Variety (July 1954)

0 9 / UPPED BUDGETS F Vidpixers Ask: "When Do We Start Cashing In On Those Residuals?’ Miami .Beach, July 6. Miami Beach may have a new get of headliners this winter sea- son. Operators are hoping that the Impetus of some new and fresh faces in the area will hypo trade sufficiently so that payoffs may be the super brackets. .Offers have already been going ' put of Copa City, of which Cana- dian mining tycoon Lou Chester is the owner. Chester is unleashing a loaded bankroll for names. He is said to have offered Bob Hope $40,000 a we'Ok; Marlene Dietrich, $35,000 weekly;*Eddie Cantor, $35,- 000; Donald O’Connor, $22,000, and Tony Martin $12,500. Prices in „ some cases are higher than that which these performers obtained in Las Vegas, but Chester seems determined to reestablish the pres- tige of this spot and get the maxi- • mum business into Copa City. Trade figures that Chester feels that since it takes $80,000 a year to maintain Copa City whether it’s • open or not, he might as well go all the way. in trying to run the ’place as it was originally meant $ 0 ' be run. Spot was ‘designed by • Norman Bel Geddes. Chester, with virtually an unlim- ited bankroll, has established him- (Continued on page 10) Borscht Belt Heading • For Big Summer; 4th Okay Despite Weather Bad weather failed to hamper .talent employment in the N. Y. State mountain resort belt. Rains ■ on Saturday and Sunday caused no cancellation of shows, nor did any of the patronage leave because of the inclement weather. •’ The attendance at most of the hotels was fairly heavy, indicating • a big summer. The big spots were completely sold out, and the lesser inns had various degrees of occu- pancy ranging from good to ca- pacity. Business, it’s reported, was slightly better than the . holiday last year. • However, the holiday spirit of the borscht belt was dampened by an accident last week on Route 17, the main traffic artery which feeds the Catskill area from N. Y. Four were killed when a bus and an auto collided. The accident is the latest in a series of tragedies that have oc- curred on this highway, and the mountain hotel ops will again peti- tion the State to improve condi- tions on the highway. Several years ago, N, Y. talent bookers took out ads in the Liberty, N. Y., papers calling Route 17 “a kilter.” It’s expected that the new Thruway will drain off some traffic, but not enough to clean up the-numerous tieups that occur. The innkeepers feel that with better traffic condi- tions, sellouts during the summer would be the usual condition in that area. Christine's Dane Dates But Not for THAT Reason Christine Jorgensen is set to go back to Copenhagen this summer. But not for that reason. She’s going to play couple of dates in the Country whose shrgeons are noted for tampering with U.S. males. She’s been set by her agent, Charles V. Yates, for a couple of one-niters there, and she’ll also play Norway and Sweden. Her sole full week will be a vaude stand in Manchester, England, starting Aug. 10. ’54 Season For Drive-Ins Off To Sock Start Drive-in season, now in full swing, sees the ozoners packing ’em in and doing business that’s variously estimated at from 10% to 20% over last year. After a slow start caused by in- clement weather, particularly in the east, the outdoorers have made up for lost time. There are now slightly more than 4,000 of thefh, according to distrib records. Out- standing new thing appears to be that many of them have dropped the frills and are now concentrat- ing on just giving their patrons the kind of show they want. ‘‘The process of the public gain- ing confidence in the drive-ins is still going on,” said one drive-in exhib^last week by way of explain- ing upped attendance. He said that, coincident with this development, ozoners could afford to do away (Continued on page 56) TINT CONVERTERS WITHIN 10 WEEKS? Washington, July 6. Converters to enable existing blatek and white receivers to pick up color television broadcasts may be on the market within 10 weeks, it was learned here last week. A contract between Airtronic Re- search, Inc., Bethesda, Md., devel- opers of the converter, it was un- derstood, was entered into with a large electronic equipment manu- facturer to produce the device. Plans call for production of a 16- inch picture. Retail price will be around $100. The converter is the invention of Robert Benjamin, a 25-year-old engineer at the Airtronic labora- (Continued on page 63) By WHITNEY WILLIAMS Hollywood, July 6. Hollywood, in a concerted pitch for the world’s business as well as to set up fresh standards for domestic -audiences, will hit near the $400,000,000 production mark during the next 12 months, accord- ing to a check of plans now set by majors and indies both old and new. Figure hits an all-time high, with spectacular coin going into indi- vidual pictures. Allowing* for padding of an- nouncements insofar as upcoming production investment is- con- cerned, the fact remains that greater sums now are being dumped into programs than at any time in the past, and budgets still are on the- rise in studios’ efforts to turn out entertainment which will provide sock lure at the box- office. An illustration of the new type of thinking, backed by actual ex- penditures, is Y. Frank Freeman’s recent statement that Paramount in 1954 would spend $5,000,000 more on 19 pictures than studio put out for its entire program of 28 films in 1946. < The appearanee of new produc- tion companies will