Variety (December 1954)

20 PICTURES Wednesday, December 15, 1954 Brewer Tours AA Exchanges; Tight Rein Due Need for a closer rein on Allied Artists’ domestic distribution facil- ities is behind the recent appoint- ment of Roy M. Brewer as super- visor of the company’s exchange operations. The onetime Holly- wood rep of the IATSE who joined AA last year as prexy Steve Broidy's executive assistant will handle his new chores with New York as his permanent headquar- ters. Prior to leaving for the Coast Monday (13), Brewer explained that the company's aim is to “ex- ercise a tight central control” over branches in the 31 exchange areas. In the past, administration of ex- changes was not inclined to be rigid and authority was divided following the shift of Lloyd Lind to the berth of v.p. with Inter- state Television Corp., an AA sub- sidiary. Originally exchanges were su- pervised by Lind. Following his move to Interstate some of Lind’s duties were absorbed by AA v.p. Ed Morey and the balance of the chores was spread around the or- ganization. Policy of the higher echelon now is to standardize ex- change operations through Brewer in light of big budget pix sched- uled to come out of the production hopper next year. Brewer who expects to return to New York early in January, will visit key exchange cities in the next few weeks to get a "picture of the problem.” At present AA has 100% ownership of some 17 exchanges and is 50% owner in two others. Remaining 12 ex- changes are held by franchise holders. Company’s recent policy of buying out franchise holders, it’s understood, will be continued whenever the opportunity presents Itself. Although IATSE contracts with exchange personnel recently ex- pired. Brewer will not represent the A A management in their nego- tiations for a new pact with the union. He pointed out that one of the conditions under which he joined the company in 1953 was that he was not to be involved in any labor parleys. In time, he added, he may sit in but not in the near future. 25-YEARERS GET FEED AND KALMUS TICKERS Hollywood, Dec. 14. Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, presi- dent of Technicolor, tossed a ban- quet honoring 17 employees who ! completed 25 years of service dur- j ing the current year. He also hand- ed each one a gold watch. Recipients were Malcolm" H. Ames, David L. Balser, Alfonso Blanco, A. E. Carlson, Gifford Chamberlain, Russell W- Conant, Fd Cook, Louise Corkran, Melville Covo, Thomas Di Sessa, Francis J. Downey, Paul W. Fasanacht, Charles J. Fitzsimmons, Florence Harris, Arthur G. Jacobs, David J. Johnson, Floyd Leb, Gerald Mack enzie, Walter Myron, Glen Twom- bley and Clarence Warme. DOCUMENTARY QUEST Oscar Committee Invites Entries From All Over U.S.A. Burnel Hershey bos written on IntnresHnf sbowbis vignnttn A Nose By Any Other . . . * * * on editorial feature In tbe forthcoming 49th Anniversary Number of DUE SOON / Hollywood, Dec. 14. Harry Tytle, chairman of the Academy’s Documentary Award -Committee, has sent letter^ to every production unit in the U. S. inviting entries in that section of the Oscar Derby. Screenings have already started but entries will be open until Jan. ' 3 in two documentary categories— a short, 3,000 feet or less, and a feature. WILL ROGERS HOSPITAL FUND DRIVE UNDER WAY Annual drive in behalf of the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, Saranac Lake, N. Y., is underway with mailing pieces, including ‘Christmas Salute” membership cards, circulated throughout the industry. Charles J. Feldman and M. A. Silver are chairmen of the distributor and exhibitor commit- tees, respectively. Donations are made within the industry and by the public at the- atres. Each contributor receives the membership card in acknowl- edgement. Phony Promises Continued from page 2 Scent ‘Cartel’ Continued from pane 4 nating committee to study forma- tion of the pool, to which Ger- many has already been asked with other invites to follow, was reached at the recent Paris meeting of the mixed Italo-French film accord commission. Initiative for the creation of the pool is being provided by the Ital- ians, the American homeoffices have been told. Study group was set up to allow the Italian Parlia- ment to ratify pending new Italo film legislation which would pro- vide the Rome industry with funds to sponsor the pool. Pending governmental action on the pix law also was the reason for the renewal rather than the ex- tension of the Franco-Italian copro duction agreement of 1949 which now in good through