Variety (May 1956)

1 MISCELLANY ySniETr RKO Circuit Cancels Warner Short; Claims Too Like Socony Sell on Video Warner Bros, is trying to con¬ vince the RKO circuit that a nine- minute short, booked and then cancelled by the theatre chain, is not the same film currently on tele¬ vision. According to RKO, the dis¬ puted short, “Crashing the Water Barrier,” bears a remarkable re¬ semblance to- “Challenge On the Lake,” a 12-minute film shown recently on WABD's “Featurama.” Actually the shorts stem from the same source, but are different in that the WB entry has a differ¬ ent narration, contains considerable different footage, has a different musical score, and is in wide screen and color. The subject matter of "both films is the same and a por¬ tion of the footage is similar. Both films show Donald Campbell’s record-breaking speed boat run made on Lake Meade, Nevada last summer. The event was sponsored by the Socony Mobil Oil Co. which hired Marathon TV Newsreel, an industrial film firm, to make a 'motion picture account of the activity. Konstantin Kaiser, head of Marathon, filmed two versions— one for tv and one for theatrical distribution. The tv version contains shots of Socony Mobil trucks, while the theatrical print has ho advertis¬ ing matter. The tv short was turned over free to tv stations for showing. The theatrical film was”given to WB for the distribution firm to handle as it pleased. Socony was interested in exposure for the film and not in film rentals. The theatrical film is said to contain different footage except for Campbell’s actual speed run which is the same in both films. WB had made a deal with RKO to play the short, but on Friday (4) shorts topper Norman Moray received a call from RKO cancel¬ ling the booking. WB is.now prot¬ esting that its short is different from the tv one. George Sidney .Centres On ?al Joey’ For Columbia; 24 Years With Metro Hollywood, May JL5. After 24 years on the MGM lot, George Sidney has departed to go into independent production, be¬ ginning with “Pal Joey,” which will be a three-way venture with Frank Sinatra and Columbia Pic¬ tures. Metro granted his request for a release from a contract which still had 10 months to run so that Sidney could begin concentrating on his new activities. Hencefbrth, he’ll operate under the aegis of George Sidney Pro¬ ductions which he prexies and of which his father, former Metro exec L. K. Sidney, is veepee. “Pal Joey,” which will be the first to fly the Sidney banner, will be done in conjunction with Sinatra’s Essex Production's and Columbia, which owns and will finance the entire package. It’s understood thaf the Sidney and Sinatra firms each have 25% of the picture with Sinatra, in (Continued on page 63) 'THE SUBS ARE IN THE STIX' Geoffrey O’Hara Deplores Failure Of Webs To Scout Talent - ftew York. Editor, Variety: Your “Plight of the Comics” will be answered when the entertain¬ ment industry gets as smart as the baseball industry did some years ago. No longer does a young ball player have to journey to New York and show his stuff to a group of “experts.” No, the scout finds him where he plays, in his own sandlot. McGraw had Waite Hoyt under contract when he was 12 years old. We who travel the schools and college "theatre circuits” have seen undoubted talent time and time again. Is anyone scouting them for the entertainment indus¬ try? No. The “subs’’ are there, in the sticks. The training (rather than spoiling of them, the ruination of them) is the job for the industry. A big job. Have we no big men any more? I think we have. Geoffrey O’Hara. It s Dr. Folsom A 5th Time (ND) Then to RCA Meet R£A prexy Frank M. Folsom re¬ ceived his fifth honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame at South Bend on June 3. Again it’s a Doctor of Laws. He’s an LLD already from the University of San Francisco, Fordham, Manhattan and St. Joseph’s. Last November, Notre Dame hon¬ ored RCA board chairman David Sarnoff with a Doctor of Science degree. Folsom flies from South Bend, following the award ceremony, to Miami Beach, where a large corps of RCA dealers and distributors, and company talent will be in at¬ tendance for a company conven¬ tion, which will be scattered among five hotels. The brass and talent will be housed at the Eden Roc but the specially produced Georgie Hale revue, for benefit of the^ con¬ ventioneers, will be held at the Hotel Seville. Folsom is making the keynote speech there. NAZI SNOOP (CAMARIS) RATES FILM ENCORE Another film on Canaris, chief of Gerinan counter-intelligence under Hitler, will be made in Germany by Emile J. Lustig In conjunction with Fama Film. Lustig produced the first Canaris pic which cleaned up in Germany. New film, set to roll in Septem¬ ber or October, will dramatize two (Continued on page 63) S/16 PftWETY Subscription Order Form Enclosed find check for $ Please send VARIETY for To.;. (Plttn Print Nam«) Street.. Cil y.Zone-State. Regular Subscription Rates One Year—$10.00 Two Years—418.00 Canada and Foreign—$1 Additional Per Year USftlETY Inc. T54 West ,46th Street_New York 36. N. Y. HowVe You Been? * Japanese film critic .A. Iwa- saki writing in The Nation on “Japan’s New Screen Aft”: “The most remarkable fact