double-round finale. i C. M. Swabb, manager of Roxy. Mounds. 111., used the ‘flying' saucer’ gag as a b.o. ballyhoo. He had 2.50 cardboard ‘saucers’ cov- ered with printed matter tossed, from an airplane traveling over Cairo and Mounds, III. Stunt at- tracted lots of attention. St. Louis Variety Club. Tent No. 4 won kudos from superinten- dent Philip P. Hickey of the St. i Louis School Board for help in providing eye glasses for under- i privileged school children. The expense is defrayed from the club’s Heart Fund. Sarah Blocher, office manager for National Screen’s St. Louis of-’ fice. convalescing in Jewish hos-; pital following major operation. David Komm, co-owner of Ave- nue.. East St. Louis and Brentwood. St. Louis county, escaped serious | injuries in an auto collision. His auto was almost completely wrecked. Sarah Bloeker, office manager for National Screen Service, con- valescing at Jewish hospital fol- lowing major operation. ! Employees of local Paramount exchange surprised Harry Haas, manager, with 25th anni party. “Buck” Lewis, general manager for R E. Conway Theatres, Rolla, Mo., undergoing medico scrutiny at a local hospital. Jack Cooperband, former Cal- gary local exhib, plans to return to show biz with construction of a new suburban hou.se. Houses here are lending their stages to help choose candidates for beauty contests. Find they help increase business. 'Fwo theatres to be constructed in the province are being designed by H. H. Simmonds, Vancouver. Planned is a 449-seater at Kere- meos costing $45,000 for G. A. Gough. A 300-.seat hou.se costing $22,000 at Golden is being blue- rinted for Owen oirti, one-time aramount booker here. Cecil Steel, operator of theatres in Northern British Columbia, was successful in his bid fur a sent in the B. C. Legislature. A1 Trout, another theatre op at Hope, was left at the post in the recent pro- vincial elections. Theatre operators here face new wage demands from their projec- tioni.sts when their present agree- ment expires Sept. 1. Exhibs haven’t shown their hand as yet. Hymie Singer has opened his re- constructed Rio in Victoria after spending $25,000 on fixing, lieila Bejay is in charge of the 750- seater. CHICAGO Mrs. Morris Heilman, wife of United Artists salesman. in Michael Reese hospital for opera- tion. Tom Sullivan, secretary for Na- tional .A.ssn. of Popcorn Manufac- turers. reports increase in exhibits for show here in September. Burt us Bishop making a swing of midwest MGM exchanges. .lohn Day, member of the legal firm of Adcock. Fink & Day, and former counsel for Balaban & Katz circuit, has retired. Lou Harris, maintenance super- vi.«or for the Alliance circuit, off to Ridgeland, Wash., to supervise the building of new theatre for chain. Jim Gregory and J*ete Panagos are-touring the Ind^na branch theatres and offering tele- vision sets to customers in annual summer drive. Theatre janitors have been of- fered a 10c hourly raise, which will make the new scale $288 monthly. Also included in the proposed wage hike are scrubwomen, who will get $1.08 to $1.13. Members will vote on theatreowners’ pro- posal this week. Tom McConnell, film attorney, off for long fishing trip in Canada. MINNEAPOLIS Louis Orlove. M-G-M exploiteer. In from Milwaukee following re- covery from second major opera- tion. Radio City theatre had George Jessel, Coleen Gray, Barbara Lawrence and Nancy Guild on stage for three appearances open- ing day of “Sand.” Bob Helmerson, Universal .sales- man. taking Mississippi river trip. Eddie Solomon. 20th-Fox ex- ploileer in from Chicago. Eddie ren.i';min. former War- ners’ exploiteer and more recently secretary to former Mayor M. H. Humphrey. Handling exploitation for "Grer.t Dan Patch” world premiere at i^tate here. J. J. Donahue. Paramount as- sistant sales manager, here re- suming negotiation.' with 'Fheatre Associates, leading non-profit buy- ing combine, which has laying off his company’s product for more than a year. Spencer Tracy. Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn. Dorothy Mc- Guire and Walter Pidgeon expected here next October for national .M- lied .States convention. .M-G-M held annual office picnic at Statler’s Grove. The organization asks for mem- bers’ comments on 4iow the policy is working out in their ca.ses. fa- vorable or unfavorable—wlut her CLEVELAND Managerial changes affecting nine managers in more than 12 cities made by Jamestown Amus. Co. Five transferrals and four pro- motions are involved. Dale 'fy- singer, former city manager in Newark. O.. moves to Ashabula, O.. in a similar capacity replacing Robert Russell, resigaed. William Gillam, city manager in New Phila- delphia. O,. treks to Newark in Tysinger's old post. Other changes: Harold Snyder, manager. Lyric. Lancaster. O.. to city manager. New Philadelphia; Fred Lahrmer, manager, Orpheum, McKees Rocks. Pa., to Lyric, Lan- caster; Dale McCoy, manager Shea’s, Geneva. O.. to Orpheum, McKees Rocks; Jack Baiimgardt, ass’t manager Colonial, Akron, to Shea’s. Geneva; John Woodward, manager Shea’s Theatres. Zanes- ville. O.. to city manager, Dover, O.; Durward Duty, city manager Dover, to city manager Marietta, O.; J. W. Scanlan, city manager Marietta, to city manager Zanes- ville. PHILADELPHIA The Variety Club and the f’hila- delphia Daily News staged a “County Fair” at Shibe Park (28i and drew the largest crowd of the 1949 rnajoi league sea.son. Com- bination of a Phils-Brooklyn ball- game and an array of talent headed | by Frank Sinatra brought out a ; record 36.814 paying customers, j Proceeds, after deductions for the visiting team, went to the Variety ' Club’s summer camp for handi- capped children. Herbert Gillis, assistant branch manager for 20th-Fox in New York, returns to the local scene as sales manager for Monogram, Irving Blumberg, assistant pub- licity direMor for Warners, and, Ann Besterman. stenog in the same { office, were married Thursday (29), i Patrons of local film theatres gave $16,931 to the 1949 Cancer Crusade, drive officials announced. ; Ward Be.sanson. who came here last month from Washington, D. C., resigned from Eagle Lion sales staff. Harry Bache, head booker at Metro, appointed office manager, succeeding Frank J. Sculli, who joins sales staff. Inside Stuff-Pictures Paramount flirted with the idea of distributing it.s film recording of the Joe Walcott-Ezzard Charles championship match but shied away when its lawyers advised that the action might involve a mess of litiga- tion. Because the shipment of fight films is banned by Illinois law. Par was the only distrib to have pix of the bout. The Chicago battle of June 22 was piped across state lines via coaxial cable atd projected by Paramount through its intermediary-film method on the Paramount theatre screen in N. Y. Celluloid recording is part of Par’s large-screen TV method. Follow- ing the match, number of exhibs approached Par with offers to rent the film for showings in their houses. Par ogled the idea and then took it up with the legal staff. Legalites nixed the proposal becau.se the company had only paid for rights in one theatre and not for distribution purposes. Moreover question of Illinois reprisals al.so was presented. ’ The fight was dull, it is generally conceded. If it had been a reprise of such exciting matches as the Dempsey-Firpo battle or others of that ilk. it is believed Par would have made a fast offer for distribution rights. Fabian’s Fox, Brooklyn, al.so large-.screened the videoed version. LOS ANdELES Cornell Duer, former Denver branch manager for Paramount,! shifted to the Los Angeles office, with Ward Pennington going from San Francisco to Denver. Managers and salesmen of War- , ners’ six western exchanges will hold a regional sales meeting in San Franci.sco. July 10-11, with Henry Herbel presiding. ' Fox - We.st Coast chartered a D-C 6 to carry a load of Hollywood names to Fresno for the opening of the new Crest theatre. July 7. j Selby Carr resigned from Fox- ! West Coast to become associated , , with Earl Johnson in the film buy-' ing-booking service for independ- ; ent theatres. OM/fHA I ' Ralph Blank, nephew of A. H. Blank, head of Tristates (Blank- Paramount) became a power in j Omaha area pix business when, he ' bought the Roseland and Tivoli in South Omaha. With his new Chief I theatre in operation over a year, ' latest acquisitions make Blank un-. disputed boss of amusements