JUNE

'VoU^fU/md ^eftont
By
IVAN SPEAR
Summer Doldrums af the Studios;
Only 26 Films to Roll in
Summer's dog days came earlier this year
than studio toilers had anticipated—with the
rather unpleasant result that July's index of
scheduled new starting subjects dipped
sharply and. as a necessary if unwelcome
corollary, dealt body blows to the studio's
employment levels.
Only a meager aggregate of 26 new films
could be mustered up among major and independent
filmmakers—a figure far less than
June's 44. and only one notch above 1952's
poorest month to date. March, when 25 features
faced the cameras.
The situation was aggravated by Columbia's
decision to shut down entirely (a yearly habit)
for two weeks, beginning late in the month,
which left the studio with only one feature
poised for production; while Paramount listed
no new starting ventures at all.
Busiest pace, it appeared, would be set by
MGM and RKO Radio, with five each, while
20th Century-Fox, with four, and Universal-
International, with three, took place and
show money. Here is the lineup, by studios
and subject, of course, to the usual lastminute
and unpredictable changes:
COLUMBIA—This studio's customary annual
production hiatus, a two-week period
beginning July 21, is cutting heavily into the
month's slate of new subjects, which was
slashed to one lone picture. The single entry
is "Ambush at Tomahawk Gap," a cavalryvs.-redskin
opus, which will be produced by
Wallace MacDonald, for the Robert Cohn
unit, and directed by Fred Sears. It will be
in Technicolor but, at this writing, no cast
had been recruited for the outdoor action
drama.
INDEPENDENT—Chalking up a first as
concerns productional techniques is Producer-
Director-Writer Arch Oboler's latest brain
child, "Bwana Devil," which went before the
cameras in Jime's latter days. It is the initial
feature to utilize three-dimensional photography
as developed by the Natural Vision
Corp. and which, it is claimed, embraces a
method of theatrical projection requiring no
change in present projectors and a minimum
expenditure for necessary alterations in projection
booths. It does, however, require the
use of Polaroid spectacles by viewing audiences.
Oboler's venture, being photographed
in Ansco Color, toplines Robert Stack and
Barbara Britton. No releasing arrangements
have been made for it as yet.
LIPPERT—Set for distribution through
this company is "Present Arms," another in
the series of service comedies being produced
by Hal Roach jr. and featuring William Tracy,
as the mental-marvel Sergeant Doubleday,
and Joe Sawyer, as his befuddled rival. At
this point no megaphonist had been recruited
for the opus.
26
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER — Three
out
July
of five in Technicolor is the blueprint drafted
by Leo for his July operations. The tinters
are "My Mother and Mr. McChesney," costarring
Greer Gar.son and Walter Pidgeon;
"Vaquero," with Robert Taylor, and "The
Student Prince," headlining Mario Lanza and
Ann Blyth. The "McChesney" vehicle, an
Edwin H. Knopf production, deals with the
adoption by Miss Garson and her husband,
Pidgeon, of a Catholic orphanage girl—young
Donna Corcoran. Since they are residents
of a strict Protestant community, the move
is used politically against Pidgeon until religious
tolerance comes to the rescue. Jean
Negulesco is the director. "Vaquero," a historical
western to be produced by Stephen
Ames and megged by John Farrow, is a story
of Texas land barons immediately after the
Civil Wai-. "The Student Prince," a new film
version of the Sigmund Romberg operetta, is
a Joe Pasternak production, which Curtis
Bernhardt will direct. The black-andwhiters
are "Riptide," with Barbara Stanwyck
and Barry Sullivan, and "A Steak for
Connie," a comedy starring Van Johnson,
Janet Leigh and Louis Calhern. The former,
to be produced by Sol Fielding and directed
by John Sturges, is a melodrama about a
yoimg married couple vacationing in Mexico.
The husband, caught in a riptide, is pinned
to a pier—and his wife, looking desperately
for help, finds the only man available on the
lonely stretch of coast is an escaping criminal.
"A Steak for Connie" involves a Texas cattleman
who launches a one-man retail meat
price war. Also an Ames production, it has
Edward Buzzell as the director.
MONOGRAM—Here is
another picture factory
rather noticeably affected by the summer
lull. Tapering off from its brisk June
pace of seven starters, only two new vehicles
were geared to face the cameras—one of
which, "Kansas Pacific," is a Cinecolor entry
for Monogram's silk-stocking sister-company.
NtTNNALLY JOHNSON . . . Who tS
writing the screenplay and producing
the Daphne du Maurier
novel, "My Cousin Rachel," at
20tii-Fox.
King Bros, to Produce
'Carnival Story' Overseas
other filmmakers are doing it^why
shouldn't we? That's patently the reasoning
behind the disclosure by King
Bros. Productions, headed by Mam-ice
and FYank King, that the independent
outfit is going to take a whirl at overseas
lensing.
That a London office is to be established
for the purposes of arranging for
the European production of "The Carnival
Story" was reported by the Brudern
King upon their recent return from New
York, where they huddled with United
Artists executives on the distribution
plans being formulated for "The Ring,"
a prize ring drama which the Kings recently
completed.
They haven't yet recruited a cast or director
for "The Carnival Story," a yarn
about a woman daredevil in a European
circus, and distribution arrangements
likewise are pending. The opus has been
scheduled to roll this fall.
Allied Artists. As evinced by its title, this
one is a railroad yarn of Civil War circa,
which will be produced by Walter Wanger
with Sterling Hayden in the starring assignment
and Ray Nazarro directing. Also on
the docket is "Stranglehold," a comedy satirizing
the current popular interest in wrestling,
which Producer Jerry Thomas is shaping up
as a vehicle for Leo Gorcey, Huntz HaU and
the rest of the Bowery Boys. It, too, was
minus a megaphonist as the period began.
RKO RADIO—Matching the five-picture
tempo charted by MGM, the Howard Hughes
company has a quintet of features on the
docket. One of them, as a matter of fact,
was already rolling late in June. Titled "The
Murder," it is a mystery drama about a girl
accused of slaying her parents. Jean Simmons
is the girl, Robert Mitchum is the male star,
and Mona Freeman has a top supporting role,
with Otto Preminger doubling as producer and
director. From I>roducer Edmund Grainger,
but with no megaphonist recruited as the
month began, will come "Split Second," a
Jane Russell-Victor Mature co-starrer, in
which a fugitive killer holds seven people
captive in Nevada during an A-bomb explosion.
Producer Jerry Wald is readying
Size 12," a story of America's dress-designing
industry, which he will lens in Technicolor.
Harriet Parsons will produce the offering for
the Wald unit, but at this point it lacked
both cast and a director. Rosalind Russell and
Marie Wilson are the topliners in "Never
Wave at a WAC," a service comedy to be
manufactured by Independent Artists, the
unit headed by Miss Russell and her producerhusband,
Frederick Brisson. Norman Z. Mc-
Leod is the megaphonist. Another independent
entry is Filmakers' "The Difference," an
action-drama based on a true-life story about
a gunman who abducts two men and keejjs
them prisoner on the Mojave desert. Collier
Young and Ida Lupino, partners in the
Filmakers outfit, will respectively produce
and direct, with Edmond O'Brien, Prank
(Continued on page 28)
BOXOFFICE
: : June 28, 1952