Variety (June 1956)

46 TV-FILMS Official’s Diversifi cation _ Continued from page 39 , ,» r PfitSIETY Wednesday, June 13, 1956 Ackerman’s New Series the lab situation there if Official would get into color teevee pro¬ duction. The step into color pro¬ duction is considered inevitable for Official’s costumed-adventure ser¬ ies once the “big break” in color tv sets occurs in the U. S. Hack- ett also held out the possibility of building a lab in Britain, but ex¬ pressed a preference for buying one. Questioned as to a timetable on the lab project and possible financing, Hackett said it was too early to delve into those questions. Official topper said he would ex¬ plore the question further when he makes the July trip to Britain. Turning to the contemplated feature phase of Official’s business, Hackett maintained that the tv success of a series such as “Bobin Hood” in the U. S. provides a fea¬ ture film based on the series with a "built-in boxoffice.” He said the same cast, roles and production talent, all having won popularity through teevee exposure, would be utilized. Added to the established talent would be a completely new story, Hackett continued, mention¬ ing the similar ventures of Desilu Productions, “Dragnet” and “For¬ eign Intrigue.” Furthermore, Hackett contended that the profiit potential from such a venture is "extremely sizable.” Official, being thoroughly familiar with the material, possessing the needed properties and talent con¬ tracts, could turn out such a fea¬ ture film for $200,000 to $250,000, Hackett stated. Starting fresh, Hackett maintained,, the same fea¬ ture film would cost in the neigh¬ borhood of $750,000. After a year’s exposure on teevee, each Official series will be examined for possible feature film production, he ex¬ plained. Accents Diversification The bullish plans of Official would be another plank in the firm’s structure of diversification, which received strong support when Hackett moved over from MCA, starting the talent-packag¬ ing agency phase of the business. This phase, also under planned expansion, is under exec v.p. Herb Jaffe and v.p. Bobby Sanford. Hackett, speaking about his proj¬ ected new teevee series for 1957, said the south of France is cur¬ rently being scouted for possible location shooting. Weatherwise, he said, Britain is limited as far as outdoor shooting, although it of¬ fers much in locale for the cos¬ tume-adventure properties. Hackett pointed out the tacit agreement in Britain on the 20% limitation on American program¬ ming over UK’s commercial teevee stations. This limitation does not hold true for Official’s three series made in England, allowing Official to bargain much more successfully there than American distributors, as well as providing Official with a “sympathetic” market in Canada and Australia. Jack Buchanan Set As Host of ‘City’ Telefilm Series Shooting O’seas Jack Buchanan has been signed to host “The City,” the CBS Tele¬ vision Film Sales series of adven¬ ture yarns localed in the key cities of the world and being produced in Europe by John Nasht. Bu¬ chanan has just wound up filming the narration on the pilot reel in Paris, and the film is due in N. Y. next week. Initialler was ; loca- tioned in Cairo and based on a story by Mike Stern. Stern, Yank writer who resides in Rome, was to have done the narration originally, but found his thesping qualities didn’t quite match his scripting abilities and so he bowed out of that part of the project. Buchanan was hurriedly signed in order to get the pilot out in time for the selling season. Hollywood, June 12. Harry Ackerman plans to film a new vidpix series, “I Fly for Hire,” under his own Ticonderoga Pro¬ ductions banner, and has signed Bernard Girard to script the pilot. Meanwhile, pilot of “Fremont the Trailblazer,” in which Acker¬ man is associated with Robert Alex¬ ander and star Steve Cochran, is currently being viewed in N. Y. agency and sponsor circles. D.S. Okays Hyman WB Backlog Buy Eliot Hyman, boss of Associated Artists, finally announced tv sales on the Warner Bros, feature film backlog. He made the official an¬ nouncement Friday (8), when he was informed that the motion pic¬ ture company's bid for a capital gains decree was okayed by the Federal government the day be¬ fore. When Hyman originally paid Warners $21,000,000 for 754 pix, finalization of the pact depended on the favorable Washington ruling on the tax-saving law. Though Hy¬ man had been lining up station inkings for the last month or more, he was apparently in no position to announce consummation of deals until the Feds passed on Warners’ demand one way or an¬ other. It’s said all station con¬ tracts carried the stipulation that in the event of an unfavorable gov¬ ernment ruling on capital gains for the $21,000,000, they would have to relinquish the pix to Hyman, who would return them to Warners. When WCBS-TV, N. Y., reported it bought 152 Warner features at $1,250,000 early last week, impli¬ cation was that Hyman anticipated a favorable ruling for Warners. Of the 28 stations buying the pix, six are understood to have inked for all 754, while the remainder took one or more groups of 52 films. Salt Lake’s KUTV Borrows H’wood Leaf For RK0 Pix Bally Salt Lake City, June 12. All the hoopla and ballyhoo of Hollywood studios was utilized for the forthcoming preem of C & C Television Corp.'s RKO package over KUTV, Salt Lake City. The stunts included a beauty contest, a parade of costumed characters depicting roles in the package, teaser ads, series of in¬ terviews over radio and television and a fashion show. Under the co¬ leadership of Dick Westman, KUTV promotion manager, and Gene Cogan, C & C's advertising manager, the aim was to transform Salt Lake City considered a test city, into “Movietown, USA.” Teaser ads and window displays were placed in Ogden and