March 31, 1955. Burstyn Award Continued from pare 3 s attractions from abroad this year have been “Hulot” from France and the Swedish “One Summer of Happiness.” According to William Shelton of Times Films, the dis- trib of “Summer.” the pic has re- versed a prior pattern by racking up 2.000 dates throughout the coun- try without the benefit of a N. Y. opening. Film has had many circuit bookings even though it’s subtitled In the past it’s been the practice to launch a foreign film in N. Y. and build its circulation from there on in, taking advantage of the na- tional publicity derived from the metropolitan showcasing. Pittsburgh for years as pub-ad director and later assistant zone chief and now partnered with Julius Dubin in an ad agency, was engaged to put together a program. On the lookout for a name, he went to New York and phoned Kates, with whom he had done considerable work on the CPA telethon here last year, and asked if there were any well-known per- sonalities appearing on cerebral telethons in the east who might be available. Kates said he’d let Feldman know in a day or so. then came up with the names of Gene and Fred Kelly. He told Feldman the Kellys would be in Baltimore the night before for a CPA telethon and would be glad to do something for the “Y” in Pittsburgh, especially since it was their home town. Feld- man was naturally delighted be- cause the Kellys were big news lo- cally and he knew it would mean a lot of space in the papers. It did, too. All of them went overboard. But No Kellys Kates said the Kellys would ar- rive here Sunday morning, leaving Baltimore right after the program there. Came Sunday and no Kellys. There was a hasty call to Balti- more. They hadn’t showed up in Baltimore either. Feldman imme- diately got on the phone. He learned from the Kellys’ mother here that Fred was in Reading staging a Junior League Show. A call to Fred revealed that this was the very first he had heard about any Pittsburgh commitment. A call to Gene Kelly in Hollywood turned up the same information. What about Baltimore? Neither one Of the Kellys had known a thing about that booking either. The program for the “Y” went on as scheduled but without the Kellys, of course. The actual cir cumstances couldn’t be revealed to the general public because they would have been too bizarre to be believed. So in the middle of the «mow. a telegram was read from the Kellys explaining their genuine regret, on account of circum- stances beyond control, at being unable to get back to their old stamping grounds for the big doings. In the meantime. Feldman got In touch with CPA headquarters in New York to try and track down at least what happened to the Kellys in Baltimore since that was a Cerebral Palsy pitch. He learned that they hadn’t even been con tacted for that city, even though the papers, just as they were here, had been full of the Kellys’ ap- pearance; he also learned tha Kates, for understandable reasons, was no longer with CPA. It also seems that Kates had promised Bert Parks to m.c. the Baltimore program even though Parks had told him three weeks previously that he couldn’t make it. METRO'S PANAVISION Now Uses Only One Camera For Anamorphic and Flat Prints Hollywood, Dec. 14. Metro has adopted tbe use of the Panavision Micro-Panatar anamor- phic optical printing attachment for the processing of all Cinema- Scope films. Hitherto the studio has been using two cameras in filming C’Scope productions for both an- amorphic and flat prints. Now it uses only one. The new attachment will enable the company to give the exhibitor his choice between the curved widescreen print or a print for a flat wide-screen of any aspect ratio. While about 11,000 film houses are reported equipped for the anamor- phic medium, more than 7,000 still depend on flat film. Hotels Continued from page 5 the way for opening the medium on a big scale. The hotels took the play away from theatre during 1954 and are making plans to consoli- date the advantage during the next year. The theatres will still get the b.o. entertainment events, oc- casional business meetings, public service events, and closed-circuit pitches to the general public. On special occasions, theatres have been willing to drop their regular picture programs in favor of a biz session, but have demanded a pre- mium rate for relinquishing prime playing time. This has upped the cost of the meeting for sponsors and is one of the factors that have pushed them toward hotels. Latter has the advantage, too, in being able to cater