tend to expand coin outlay during the coming year, as well as upped schedules on the part of majors and indies. In the (Continued on page 16) Mambo Now Beats $5,000,001) Disk Biz Those mambo fans are not only shaking their hips, they’re shelling, out substantial coin for disks. It’s estimated that the market for La- tin American disks is now well over $5,000,000 annually—and that ain’t pesos. Once limited to Spanish-speak- ing communities, the sales of mambo, rhumba, samba, etc., plat- ters have now spread into commu- nities where Latin is really Latin except for their rhythms. Among the Latin population, Latin disks are sold by the bandleader and/or singer’s personality. Others, how- ever, just ask for any platter with the type of tempo they want. There has been a corollary switch from single disks to pack- (Continued on page 48) i« Turk Murphy’s Drive San Francisco, July 6, Turk Murphy, Whose dixie- land jazz records are real big sellers in Africa, says he’s cut- ting a new disk for the Gold Coast trade. Title: “Last of the Red Hot Mau Mau.” Inspiration Is Just A Guy Named Joe Washington, July 6. Latest tune inspired by the career of the controversial junior senator from Wisconsin, Joe Mc- Carthy, is “Don’t Tell Joe,” musi- cal brainchild of hillbilly song- stress-composer Hank Fort. Tune was unveiled past week at the in- auguration ceremonies of the Women’s National Press Club. A native Tennesseean, Miss Fort, who wrote “Save Your Confed- erate Money, the South will Rise Again,” has been living here and writing songs about official Wash- ington. Gal recently scored with “Protocol,” ribbing stuffy official- dom, at the Perle Mesta party. She has become a regular on town’s party circuit. 31 Film Houses Set for Opera; Terms: 70-39 Metropolitan Opera opening night (Nov. 8) is currently con- tracted by Theatre Network Tele- vision to 31 theatres'. Included in the lineup are units in the Stanley Warner and Loew’s chains, several Fabian theatres, and a number of independents. While not all the terms have been finalized, many theatres signed memorandums agreeing to carry the TNT production, with specific details to be worked out later. Unlike the closed-circuit telecasts of the championship fights, TNT prexy Nate Halpern it, (Continued on page 16) SPECULATE ANEW ON N.Y. BOTH ASTOR SITE The Hotel Astor, long a N.Y. Times Square landmark, is in the realty spotlight again, with no con- firmations, although it is figured that competition- alone,- from the hotelier’s viewpoint, may force a decision for the Muschenheim family’s property. Hotel is aimost 50 years old and while refurbished it is by no means in the “modern” idiom physically. The dope on the Astor’s future runs the gamut from' a new sky- scraper, with possibly upstairs thea- tre, and/or television studio facili- ties, to an out-and-out video center. The Loew interests at one time were reported interested in the site. A new Hotel Astor has been reported slated for the 52d-53d St. block front on the west side of Park Ave. With the telepix syndication busi- ness growing of age, many pro- ducer-distributors are faced with an increasingly perplexing prob- lem. This $64 question is simply when to cut off production on a successful series and start to bring in profits on the residuals. Truth of the matter is that even the most successful shows rarely turn in a profit the first time around ^.and the distrib has to bank on reruns for the gravy—yet he’s got a debt to his advertisers to turn out new pix in a particular series so they can retain their identity with the property, hold on to their time franchises, etc. Perhaps the outstanding example of a producer-distributor faced with this problem is Ziv, which of all its shows cut off production on only two, “Boston Blackie” (on which shooting will soon be re- sumed) and “The Unexpected.” “Cisco Kid” has five years of re- ruflS still on the shelf; “Favorite Story" is in its second year; and “I Led Three Lives” just went into production on the second cycle. Ziv prexy John Sinn frankly admits he doesn’t know when he’ll stop production on any of them, and points out that even in the case of “Three Lives," with 137 markets this yeai*, Ziv didn’t make a profit on the series. Sinn says that in these days, a 13-episode or 26-episode series just won’t suffice to serve the adver- (Continued on page 40) U.S. Info Probably Giving Radio $18,000,000 To Film Share of $3,250,009 Washington, July 6. U. S. Information Agency will probably take another month to determine how much of its newly voted funds for the fiscal year com- mencing July 1 will go to motion pictures and how much to the Voice of America radio program. As of now, it looks like some- thing under $18,000,000 for radio and about $3,250,000 'for motion pictures, a USIA spokesman guessed. The final decision may not be made until early August, when Theodore Streibert, USIA director, returns from the European trip on which he leaves July 9. The appropriations bill which finally passed Congress last Wednesday (30), gave the agency $77,114,000. This was a compromise between $75,814,000 originally voted by the House and $83,814,000 first approved by the Senate. Original Senate recommendation was more than $18,000,000 for Voice, of which about $500,000 is required to move the New York portion of the operation to Wash- ington by the end of this Novem- ber. Senate had okayed $3,931,000 for overseas motion pictures, ex- actly $1,000,000 over the House approved figure.