Variety (September 1956)

Wednesday, September 19 t PXntETr TV-FILMS 59 VIDPIXERS’ CELLER-ITY DISPLAY .— - : — 1 ' i - - - Breakdown on Profit Participations One key target of the House Judiciary Antitrust Committee in its Foley Sq. (New York) hearings on network practices has been the matter of profit participations by the networks In independ¬ ently producer series. Subcommittee, in attempting to determine whether the network is using its control over the peak viewing hours as a means of cutting itself in on program profits by mak¬ ing participation a condition to allowing the show on the air, ques¬ tioned four key telefilm producers-distributors on the matter quite closely last week, and came up with the information that of 18 shows on the networks from these four companies, only five and one-half were sold directly to the webs and of these only three have a profit participation arrangement with the nets. (The “half", show is "Robin Hood,” of which Johnson & Johnson bought alter¬ nate weeks and CBS-TV the other half, selling that in turn to Wildroot.) A breakdown of the direct network sales and the amounts of participation follows: * Some network participation in merchandising-licensing revenues, t Film episodes for “Playhouse 90” only. Four Stars All-Star Schism $500,000 Suit Against Sharpe & Lewis On ‘Cavalcade* Bares Rift Details 4-:- Santa Monica, Sept. 18. An unprecedented $500,000 breach of fiduciary trust suit filed In Superior Court here, against Don W. Sharpe and Warren Lewis and the newly-formed Sharpe- Lewis Productions, brings the re¬ cent schism in the Four Star Films operation out in the open. The action asks an injunction to halt Sharpe-LewiS from commencing with lensing on 16 “Cavalcade Theatre” vidfilms. Suit, filed by Harry L. Gershon on behalf of Four Star, alleges that Sharpe, former Four Star prexy, violated his obligations of trust and conspired with Lewis to grab the “Cavalcade" biz belong¬ ing to the plaintiff. A rift between t Sharpe and other members of the Four Star board, including Dick Powell, Charles Boyer and David Niven, has been known to exist for '■ some time. Some time ago, Sharpe was either ousted, or resigned, ac¬ cording to who’s telling the story, as Four Star prexy. . Lewis was the Four Star producer on the DuPont-sponsored “Cavalcades” at the time that Sharpe was exec prd-. ducer of the series* Four Star is asking $250,000 general damages and $250,000 puni¬ tive damages from Sharpe and Lewis, and is seeking to have trans¬ ferred to itself any profits the new firm may make out of the “Caval¬ cade” filming. Sharpe and Lewis are still stock- continued on page 94) TV ‘Millionaire’ Into Syndication “The Millionaire,” Don Fedder- *on Production which has been net¬ worked for the past year-and-a-half via CBS-TV, has been acquired by MCA-TV for syndication. Retitled “If You Had a Million," the first 39 half-hours will be re¬ leased for regional and local spon¬ sorship next month. The new sea-, son episodes of “The Millionaire" are being aired Wednesday nights on CBS-TV. Reporting on one of the largest , • single purchases of syndicated tv film, WISN-TV, Milwaukee, an- . nouneed that it has bought a total of 1,246 half‘-hour and quarter-hour series from MCA-TV. Deal includes “Man Behind the Badge," “Ray Mil- land Show," “Famous Playhouse," “Lone Wblf," “Federal Men" and ' ‘Curtain Call.” Purchase calls for two runs each of the various tele- piX. -v ••vr.Tv.'. , Stars for Hard Sell Hollywood, Sept. 18. Alice Faye and Phil Harris will film two teleblurbs for A-C Spark Plugs, to be shown on NBC-TV “Wide Wide World” next season, in a deal with Jerry Fairbanks Pro¬ ductions inked last-week. Other showbiz personalities who also will peddle the spark plugs on “WWW” include Jonathan Winters and Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney. Market Overlaps On Metro Backlog Deals Don’t Bother Anyone Metro’s sale of its 725-film li¬ brary continues to pop up more trade angles, than a toaster at Lindys’. Latest to come to mind is the realization that via its deals with CBS for showings of the pic in Hartford and that with Triangle Publications for showings in New Haven, Metro has run into one of those traditional overlap situations that has plagued telefilm syndica¬ tors since the business started. Not that there’s any problem from Metro’s vantage-point in the Hartford-New Haven sales. Fact of the matter is that the pic company is in a “have our cake and eat it” position in having been able to make both deals, since both parties —CBS and Triangle—were aware of the overlap situation and wtint ahead with their purchases anyway. In the case of syndicated program- iming of a half-hour series, such a deal would have been avoided by one of the parties. But in this case, because feature programming was involved and because of the size of the library which permits a wide latitude of programming, they went ahead with the deal. Fact is that the New Havfcn VHF station howls into Hartford with a strong signal, while the CBS-TV Hartford outlet is a UHF’er. How¬ ever, there’s a good UHF conver¬ sion factor in Hartford, so CBS-TV isn’t particularly worried about the New Haven signal. Just to even the score however, the network’s New York flagship, WCBS-TV, beams a strong signal into New Haven itself. JOE NAAR TO REVUE Hollywood, Sept. 18. Joe Naar, after a five-year asso¬ ciation with the William Morris Agency, has resigned to join Re¬ vue Productions in an exec ca¬ pacity. He Mas been assigned the next SS'^Bchlitz Playhouse” shows. SIDESTEP DM El SjCutbackln Nighttime Option Hours, Other ATFD ‘Solutions’ Opening round last Thursday (13) of Rep. Emanuel Celler’s (D., N. Y.) House Judiciary Anti¬ trust Committee hearings in New York’s Foley Square found the telefilm industry, which had been expected to provide some meaty in¬ sight into network control over programs, playing it coy all the way down the line. The telefilm reps were officials of the four companies comprising the Assn, of Television Film Distributors. With Rep. "Celler and his key counsel, Herbert N. Maletz and Samuel R.. Pierce, prodding the witnesses on instances of demands by the networks for profit partici¬ pations and program control, the witnesses consistently maintained that such cases were normal “bar¬ gaining procedures” and were nothing out of the ordinary. Princi¬ pal proponent of this position, was Ralph Cohn, v.p.-general manager of Screen Gems, who argued that in some cases, the networks have the stronger bargaining position and are able to win their demands, but in others the independent pro¬ ducer is in the stronger position and is able to withstand them. Rep. Celler, * apparently irked by seeming inconsistencies between Cohn’s oral testimony and the posi¬ tion taken in the ATFD’s “presen¬ tation" to the FCC Network Study Group last May, on which most of the subcommittee’s questioning was based, at one point told Cohn that “apparently you are temper¬ ing your remarks this morning. Something must have happened j since you wrote that document.” j Cohn replied that nothing had hap¬ pened. Run Afoul of Committee Nonetheless, the differences In language and approach between the testimony of Cohn and the others —Official Films exec v.p. Herb Jaffe, Television Programs of America exec v.p. Michael M. Sil- lerman and Ziy exec Frank Reel— and the original presentation were glaring. Particularly in its refer¬ ences to network refusal to ap¬ prove independent programs sub¬ mitted by advertisers when they have one of their own available, the telepixers ran afoul of the committee. Presentation referred to “many instances” in “our files," and, Celler complained when only one such document was produced. Cohn explained that the word “files" was being taken literally and that the word meant “experi¬ ences” or “memories.” Witnesses then elaborated specific instances such as “You Can’t Take It With You,” “Count of Monte Cristo,” “Four Star Playhouse,” etc. (which are detailed in a separate story.) Position taken by the witnesses was that “the networks have the right to choose their own pro¬ grams,” but that they wanted addi- (Continued on page 94): Czechs in Bid For U.S1 Vidpix Series First overture from behind the Iron Curtain for American tele¬ films has been made by Czecho¬ slovakia, which some months ago contacted the London office of Screen Gems in a bid for several series. The request specifically asked for prints for “demonstra¬ tion” of American telefilm content and technique, but left the impli¬ cation that the Czechs might like to purchase some of the* series. Request was transmitted, from Screen Gems’ London office to the New York hoip’eoffice of the ( Co¬ lumbia Pictures subsidiary, which in turn referred it to the State Dept. No action has been taken yet by the Government. The Czech proposal was disclosed by Screen Gems v.p.-General manager Ralph Cohn last week in testimony before the House Judiciary Antitrust sub¬ committee hearings in New York. Les & Mary’s 35 Quickies A series of 35 five-minute tele¬ films, starring Les Paul and Mary Ford, were finished this week by ATV Film Productions Ine. Fix were .produced for Listerine.-- Don Trevor, who supervised, and director Chuck Wasserman wrapped up the series in eight shooting days. Fox’s ‘Hands Off’ On Guild Operation; ‘Just An Investment’ Matty Fox, who, along with some friends, controls the largest stock plurality in Guild Films, denied that he’ll take an active part in operation or control of the production-syndication house. The 500,000 shares the Fox group acquired recently in return for supplying seven telefilm series is a straight investment, with no strings attached, Fox explained. Fox, who is head of C&C Tele¬ vision, company distributing the RKO backlog to television, bought a large part of the 500,000 shares out of his own pocket. Various producers of the film series own the remainder. He can muster control of the entire 500,000 shares if need be, but he maintained that he’ll vote it in favor of policies set down by Guild’s current man¬ agement, headed by prexy Reub Kaufman. ' Since the Guild-Fox trade a few weeks ago, there