in! Omaha’s South Side. ; John Brunette of Milwaukee, who has been handling 20th-Fox theatres there, is the new general supervisor of the Ralph D. Gold -1 berg theatres here. This includes two downtown houses and five' nabes. Goldberg, incidentally, plans ' to build a house in Benson, a su- , I burb. j SAN ANTONIO Series of “Jerky Journey” cartoons made by Levinson-FIexer com- pany, Impossible Pictures, get a real workout, preview-wise. Shorts are made 20-25% longer than intended for release. They are sneaked without announcement on the screen, theatre yanking its regular car- toon for one showing. Thi.s happens from five to 10 times in hou.ses of all prices and types, the film sometimes being bicycled three times in a night. Leonard L. Levin.son carries engineer and tape-recorder to all previews and audience laughs are averaged up after a week of preview- ing, the cartoons are then cut to to 8 minutes, eliminating all but the top laughs and .sequences. This is as close to a legit break-in as a film can get, maintains Levin- son, and enables him to experiment with new topics and comedy meth- ods, knowing that if an experiment doe.sn’t pay off, there is plenty of other footage and the try can be scis.sored before the picture gow out. Metro’s “The Search.” oft-cited as a film that earned critical raves but failed at the boxoffice. was not brushed off because of the public’s lack of discrimination as charged in Life mag’s recent “roundtable on the movies” dLscussion. According to Dr, George Gallup’s Audience Research institute, the film flopped because too few people knew about it. According to ARl figures, only 4% of all filmgoers were familiar with some fact about the film and only 9% had ever heard of it. Major reason for the film’s low penetration, according to ARI, was the lack of marquee value at the time of its playoff, the most impor- tant factor in determining a.pic’s impact upon the public. Montgomery Clift, star of the film, was unknown at the time because it was his ini- tial role and only later became a marquee draw. ARI figures show, however, that "The Search” had high “audience enjoyment” from tho.se who did see it. including regular fans and infrequent filmgoers. Roy Rogers Corrals are springing up all over the country in one of the most exten.sive exploitation campaign.s ever devised for a film .star. Replete with all the we.stern trimmings, the corrals are being installed in 3.000 stores around tbe country and 600 Sears shopping centers. All 65 items of merchandi.se carrying the Rogers label will be displayed and sold, with the Rohr Co. (Rogers, Art Rush, Jack Danov and Philo Harvey) raking in from 5 to lO'b of the gro.ss sales. Tieups were made with 90 manufacturers, who are al.so plugging the items in trade mags to .supplement the big store .spreads in the dailies. Other exploitation adjuncts to the Rogers bally for his pictures, recordings and radio show include comic books, which sell around 2,000,000 a month and color cutouts. Joseph McMahon named assist- ant to Harry Griffith. Municipal ( Auditorium manager. His last post was as a.ssistant manager for the Poll circuit in New England. Mc- I Mahon will al.so Serve as audito- rium cashier. C. C. Hamm, owner and operator of the Majestic. Vernon. Texas, has been declared winner for the Texas territory in the recent Jack Schlai- fer testimonial drive conducted by the Eagle Lion Exchanges. Interstate booked “Birth of a Nation” into the Empire here for two days. F’llm epic brought in neat gros.ses in other showings at key Interstate cities. Metro pulled a sneak preview of “Battleground.” and left the sneak preview cii.stomers gasping—not at the scope of the drama but at the title card which read; “Dedicated to the Battling Bastards of Ba.stonge ” William of Normandy did pretty well over there in bygone days but even in his victorious moments he hanged and flayed any Saxon’heard using that word. Even in the wildest and wooliest of westerns the heavy can’t use it any more, even if he smiles. Metro has turned out a hand.somely bound brochure. “25 Years Young, for its 25th anniversary. Book, being widely circulated among periodicals and exhibs. lists and describes company’s