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To Outline Rank Product
At Four EL Meetings
NEW YORK—William J. Heineman. Eagle
Lion vice-president in charge of distribution,
who has just returned
from a trip to England
to look at the J. Arthur
Rank pictures EL will
release in America
during the next year,
will outline this product
to branch managers
and salesmen at
a series of four meetings
to be held during
May.
Heineman and Max
Youngstein, vice-president
in charge of ad-
W. J. Heineman
vertising, publicity and exploitation, who accompanied
him on the trip to London, was
scheduled to preside at the first meeting in
New York Saturday and Sunday (15-16), attended
by representatives of the ten eastern
branches. The second meeting is scheduled
for Chicago May 22 with representatives of
the nine branches in that area attending.
The third meeting will be held in New Orleans
May 24 with representatives of the six
southern branches on hand. The final meeting
will be held in San Francisco May 29
with representatives of the six branches in
that area present. Youngstein and Jack C.
Schlaifer, assistant to Heineman, will attend
all meetings.
ELATED OVER 'OLIVER TWIST'
While in London, Heineman and Youngstein
held meetings with the advertising, publicity
and exploitation staff of the Rank Organization
to discuss a greater exchange of
publicity material between the two organizations
and to plan long-range campaigns
for the British pictures in the U.S. Heineman
is enthusiastic about "Oliver Twist," first of
the new group of 12 for EL release, which
he predicts will roll up an American gross
equal to any of the EL Hollywood product.
"Twist," which will be released here in July
or August, will have a $250,000 advertising
budget, Heineman said.
Heineman said that the British have recently
made great strides in picture-making
with their producers "showing a keener interest
in the U.S. market." In addition to
"Oliver Twist," Heineman and Youngstein
saw "Miranda" and "Broken Journey," as
well as rough-cuts or parts of "Red Shoes,"
"Scott of the Antarctic" and "The Olympic
Games." The build-up scenes of the American
contestants in the "Games" film have
already been made and the first print of the
completed picture will be shipped to America
within three weeks after the close of the
Games August 14. It will have a September
release in America. The buildup scenes of
the Latin-American contestants have also
been filmed and prints with Portuguese and
Spanish narration will be shipped to South
and Central America direct from London.
Although Eagle Lion expects to release the
Rank product at the rate of one a month, the
company will release an equal number of
top Hollywood pictures during the same 12-
month period, Heineman said. Yoimgstein
has put in a request to the Rank Organization
for the services of John Mills, Stewart
Granger, Kathleen Ryan and David Farrar
for publicity buildups on American exploitation
tours.
Eagle Lion will have its own distribution
setup in Latin America completed by July,
according to Sam Seidelman, foreign distribution
head. Offices have already been
opened in Mexico. Argentine, Chile and Puerto
Rico and offices in Cuba, Panama, Peru and
Brazil will be opened in the next few months.
The company will have sub-distributors in
Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad, Seidelman
said.
Leonard Gaynor to Handle
'Beyond Glory' Campaign
NEW YORK—Leonard Gaynor has been
engaged by Paramount for a special promotion
campaign on "Beyond Glory," which will
be released in July. Gaynor recently organized
his own company for the production of
16mm educational, commercial and television
films. Scripts are now being prepared for
fall
production.
Republic to Release
Impossible Series
NEW YORK—Impossible Pictures, Inc., will
produce a series of Trucolor cartoons for release
by Republic beginning July 1, 1948.
The series, which will stress camera animation
rather than figure animation, will be
called "Jerky Journeys," or authentic travelogs
about imaginary places, subtitled "Little
known visits to lesser known places by completely
unknown people."
Leonard Levinson, president of Impossible
Pictures, and his partner and vice-president,
David Flexer, will produce and deliver four
cartoons in the first year of the contract.
They are: "Romantic Rumbolia, the Seat
of the Rhumba," which has already been
completed, and "Glamorous Hanky-Panky,"
"Jingle, Jangle Jungle" and "The Three Minnies,
Sota, Tonka and Ha-Ha." Frank Nelson,
radio actor featured on the Jack Benny
show, has been signed to do the narration.
Levinson collaborated with Don Quinn for
three years in writing the "Fibber McGee and
Molly" airways show and created the "Great
Gildersleeve" show. Flexer owns theatres in
Tennessee, Delaware and Mississippi as well
as a number of drive-in theatres. They incorporated
Impossible Pictures July 6, 1947,
after aU of their friends and business
acquaintances told them they were attempting
the impossible. After Herbert J. Yates,
president of Republic, and James R. Grainger
saw "Romantic Rumbolia," in New York,
Levinson traveled 3,000 miles from North
Hollywood to meet Yates.
Allied Artists to Hike Output to 13
During Coming Year, Says Broidy
HOLLYWOOD—Second industi-y figure to
cite increased production as a remedy for
the film world's current "depressed condition"
is Steve Broidy, president of Monogram
and Allied Artists, who announced the AA
The mighty Babe Ruth himself paid a
visit to the set of "The Babe Ruth Story"
to watch Producer-Director Roy Del Ruth
film scenes from his career for the Monogram-AUied
Artists production. Here
William Bendix (left), impersonatng
Ruth in the film, shows him the replica
of the .saloon where Ruth as a youth
worked for his father. The sports idol was
accompanied in his tour by Del Ruth and
(right) Steve Broidy, Monogram-AA
president.
schedule for the next 12 months will total 13
pictures at an approximate budget of $13,-
000,000. This represents an increase of $3,000,-
000 over the original budget estimate, Broidy
said.
The 13-picture slate almost doubles AA's
output in its first year of operation. When
seven features were distributed under that
label.
"The best way to meet a depression is with
expansion," Broidy said in disclosing AA's
plans for the coming 12 months. "Instead of
talking about a depressed condition within
the film industry and doing nothing about it,
we are increasing our production."
His announcement came shortly after Jack
L. Warner, vice-president and production
chief at Warner Bros., had called upon filmmakers
to increase the output of celluloid
as a means of combating widespread unemployment
within the industry and to satisfy
a worldwide demand for film entertainment.
Broidy declared Monogram Pictures, AA's
parent comipany, will adhere to a 41-picture
schedule in the coming 12-month period, a
pace equal to its last year's efforts.
The AA output for the ensuing year will
include Roy Del Ruth's "The Babe Ruth
Story," "Red Light " "The Last of the Badmen,"
"Gun Crazy," "When a Man's a Man,"
"North of Nome," "Little Shepherd of Kingdom
Come," "Stampede," "Land of the Sky
Blue Waters," "Strike It Rich" and two to
be made in England, "The Highwayman" and
"The Maze."
18
BOXOFTICE
:
: May
15, 1948