luncheons and re- freshments in conjunction with the closed-circuit session. Hotels, so far, haven’t gone over- board for permanent installations, but this is seen as their next move to hold on to this lucrative busi- ness. Only five hotels of the Shera- ton chain have permanent installa- tions. The other hotels are em- ploying mobile units provided by either the Tele-Sessions division of Theatre Network Television or Box Office Television. TNT recently purchased 50 mobile General Precision units at a cost of $500,000. These units are stored in warehouses in various cities and placed in hotels for a scheduled event. The local RCA Service Co. handles the installation and servicing. BOTV -has about 30 portable units available and fre- quently makes use of units of Wells TV. An outfit that special- izes in providing hotels with home tv sets. These mobile units are occasion- ally used in theatres to bolster the lineup for a big entertainment event. However, the theatre use is limited since the temporary in- stallation is too costly for film houses. Hotels are ideally suited for the mobile units because of the flat service and wide areas of the hotel ballrooms. Installation is a comparatively easy task. CRITICS 'DISCOVERY' OF TATI BRINGS REVIVAL Riding in on the shirttails of the successful “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday," another Jacques Tati film, “The Big Day” (Jour de Fete) is being revived and given a big play by the arties. Film is slated for the Normandie Theatre, N. Y., and is set for other key bookings. It first opened at the 55th St. Playhouse, N. Y., back in 1951 to scant b.o. attention. . Since then the French comic has been "discovered” by the critics and distrib Edward R. Kingsley has been able to shove “Day” back into the limelight. $87,000 SETTLEMENT Lawrence Antitruster Had Been Before Jury Three Weeks Boston, Dec. 14. A $3,000,000 suit filed four years ago by Victoria Amusement Corp. of Lawrence against Warner Bros. Theatres and all film distributors was settled out of court here last week with the plaintiff agreeing to call off the litigation on payment of a sum reportedly near $87,000. Trial had been going on for three weeks when settlement was reached with attorney George S. Ryan handling the case for Vic- toria. An unusual angle in the case was the transporting of the jury, hear- ing the case in Boston, to Law- rence, about 20 miles away to look over the plaintiff’s and defendant’s theatres. Eric Johnston Continued from page 4 _ etc. By contrast, extraordinary thawings in 1954 didn’t account for nearly such tall coin even though some of the 1953 transfers went on the 1954 books, notably some of the monies from Brazil. The film companies themselves acknowledge that their 1954 for- eign biz is up by a sizable margin variously estimated between 15% and 20%. While some of this gain has been eaten up by rising dis- tribution costs abroad, it neverthe- less had to be reflected in the ’54 income. Having just returned from a month-long trip to the Far East where he visited Australia, the Philippines and Japan, Johnston disclosed that he had submitted to the respective governments propo- sitions for compensation deals amounting to about $12,000,000. That covers about all the coin frozen in the three countries, i.e. $500,000 in Australia, $4,000,000 in the Philippines and $7,000,000 in Japan. Deals, which Johnston said are of a type that would not harm the local economy, are now under consideration. Johnston observed that the ma- jority of the industry’s foreign earnings was now coming out via swap deals. Other sources thought the percentage of coin derived from such arrangement was closer to 15% or 20%. Like Johnston, they stressed, however, that no ac- curate figures are available. Admitted ‘Wild Guesses* Engaging in what he smilingly called “wild guesses,” the MPEA prexy estimated that ^he industry foreign b.o. gross in ’54 ran to about $2,000,000,000 with a gross distrib take of between $550,000,- 000 and $600,000,000. Of this the theoretical net N.Y. share then boils down to $210,000,000. MPEA representation abroad may have to be expanded, Johns- ton said, indicating that he may station men next in Australia and in Indonesia. MPEA recently ap- pointed a rep in India and is cur- rently on the prowl for a permanent man in Tokyo. Japan Wobbly Johnston, who expects to go again to the Far East for President Eisenhower in January, indicated that he may have to return to Japan prior to the start of the new film year there, which