Variety (November 1954)

.r W^lrfcBdiiylNttvefeltcr 1 24, 19&4 Indie_ distributors are doing a bum over reported intentions of Italian Films Export to tie up French product for release. They fear that such an arrangement may deprive them of another source of product. Problem highlights the whole difficult position of the small: ini- poi'ter-distribs who increasingly find themselves out of the running when it corhes to acquiring the top foreign pix. Example is J. Arthur Rank’s “The Young Lov.ers” which last week went to Pacemaker Pictures (Max Goldberg and Irving Lesser) against art advance cash.'guarantee of over $50,000. At least two thea- tre circuits—Trans-Lux an.d WaIter Heade—were also bidding for the film> Same high guarantee, said to be in excess of $70,000, is being sought for the French “Wages of Fear’- and some other top French productions. “How M can we com- pete against , this kind of ..thing?” one of the indies asked this week. Indie complaint against IFE is an old one, the charge being that the Italo agency is in a position to grab, the cream of the Italian films via hefty advance guarantees handed producers in Italy. Indies fear that an IFE releasing t.ieup with ’ the French • might deprive, them of the opportunity of freely bidding for the French product as has been the custom. Importers returning from Paris say the French are already asking what America consider outland- ish prices for their, features. Fur-, ther--complicating the situation for the Americans is the frequency of Francb-Italian c o pro due t i ons. which doesn’t leave the French partners free to makq any deal they wish. Basis on which IFE would take n French films isn’t clear and pos- ibly hasn't been decided, on. Ques- tion of .whether-, in the event of (Continued on page. 6) Fed. Trade Comm. Decision on Italo Raps 27 -Minute Cut Columbus, Nov. 20. A dangeorus precedent has been set by the; cutting of 27 ..minutes from Warners’ three- hour and two. minute “A Star * Is Born” as released for sub- sequent runs, it is argued i the Independent Theatr Qwners of Ohio bulletin. “.One.of the ..things that th sub runs have always been able to say truthfully is that the pictures are. shown exactly as they were originally. If the public learns that the picture is cut after it has been show in first funs this will set th •stage for 'other companies to do the same thing and'will seriously hurt sub-run busi- ness.” m .1 Federal, Trade Commission has ached d .decision ye the indies’ mplaint against Italian Films Ex- port and is expected to release its repo’-t by January 1. 1955, at the latest and probably earlier. Monopoly charges against the Italo agency were filed by the In- dependent Motion Picture Distrib-1 btilors Assn, over a year ago.. Coni- 1 plaint also referred to the financial , support which IFE has received in the past from the Motion.. Picture . 'Export' Assn. IFE received $4,500.- 0Q0 i toto from the American companies. While the IMPDA's action didn’t , bring .in MPEA., the FTC has made j it clear that it is lying in its in- vestigation Of MPEA with the study it has made of IFE .operations. Practical basis for FTC action against MPEA was removed when, under the'’last Italo-American -film' .agreement', all .subsidy provisions weFe dropped. * 1MPDA membership is skeclded for the near'future and will hear a.report on FTC develop-, lent s'.- Group .will also have before it a proposal to, re-admit arti ■■exhi-bs into the , .fold.' They were extiuded. and me'mbership was lim- ited to importcr-distribs only;.: when the late Joseph- 'Bursty if- re- organized the setup me back.; New. Brazilian restrictions on. U.S. film remittances will add about $1,800,000 a year to the ac- cumulation. of the- mpanies’ ac- crued arnings there, it's .under- stood-: That’s in addition to th approximately $3 000,000 that has been semi-frozen in Brazil since March of 1953. Under the new regulations, the. American distribs. are limited to' a monthly remittance- of $600,000! Up till now, they had. been able to transfer 70 r o of the N.Y. share, about $750,000, The. remaining 30fc are in the socalled “free” market: Distribs have been holding off selling the coin accrued to them in the S’O^c category in the hope that there may be a firming up of the Brazilian cruzeiro which now stands at 70 to the dollar. The $3,000,000 have accumulated at. a rate of approximately. 