has been speculation that Fox would seek control of Guild on the strength of the stock he com¬ mands. / ' For the seven skeins, which have all completed one or more runs on tv, Fox was given options to buy several thousand additional shares of Guild stock. He feels, he ex¬ plained, that the stock received will make money for him and his cohorts. “I think Guild has done a good job so far, and its future is even better,” Fox said in explaining the deal. CBS-TV FILM SALE ON‘OMNIBUS’SEGS CBS Television Film Sales has made its first major regional sale on “Under the Sun,” the syndicated series excerpted from “Omnibus” with William Saroyan as narrator. CBS syndication subsid has set a seven-station Canadian deal with the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Ltd. of Canada (A&P) for showings on CBLT, Toronto; CHCH, Hamilton; CFPL, London; CBOT, Ottawa; CBMT, Montreal; CBWT, Winnipeg and CKCO, Kit¬ chener. . Deal was set through Spence Caldwell, Canadian distrib repping CBS Film Sales, and' Paul-Phelan agency. Rita Cummings Shift To CBS Terrytoons Rita Cummings, formerly pub¬ licity director for UPA in Holly¬ wood and in New York, has joined CBS as publicity chief for -Terry- toons Inc., the web’s wholly-owned animation subsidiary. She’ll han¬ dle the bally for all four phases of the Terrytoons operations, theatri¬ cal production, tv programming, character merchandising and com¬ mercial production. Miss Cummings will operate in¬ dependently Of the CBS-TV pub¬ licity setup under Charles Oppen- heim. LANTZ CARTOONS TO GUILD Guild Films has taken over dis¬ tribution for tv of 179 Walter Lantz cartoons, which MPTV ini¬ tially handled. Presentation, of the Association of Television Film Distributors be¬ fore the FCC Network Study Group, made last May 31 in Wash¬ ington, was finally made public last week when it was subpoenaed and placed in the record of the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcom¬ mittee hearings in New York. The document was used as the princi¬ pal basis of questioning of repre¬ sentatives of the four member com¬ panies of the ATFD. Basically, the presentation rec¬ ommended a solution to the allo¬ cations problem that would permit more than three stations in each major market as the longrange answer to the problems of the in¬ dustry. As the shortterm solution, it recommended a cutback in night¬ time option hours from three to one and one-half. But the language of the presentation was strong in its detailing of the questions of network control over programming, though at the same time asserting that its recommendations would overcome those difficulties by open¬ ing alternative methods of expos¬ ing product which would throw the question of program superiority to the public and give independent producers added leverage in their dealings with the webs. Nonetheless, the strong language of the presentation caused some bickering be'ween subcommittee chairman Emanuel Celler (D., N.Y.) and his counsel and key wit¬ ness Ralph Cohri of Screen Gems, whose oral testimony was far mild¬ er than the language of the presen¬ tation. Celler pointed up the fol¬ lowing quotations from the presen¬ tation: “.*. . The agency places an order for the show with the independent, as per the previously negotiated terms, but subject to network ap¬ proval. Then either this advertiser, his agency, the independent dis*- tributor, or perhaps a combination of all three, go to the network to seek its approval. If the network has had a program of its own in mind, the approval is most difficult to bbtain, nay, frequently impos¬ sible. Using its power to approve or disapprove on the grounds of ’public interest,’ ‘good- program¬ ming,’ or *our concept of what kind of show this time period should contain,’ the network can. and does refuse to accept" the program of the independent, usually at the (Continued on page 94) Cal Nat Dickers Doris Day Series A telefilm series for Doris Day, who up‘to this point has shied away from any tv commitments, is being discussed by NBC’s subsid California National Productions. Series based on “Calamity Jane," the Warner Bros, film which starred Miss Day, is one of the possible proper* ies under discus¬ sion, although non-musical prop¬ erties also are being talked about. Representing Miss Day in the ne¬ gotiations 'is producer Marty Mel- cher, her husband, now in New York to launch “Julie," an inde¬ pendent production starring his wife, slated for Metro release. Guild Upbeat on Comm’ls Guild Films commercial divi¬ sion will produce 24 new commer¬ cials for five advertisers. Gertrude Berg, who stars in the parent company’s “The Goldbergs” telepix skein,, will do pitches for Pariser’s Bread and Sealey Mat¬ tress, who sponsor the half-hour in several markets. Margaret Firth, star of “It’s Fun to Reduce,” an¬ other Guild show, will front for Franz’s Bakeries, of Portland, Ore. Warwick & Legler, for ftuppert’s brewery, will get five commercials. A Montreal firm, Success Floor Wax, also Inked with Guild. Pro¬ duction is being done in the Bilt- more Studios, N. Y.