Boxoffice-October.01.1955

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ROY SMITH CO.
365 PARK ST. JACKSONVILLE
MIAMI
•The most recent attempt of the Miami Board
of Review to make "recommendations"
about the showing of certain motion pictures
locally seems to strike a generally discordant
note. A letter to the editor in the Miami
Herald expressed one layman's opinion: "Who
knows just where this can lead us? Perhaps
some day we'll have a board that will ban
everyone from eating asparagus because they
don't like it. Hurrah for the city commission
who voted down giving them the power also
to ban movies."
Out of the four 'Wometco theatres which
telecast the heavyweight championship fight,
only a few seats remained untaken at the
Capitol on the eve of the event, making
Sonny Shepherd a happy man .
Town
has a high-powered double featui-e going:
"From Here to Eternity" and "On the Waterfront,"
with a midnight show to accommodate
the stayer-uppers. The Town, which has
made the midnight show a regular thing for
.some time, finds the arrangement satisfactory.
Always enough late customers come in
off the downtown streets, says the management,
to make the policy feasible at the boxoffice.
E. M. Loew, theatre magnate, is scheduled
to return to his Miami Beach home on October
Now that complications have
2 . . . been cleared away for the filming of "Old
Man and the Sea," the big hitch is catching
a large sea monster for one of the leads.
Experts have been fishing the Caribbean for
days without getting a nibble.
The independent Tivoli departed from its
usual format to present a double feature
.shock show News Amusement Editor
.
Herb Rau was the guest of Paramount on a
trip to Washington to see a preview of "The
Desperate Hours." Screening was at Loew's
Palace, and the film, says Rau, "is a natural
to pick up a fistful of Academy Awards" .
Championship fight films and highlights of
the Miami-Georgia Tech football game,
shown at FST main houses, brought in extra
male patrons at the six theatres.
Mrs. Lillian Claughton sends home word
that .she is vacationing on a North Carolina
farm that has its own trout lake. With her
are Mr. and Mrs. Gifford Bunnell, sister and
brother-in-law. Mrs. A. W. Corbett. mother of
Mrs. Claughton and Mrs. Bunnell, journeyed
with them as far as Rome, Ga. . . . Joel Hart,
a Havana film distribution executive, was
here for the meeting of the United Artists
sales organization . Rines, film and TV
producer, was due in Miami Beach for a vacation
... It will seem like an old friend come
back to town when "The Red Shoes" opens
at the Roosevelt in November. It played here
continuously for more than a year.
.\ theatre patron recently wrote the Herald
amusement page to say .she would like to .see
the reissue of .some tine films instead of the
Davy Crockett and science fiction reissues
which have been showing recently. "There are
probably a few fans still living," she states,
who would like to see again 'The Barretts
of Wimpole Street,' 'Mutiny on the Bounty,'
and others of similar caliber. I enjoyed the
reissue of 'Camille' as much as the first viewing
of it." The Herald editor queries, "How
about it, Mrs. Claughton? Do you think you
could get MGM to take 'em out of the
vaults?"
Wometco executive Sonny Shepherd was
pictured in a recent Sunday's Herald, and his
opinion quoted, about
establishing a landing
strip for planes near
the center of town.
Shepherd said, "For
several years I owned
light planes before the
war and had an interest
in one after the
war. Such airports as
the late Miami Aviation
Center and Sunny
South were very
close to town, in comparison
to the 'sleeper Sonny Shepherd
hop' it takes to get back and forth from
Tamiami airport. I strongly feel there is need
for such a landing strip on the Rickenbacker
causeway. In Chicago, with Lakeside airport
available, the owner of a private plane
can land and get a cab into the heart of
Chicago in a matter of minutes. It is my
opinion that Miami is being by-passed by
private aviation interests because of the
lack of faciUties. If such a strip were available
I for one would purchase or obtain
interest in a light plane for pleasure flying
—there's nothing like it."
Ernie Hill, Herald correspondent, writes
back from London that the London Daily
Express claims Clare Boothe Luce made
a grievous mistake when she forced the
banning of "The Blackboard Jungle" at
the Venice film festival. Instead, "The Kentuckian"
was entered. In reviewing the films,
now both showing in London, the Express
finds the former picture very good and the
latter very bad. "That 'Tlie Blackboard
Jungle' could be made at all speaks for a
nation's greatness," the Express says. "That
other film speaks only for its silliness."
Leo Samuels, Jesse Chenich and Ken Laer,
associates of the Walt Disney organization,
were in town on a round-the-country theatre
tour . . . Bill Kelly. MGM studio liaison officer,
has retired and is expected to become
a Miami resident in the near future. Kelly
started in the movie business as a reel boy
in 1906 at the Nickelette on New York's 125th
Street. He then worked for Kalcm and
World Pictures before joining Goldwyn in
1919. He served with the OSS in World
War II and was in charge of distribution of
16mm films to the armed services.
Excellent critical reviews of "Summertime"
emphasize the successful run of this film
at FST's first runs. "Read what they are
saying about the picture," says the circuit in
advertising headings, and prints a changing
series of written comments from feminine
patrons. These so far have included such
signed statements as: " . . . one of the best
love stories, women will be thrilled: she
missed love in her life ... In the arms of
her first real lover she found- it. She was
influenced in her love affair by being in
Venice. Married, she did wrong! Single,
she did right. If this happened to any woman
at an age when 'summertime' is over, being
human and lonely and unattractive, she
would do the same. Love is a force that makes
us do things that come naturally."
MAIL YOUR AUDIENCE AWARDS
BALLOTS.
76
BOXOFFICE October 1, 1955