66 cruzeiros the dollar. Earlier this year, thanks to a $300,000,000 loan front th 'U.S., the Brazilians paid off some. S15;000.000 in accrued film earnings. Total by now has risen to about $18,000,000. Meanwhile, devaluation, of the Chilean peso; has hurt the Ameri- can industry in that country. Peso now rates 200 to the dollar front a fpimcr 120. In The free market it’s, gone as high as- 370 to the dollar. Gives Judy Holliday Josephine Hull’s Role “ Prior to returning to the Coast yesterday (Tues.) from N. Y„ Co- lumbia president Harry Cohn final- ized purchase of “Solid Gold Cadil- lac,” legit comedy co-authored by Howard Teichmann and. George. S. Kaufman, which is novv; in its 55th week at the Music. Box.' Cohn stated it's to be a : Judy Holliday starrer and while the adaptation, will hot be tuned up to a full- blosvn musical, some songs and music may be added, Cohn agreed to pay $260,000 in cash for the property plus the fur- ther concession that, the film ver- sion will not be released for two and a half years! Film company had offered a. percentage deal which allegedly could have meant payment of up to $600,000 but the authbrs preferred the cash at this time. Latter also appeared aloof to ’ overtures about doing the screenplay. Irving. Lazar agented the deal, V Earmarking “Cadillac” for Miss Holliday at first glance appeared a casting switch, since in the play the key role was originated by Josephine Hull, Latter is more of the grandmother type, age-wise; Miss Holliday is a. chick in com-, parisoii. But the switch came long before this. The play orig- inally had a thread of romance running through it and this was fitting, for the reason the. main femme .character was a young woman. When Miss Hull was se- lected, the romance- was deempha- sized to the extent. That one en- tire scene had be scrapped. The original version may now be disinterred for Miss Holliday. Story focuses on a naive stock- holder (Miss Hull) in a mammoth corporation whose embarrassing questions force management to give her a job. Scripter for the pic hasn't been designated. Moss Hart recently was signed by Col to write three properties and it's conceivable “Cadillac” might be among them. Hart joined Cohn in the: trek to Hollywood. Mack Sennett In his new book, “King of Comedy” reviewed in Variety last issue, pays unstinted tribute to two fellow-pioneers. Speaking of David W. Griffith he writes: “He and his cameraman, Billy. Bitzer, Invented the closeup, ’Rembrandt* lighting, and what we now call the ‘idiom’ of the screen. He did that in 1009 and 1910 and what he did'was as fundamental to films as the wheel is to mechanics. We have widened the screed now,, but we are still telling stories the way D. W. Griffith taught us to tell them.” About Samuel Goldwyn, Sennett has this to; say: “When it comes to logic and shrewdness, or for that matter, anything else that needs brains, the man hasn’t conie d.own the juke! yet who can keep step with Sam Goldwyn. On topTof that, for good taste- and decency and for imagination .and great motion picture making, I am. hard put to name; even a small handful of men who can stand up to Goldwyn, or look him in tlie eye. without looking.up.” Less Keel for Hall Hollywood, Nov. 23. Howard Keel is a victim of Radio City Music Hall's pol- icy of restricting its, feature films down to two hours or less. Metro’s “Deep In My Heart,” slated as the house’s Christmas attraction, ran two two hours and 25 minutes at its first, sneak preview.. „ For the Music Hall date, Metro scissored Keel’s “My. Maryland’’ sequence, whittling the film down to the required length. Loew’s 25c Divvy Directors of Loew’s Inc„ de- clared a: regular quarterly dividend of. 25c last week. Melon is payable Dec. 24 to stock- holders of record on Dec, 7. DAMAGES SOUGHT Sterling Hayden Billing Unequal to Frank Sinatra in ‘Suddenly’ Los Angeles, Nov. 23. Disagreement overbiliing for the picture “Suddenly” resulted irr a suit filed . by Sterling Hayden, sking $250,000 damages and injunction against Libra Produc- tions; and United Artists. Sterling charges that Frank Siiialra was given top billing al- though he was promised equal bill- ing, He asks that UA be restrained, from advertising "1110 film with: Sinatra’s name on lop. i New Haven, Nov. 23. .J. An opinion of some/import to ; film exhibitors., was handed down ; here last, week by New Haven’s : Corporal ion Counsel George W. Crawford in the matter of a pro! ■ posed ordinance designed to pr - j hibit the local showing of any mo- tion picture which has not received code ap royal of the Motion Pic* tii-re Association. The proposed ordinance, calli for a fine of not more than $100.- r imprisonment of not more than | 30 days. for., its violation; \\\ the ; outcome' of a drive conducted with- i in local Holy Name Societies, w 1 1 ose mem hers had accu mu 1 a ted 15.000 signatures. Crawford’s opinion declared, such an orctTnahce would be void ' because: ... 1 1) It. offends .the. First and 14th ' Amendments of the U. S. Consti- tution (wherein a state may not place a prior, restraint on the show- ing of moti n picture on the basis of a censor’s adverse; conclusion). 