is April 1. Due to a huge trade deficit in ’54, the Japanese economy is in a much more precarious position than that of other countries and there is a problem of getting film earnings out, he reported. Furthermore, Tokyo wants to reduce substan- tially the total cf 102 import per- mits nbw allowed the MPEA. Total 1954 remittances from Japan should run to about $9,000,000. Chayefsky Continued from pace 3 fact that, working’with a major company a writer can’t possibly ex- pect to retain control of his work. So, I have just one choice—make my own pictures." For the moment, Chayefsky, who intends to continue turning out tv scripts whatever his final goal, feels he isn’t ready to start pro- ducing films, even though he’s had offers. “I don’t really know enough about the business," he admitted. “I know how to put a show togeth- er, but that isn’t enough. I’d want to find out how the New York end works, too. And that takes time.” Another Film Deal With “Marty” in the can at $400,- 000, and three days ahead of sched- ule at that, Chayefsky is currently talking another film deal for which the producer and financing are all set and some talent has already been tapped. Contracts are expect- ed to be signed soon. Pic is likely to roll next August, with Chayefsky again doing the script. He said he had a one-film-a-year offer from Harold Hecht but had turned it down as conflicting with some other of his obligations. Apart from that, the tv writer is mulling the possibility of doing a film with Sid Caesar. The com- edy star is anxious to break into the Hollywood bigtime and Chay- efsky said he thought a pic starring Caesar would be a great hit. “That man is a genius,” he remarked cryptically. For "Marty,” Chayefsky got paid only as a screenwriter, but he has a piece of the pic. In views of all the time he spent on the film, he feels he lost money. In the future he intends to demand a 10% cut of any pic he may do. “That’s a lot, I know,” . he admitted, “but why not?” Apart from his various film proj- ects, which seem to be uppermost in his mind, Chayefsky said he was also set to do a play on Broadway in 1955, and he’s been signed to turn out one of those NBC “spec- taculars” for Fred Coe. According to Chayefsky. it’ll be the first origi- nal theatrical to go int • that slot. As for the play, Chayefsky said he was in a curious position in that he had everything set, including $85,000 in financing, but not the script. Plan is to adapt "The Bache- lor Party,” another one of his tv shows, to legit. He admitted that he wasn’t too happy about the idea of going back and reviving a work he’d done before. "I’d rather do something new,” he said. His Hollywood Troubles As for "Marty,” which was di- rected by Delbert Mann, like Chay- efsky a graduate of the Philco- Goodyear TV Playhouse on NBC, Chayefsky conceded that the tv mentality and conception of a show wasn’t an ideal testing ground for budding film producers and di- rectors. “I wrote ‘Marty* more or less as a film,” he said, “so it wasn’t too difficult to adapt it. Where we ran into trouble was in realizing that a motion picture must move all the time. In tv you more or less set up your camera and let the play go by. For the movies you have t® be a lot more inventive.” Mann and Chayefsky were to- gether on the set all the time and the writer now thinks he has a fine picture with an “arty” touch. That’s all right with him, since he feels, anyway, that Hollywood is consist- ently underestimating its audience. “After each of my tv shows I get a flood of letters from all over the country with people saying they liked it or they were moved. If I can get that same quality on the large screen, I think we’ll be all right.” Chayefsky conceded all didn’t go smoothly between him and pro- ducer Hecht. “There had to be compromises,” he said. “They shot part of the film in New York. I gave in on the casting. I guess they just weren’t used to a writer want- ing to have his own way. And out in Hollywood I found I had too many people to account for. That’s when I decided that the only way to get into the film business is as an independent producer." Chayefsky said as shooting went along, he became fast friends With Hecht, to the point where the lat- ter offered him a very tempting deal. “I think some people have gotten the impression that I’m sore at«Hollywood,” he commented. “It isn’t true. It was our first picture, and we had trouble. But actually I found my six weeks out there very exciting. In fact, I love the place. And I’ll be back there."