about the Japanese film indus¬ try is that its best producers are for the domestic market and only second-rate pictures are found fit for export. No picture awarded the coveted Mainichi Prize ( Japanese equivalent of the Oscar) has ever reached a foreign screen.” CANTOR POLISHING HIS ‘TAKE MY LIFE’ BIOG While east on his Gregory Ratoff (20th-Fox) indie film deal for “The Fifth Season”; talks with CBS’ Hubbell Robinson Jr. and on other business matters, Eddie Cantor also set up his memoirs, possibly for Doubleday and McCall’s, (mag serialization) publication. Jane Ardmore who worked on the Joan Crawford story for LHJ, and is dittoing the Loretta, Young and Marlon Brando stories, has been editing Cantor’s memoirs. Eliza¬ beth (McIntosh 6c) Otis is agenting. In the mid-1920s Cantor, with the aid of his then radio scripter, the late David Freedman, authored “My Life Is In Your Hands” but the updated memoirs, titled “Take My Life,” is divided into four parts: “The Women In My Life,” “The Men In My Life,” “The Best of My Life” and “The Rest of My Life.” Format is keyed to his heart at¬ tack when, taken from Cantor manse in Monte Leon Lane, Bev¬ erly Hills, to the Cedars of Leban¬ on Hospital, Los Angeles, his life passes quickly in review. - Comedian during that extended heart siege, was in critical condition but is now fully recovered. Paradoxically, Mrs. (Ida) Cantor was stricken with a mild throm¬ bosis last week at their Essex House (N. Y.) apartment and was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital for treatment. Their oldest daughter Marjorie flew in^from the Coast to j be with her; The comedian has to return to Hollywood this weekend [for an NBC color teever, but Mrs. Cantor is slated to follow in a week or so. Goldensons to Europe The sailings of the Queen Eliza¬ beth seem made-to-order for American .Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres prexy Leonard H. Gold- enson who sails today (Wed.) with his wife for a quickie o.o. of the European television scene. Sail¬ ing follows a day after yesterday’s (Tues.) stockholders’ meeting and their return on the Liz, on June 12, is a day before the AB-PT board meeting. George T. Shupert, prez of ABC Film Syndication, is flying over this weekend and will travel with the Goldensons to London, Frank¬ furt, Rome, Madrid and Paris where the local video sundry video setups will be surveyed on a local level. Last January Goldenson ex¬ pressed plans for seating up an In¬ ternational Division for ABC Film Syndication Inc., which' inciden¬ tally is a subsidiary of AB-PT and not of the ABC network. Poor Bilko . Washington, May 15. A slap at the Phil Silvers television show as giving a wrong impression of service- njen is Included in a protest which the Veterans of Foreign Wars filed last week against the report of President Eisen¬ hower’s Commission on Veter¬ ans Pensions. The report suggested that some cutbacks were In order. “We are at a loss to under¬ stand the attitude of the Com¬ mission toward veterans, which gave birth to this new philoso¬ phy,” declared Omar B. Ket- chum, the VFW’s chief D. C. lobbyist. “It has been suggested that perhaps the ■ Commission has been seeing too many televl- . slon shows and has been overly influenced by the weekly tele¬ vision program poking fun at the Army, and starring come¬ dian Phil Silvers in the role of Sergeant Bilko. May we express the hope that the great body of men and women who have served in the armed forces are not being measured by the platooii of ‘characters’ . commanded by Sergeant Bil¬ ko.” ( _ Wednwday, M«y, 16 . TQS* “Sand and Sex in Biblical Cycle fire Bad Impression of the Good Book 10% DIALOG LIMIT JDonald O’Connor Policy Inspired By Buster. Keaton Panto Hollywood, May 15-. On theory there’s “too much talk in talking pictures,” Donald O’Con¬ nor’s first picture under his new indie banner, which he personally will write, will have a maximum 10% of dialog. His own role will be entirely pontomimic, O’Cpnnor, who will shoot film in Europe, said point was driven home to him in recent viewings of old Buster Keaton comedies. O’Connor maintains biggest audi¬ ence response came “when Buster wasn’t saying a word but depend¬ ing on action for laughs.” Susan Hayward Sole U.S. Prize At Cannes Fest Cannes, May 15. France swept the top prizes of its own Ninth Cannes Film Festi¬ val by copping the Golden Palms for the best feature and best short as bestowed by the 11 man (six French and five foreign), jury. Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s underwa¬ ter, color exploration documentary “Le Monde Du Silence,” was top featured. Albert Lamorisse’s 35 minute" tinted “Le Ballon Rouge” (The Red Balloon) was top short. Sole award to Hollywood was the best actress nod to * Susan Hay¬ ward for “I’ll Cry Tomorrow” (M-G). (No male acting kudo was given this year). Sweden’s “Sommernattens Leende” (Smiles of a Spmmer flight), of Ingmar Bergman, got an award for the most poetic comedy, and Serge Youtkevitch got the di¬ rection award for the Russian “Othello” which also got special mention for the production aspect of the pic. India, with “Pather Panchali” (Song of a Little Road) pf Satyajit Roy, got the nod as the most human document. Special jury award went to another French documentary H. - G. Clouzot’s “Le Mystere Picasso” on the painter at I work. -. a Other short subject prizes went to Italy for the best documentary “La Course Des Tours,” and for best fiction pic the 50 minute Russo pic “L’Ane De Magdalena” (The Donkey of Magdalena). Spe¬ cial mention went to the Czech short “Les Marionettes de Jiri Trynka,” with mentions for the best experimental films to the Eng¬ lish “Together” of Lorenza Maz- zetti and the Gallic “Tant Qu’ll Y Aura Des Betes” (As Long As There Are Animals) of Brassai. Gallic sweep caused some dis- gruntlement among assembled critics who felt that some films were slighted. COURT: NUDE NATIVES ENDANGER NO MORALS Do shots of naked natives in the Amazon jungles arouse “sexual desiries” in American audiences? Last w€ek the Baltimore City Court dealt another blow to Mary¬ land’s already reeling state censors when it ruled that Times Film’s “Naked Amazon” could be shown in the state without cuts. Case was argued for Times by the lawfirm of Bilgrey 6c Levinson. The $tate board had charged that “Amazon” was “obscene and/ or pornographic . . . and aroused sexual desire.” To which Bilgrey 6c Levinson replied that cuts would “destroy a work of art.” Also, they argued, “any nudity displayed in the film was natural to the habitat and was not contrived to stimulate the audience to any sexual desires.” Court said the makers of the picture had carefully eliminated closeups of natives showing their bodies below their waist; that the censor hoard’s objections didn’t fall under the provisions of the amend¬ ed Code chapter cited to the,Court, and that restoration of the’elimi¬ nated scenes were therefore or- 1 dered. .. -„ ^0, Generally speaking, Hollywood has taken a .“responsible” attitude toward Biblical subjects but there is a tendency , toward “sand and sex” treatment, Rabbi Jacob M. Ott of Hollywood’s Temple Beth El* declared at a panel discussion of “Hollywood and the Bible” here The rabbi singled out' 20th-Fox’s 195 ? “ David an d Bathsheba” contending' it “made a japerv of Jewish 1 a w,” particularly the scenes in which the adulteress was stoned. treat capital punishment lightly” Rabbi Ott declared. “If the pro- ducer had consulted Jewish law and certain non-biblical sources he could have^ayoided offense.” ’ Rabbi Ott paid tribute to the ‘massive research” that went into Cecil B. DeMille’s upcoming “Ten Commandments,” but reported that other producers are nor as careful He added that four years-ago he had seen excerpts from the script of the projected “Solomon* and the Queen of Sheba” and had found them. “authentic.” However, he added, the producer told him’that the studio wanted* to turn the pic¬ ture into a ‘‘sand and sex” epic and that the producer was opposed to it. “I hope,” said Rabbi Ott, that he will stick to his determination to resist this.” ' Morris Murphy, repping the Pro¬ duction Code, said that Hollywood had “conducted itself laudably in its use of the Bible” and recounted favorable press reaction to such pix as “Samson and Delilah,” "Sins of Jezebel” and “The Prodi¬ gal.” Latter, he recalled, had been blasted in Variety by Dr.-Daniel Poling but he felt the blast was unfair since “The parable of the Prodigal Son Is, at best, brief and sketchy in the Bible.” , ‘I pray,” Murphy concluded, “that the day will never come when the Bible is a forgotten document in a_ museum. -1 pray that the day will never come when dramatists ignore it.” ., Henry Noerdlinger, research con¬ sultant on “Commandments,” re¬ minded the audience that the Bible, in. addition to being a historical record, a sacred document to 800,000,000 Christians and 13,000,- 000 Jews. He rapped criticisms of Hollywood Biblical films, declaring that in several instances, the ig¬ norance of the critic becomes plain. “A preacher,” he noted, “bases ; his sermons on the Bible, but most¬ ly he interprets. This is just what the motion picture does.” Senator Wiley to TV Lensers: ‘You’re Not Doing Right By Ike’ Washington, May 15. Senator Alexander Wiley (R., Wis.) doesn’t think tv does right by President Eisenhower.-The Wis¬ consin solon thinks the medium makes Prexy look older and more worn than he actually is. All of this came out in the pres¬ ence of newsmen the other day when Wiley was at the White House for a ceremony which was to designate a section of the St. Law¬ rence Seaway as “Eisenhower Lock.” On hand were film camera¬ men to make clips for the news¬ reels and tv. Pointing to the floodlight, Wiley told the President, “You ought to do something about these tv lights. You ought to shoot the fellows with the lights.”. “Do you think we need some col- ! ored lights7” asked the suprised j President [ “With some of the television,” retorted Wiley, “it shows you look¬ ing aged whereas you now look like a kid. I onlyJhope the lights can be arranged so that people on tele¬ vision can see you as you really ' are, v youthful, vigorous, and with the complexion of a kid.” “They do their best,” Eisenhower answered. “They’re good guys.” Later Wiley complained to news¬ men that some people still think of the President “as a sick man,” be¬ cause of .his “aged,” Ipok on video.