upcoming product and includes stills from the.se features as well as photos of the Metro stable of stars and players. Prefacing the tabulation of product is the declaration: “We face the future together.” I KANSAS CITY Joe Neger took over as regular branch manager of 20th-Fox ex- change here. He replaces George Fuller, ill for .some time and tak- ing a leave of absence. Neger came here from Milwaukee, Jack Laurenz taking over the Milwaukee office. New Englewood theatre in the intercity district opened this week. ! .Sullivan Independent Theatres began construction last week on new (’rest theatre in Wichita, Kans. A 1 ..5()0-.seater. it will be the sixth here in the Sullivan cir- cuit. Universal has called off producing “Buccaneer’s Girl” in New Orleans, as demanded by the script. Film will be shot on the studio’s back lot. I lines b^e changed since the year 1810, even in that particular quarter of New Orleans. DES MOINES Everett Peterson, manager of the Paramount. Waterloo. Iowa for Tri-States, has taken a leave of ab- .sence because of illness. Bruce Shelton, former manager of the Hollywood. .Sioux ('ity. la., who left Tri-States some time ago to enter business for himself, has returned to the organization and will take over the Paramount during Peter- son’.s absence. COLUMBUS H. J. Knight 'Fheatres closed its New theatre here upon expiration of lease. Garage will occupy site. This reduces number of film iiou.ses here to 70. which includes four downtown first-run, three down- town second-run, seven drive-ins, one foreign and 45 neighborhoods. ' DALLAS Following recent installation of Glas-Screen in some 80 key Loew Circuit theatres throughout the country, the new glass .screen has been set for several theatres of the Infirstate Circuit in Texas. •V Sears West for UA Huddle ('onthiiird from page 3 this coin for secondary production financing. Bankers’ attitude is a show-me. Along with other indu.s- I try observers they are dubious that the two UA owners will put up any of their own funds. Company’s situation in general Is said to be pretty much the same as I it was a month or tw'o months ago. I It is suffering from the prospects of a product shortage and inade- quate operating capital and. unless , an angel comes along and drops a pot o’gold in its coffers or the un- expected happens otherwise, there appears little prospect of solving I the problem. 1 Sears, who had confabs with the owners in Hollywood two weeks ago. reportedly also had a plan for selling to outsiders the block of 12,000 shares of stock in UA’s treasury to give them over to sources that could provide contin- uing product. As far as is known there are no takers for the shares. I however, on any rash basis. It is believed Sears Is still work- ing on .something else along this line, if he can convince Chaplin and Miss Pickford of the exigencies of the situation. Deal would be made with some outfit like the Nas- sour brothers’ studio which would put up no coin ora nominal amount for the .stock. It would guarantee to provide a certain number of pic- tures .yearly, however, and would .gain equity in the share.s through the profits on thwse films. Deal would be .somewhat similar to the way David O. Selznick and Sir Alexander Korda got shares in the company. Difficulty is to get a balance of control between the new producers and Miss Pickford and Chaplin be- fore and after the 12,000 shares be- come the full property of the new producers. Film Cos. Resist Continued from pane 3 sss * er, “Street Car Named Desire,” not one bid was entered. .Although there is always competitive bidding for a property if more than one studio wants it, story departments resent open efforts by agents to get them fighting each other. Studio execs were bristling at the Watkins telegram, as they were on the previous efforts regarding “Street Car.” Latter ha.sn’t been .sold yet, although the manner of trying to sell it is only partially responsible. ^Mainly it is the high price being Lsked. “King of Fasserai” concern* * young American doctor .sent to Ulithi Island in the South Pacific to try to keep the race of people there alive aher the Japs during the war had taken away^ all the ^oung men and'women.