Provo also, as part of the tri-city market campaign. The pitch in these ads were the various stars to be seen in the RKO “Movietime,” USA” package. In the meantime, 60 of Salt Lake City’s most beautiful gals were screened and interviewed as entries in the “Miss Movietime, USA-Miss Channel 2” contest. The bathing beauties, as well as the costumed characters, also put on a one-half hour show at the local Veteran’s Administration Hospital. The winner of the beauty contest was selected by a group composed of ad agency people, newsmen and prospective clients in the tri-city area, and introduced to the people of Utah over KUTV. The fashion show, titled “Fash¬ ions from Hollywood,” was spon¬ sored by Dupler Furs and Hal- mars, local outfits, and another round of sponsorships was pro¬ cured for personal appearances of the beauty-costume characters car¬ avan at various showrooms of the station’s account. Intensive all week promotion campaign was topped by a caravan tie-up with the Lagoon, a local amusement park, where people were informed of the upcoming RKO films. FEINER TO 20TH AS TV SERIES PRODUCER Hollywood, June 12. Ben Feiner Jr., has been named a producer of “20th-Fox Hour,” joining Sam Marx and Peter Pack¬ er as regular producers on the TCF series for next season. Feiner was an exec at CBS-TV before moving to TCF. Production chief Irving Asher also disclosed eight writers are readying 10 story properties for the series, listing them as DeWitt Bodeen on “Window on the Sea”; Charles O’Neal, “The Money Maker”; John Robinson, “Men Against Speed”; John Edmiston, “A Child of the Regiment”; Steve Fisher, “City in Flames”; Fred Finklehoffe, “Capital Gain”; David Chandler, “Letter to the Presi¬ dent,” and John Bryne, “The De¬ serter.” Other properties being* prepped are “The Brothers Kane” ( and “Smoke Jumpers,” but no writers have been assigned as yet. Azcarraga Plans to Dub Telepix for Latino Sales Emilio Azcarraga, who is Mexi¬ co’s “Mr. Big” in tv and radio sta¬ tion ownership, is reportedly going into dubbing and telefilm produc¬ tion, inking Arturo de Cordova to star in a Spanish-language half- hour series. Azcarraga, if production plans go through, will distribute the Latino pix to South and Central America through his own sales organization. Shooting is scheduled to start either in August or September in studios at Monterey. Intimates say that when Azcarraga was in town last, he purchased dubbing equip¬ ment. Ken Smith and Dick Tomp¬ kins so far have been handling the largest share of dubbing for Amer¬ icans by means of their respective Mexico City operations. AARONOFF TO MCA-TV Ed Aaronoff has moved over from Universal-International to MCA-TV Ltd. as publicity director for the syndicator. He fills job held until recently by Howard Berk, who handed in his resignation. Aaronoff was at U-I for four years. Saltzmans Italo Four-Stage Studio Indie producer Harry Saltzman, who turns out the “Captain Gal¬ lant of the Foreign Legion” tele¬ pix series and who’s just completed the Katherine Hepburn-Bob Hope starrer, “The Iron Petticoat,” for Metro release, has leased a modern four-stage studio in Tirrenia, Italy, located on the Mediterranean be¬ tween Leghorn and Pisa. Saltzman, who previously oper¬ ated out of the Studio Neuilly in Paris, has taken a longterm lease on the Pisorno Studios, as they are called, and installed modern equipment and a bilingual staff that includes art director Arrigo Equini (“Quo Vadis” and “The Barefoot Contessa”), production manager Michael Waszynski (“Alexander the Great” and “Con- tessh”) and cameraman,' Georgio Gengerelli (“War and Peace”), along with English sound person¬ nel and cutting crew. Saltzman has already completed four of the upcoming 26 “Gallant” shows for Television Programs of America and H. J. Heinz, which sponsors the show on NBC, using about one-third of the studio plus an outdoor Foreign Legion fort and Arab village on the 14-acre back lot of the 30-acre site. With only one-third of the stages, which comprise, a 180x130’, a 120x90, a 95x70 and a circular 90’ diameter stage,, plus a 20x40’ swimming pool beneath the flooring, in use, Saltzman is in the U. S. talking coproduction and production deals on features and telepix series to utilize the remainder of the setup. Studio’s equipped with Mitchell cameras, Featless dollies, eight cutting rooms, two projection rooms (including Cinemascope projectors), 30 dressing rooms and five generators on trucks plus a camera car. Studio is three hours by train from Rome, 75 minutes from Florence, and is within an hour of the Carrara Mountain range and a half-hour from the 40- square-mile San Rosorie National Park, once a hunting preserve for King Victor Emanuel III. Webb Dickers Peggy Lee For New Telepix Series Hollywood, June 12. “Dragnet” producer-dicector-star Jack Webb and Peggy Lee are dis¬ cussing a vidpix series which would star the thrush. Miss Lee and NBC-TV have been discussing a tv film series for some time, and if the Webb-pro¬ duced series jells from present talks, there is a strong possibility NBC would have a financial inter¬ est in such a show. Singer had a top role in Webb’s “Pete Kelly’s Blues” film for War¬ ner Bros., winning an Academy Award nomination for her portray¬ al. SIMON'S 'COURAGE' SERIES Hollywood, June 12. A1 Simon has filmed a pilot for a new documentary adventure tele¬ film series, “Courage,” which he (created, at General Service Stu¬ dios. FOR SALE! BY ORDER OF MY CREDITORS A COMPLETE UNLIMITED INVENTORY OF 'VOICES' STRAIGHT ANNOUNCING ALL TYPES CHARACTERS ANIMAL VOICES, HUMAN OR OTHERWISE INSECT VOICES, BOTH MALE AND FEMALE PRICES MARKED DOWN ON ALL USED VOICES HOWDY DOODY — MR. BLUSTER THE FLUB-A-DUB — DINKY DUCK MIGHTY MOUSE, ETC. Allen <SW^ Represented by FRANK COOPER ASSOC. 17 E. 54th St., N.Y.C. PL 1-0725 In TV with > v•r TOO