1 2) It attempts an un const itu-. tiondl ve-delegation. of. the legisla- tive power granted To the Board of Aldermen < v it would be novel in- deed to hale, an inhabitant of Con- necticut into, court, deny him the right of ' confrontation and other constitutional safeguards, and then roceed to penalize him for violat- ing some rule promulgated by a voluntary and self-cTppointed groupj of standard makers in Hollywood, California”), <3) it attempts to regulate a matter which transcends purely local concerns and involves a state- wide legislative policy on which the General Assembly itself has al- ready spoken (existing state laws already cover subject of. exhibits of “lascivious, sacrilegious, indecent or immoral character,” and local Board: of Aldermen has no power, to legislate oa the subject). Crawford’s opinion was based on the. Supreme Court decision of January, 18., 1954,. involving, the at- tempted banning, of "The Miracle.” Paul N. Lazarus Jr. hot hit own' idea of Memo-ries of 1954 one of Hid many editorial features of the < .vT 49th Anniversary Number of. t'finiETY While pleased with the Interna- tional Federation of Film Pro- ducers Assns.’ demand that there be only a single annual competitive film festival in Europe starting in 1956. the American companies, are frankly skeptical over the success- ful carrying out of. this dictum. Involved ,p r i m a ri ly are the Cannes and Vehicle filrri fests. *At its recent Madrid meet, the Feder- ation's administrative c o u n c i 1 called for the two evqjits to. be staged on an alternate basis, with the promoters to agree who should kick off the arrangement in 1956, The council threatened to withhold (Continued on page 6). N. V, to Europe Richard Burton Mrs. Joseph Gotten Robert W, Coyne Herman. Einkejstei Marlin Flavin Paul N. Lazarus Jr. Felix Leclerc Elsie Mayerhofer Robert Rossen 'Edmon Ryan Pietro Scarpini Sam Spiegel L. A. to N. Y. Ann Baker , Mary Brian Richard Carlson Claudette Colbert. Joe Corey Sherrill Corwi Gloria DeHaveh Brad Dexter Betty Furness,, ZsaZsa Gabor William Goetz Huntz Hall William Hebert . Paul. Uehreid Sol Hurok . John Koenig Pinky Lee Roberta Linn Virginia Mayo 'Milburn McCarthy Myron- McCormick . Joseph H. Moskowitz Paul Newman; . Helen O'Connell Michael O'Shea Debra Paget Betsy Palmer Tyrone Power Sol C. Siegel Milton' Sperling Charles Winninger Gig Young Max E. Youngstei •f Set up to break what is termed the ’’distribution bottleneck,” the exhib-backed American Releasing Corp. is skedded to make avail- able: eight new pix. in 1955, accord- ing to ARC preiy James H. Nichol- son. Four will be in color and one or more in the Vistarama anamor- phic process. Nicholson said the new distrib outfit had two pix release, Two in production and six skedded for 1955, with the possibility of other films being added to the sked, “We are not interested in Academy awards—only in pictures which the exhibitor carl play /with the as- surance. that he ill make profit,” he stated. ARC, set up and financed by a group of indie Southern California theatremen, will offer those houses that want it an entire year’s product on single con- ( tract. “It is the opinion of many [ exhibitor^ that in the days when ; they, could buy «« year’s supply of ■ product they were considerably . better off. As the method of runs land clearances has developed in J the past few years, however. This is not now a practical plan for every situation. ARC will oper- ate in both ways. Exhibitors*may buy picture-by-picture, they may contract for our entire line- up,” Nicholson declared. He added that the group back- ing ARC had determined that “the lack of pictures is not due to a shortage of production financing or ‘box office ideas,’ but because of the distribution bottleneck. No exhibitor organization is involved, nor. does American seek any tieup with TO A (Theatre Owners of .America) or Allied.” First of the : eight 1955 ARC re- leases is “Five Guns West/’ tinter which locations /' Death Valley Nov. 29. It stars John Lund and Dorothy Malone. Second pro- duction, under the banner of Golden State Productions, will to “King Robot,” a science-fietiod melodrama which starts lensing Jan. 15. Third will be “The Day the World Ended,” in color- and Vistarama. ' N. Y. to L. A. Richard W- Altschuler Lloyd Bridges Harry Cohn Jerry Davis Steve Forrest Judy Garland Moss Hart Leland Hayward William W. Howard. Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Sid Luft John Masters Marilyn Maxwell George Murphy Martin Ragaway Debbie Reynolds Sam Zagon ^ Europe to N.Y. George Black Carol Bruce Jack Buchanan Buster Crabbe Mildred Dillirig Rolf Gerard Rudy Goldschmidt Igor Gorin Katharine Hepburn Arthur M. Loew George Lourau Steven Pallos Eddie Roberts Lucille Roberts Maurice Silverstei Max Weinberg Terrence Young