Boxoffice-November.19.1955

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future
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French Film Earnings
Up; Flan NY Center
NEW YORK—French film earnings In the
U. S. may reach $250,000 for 1955, according
to Joseph Maternatl, director of the new
French Film Center, which the French plan
to establish ui New York shortly. This figure
is more than four times the approximately
$60,000 transferred to France in 1954
as earnings for only five or six French pictures
shown in the U. S. during that year.
The big jump must be mainly attributed to
better French films shown here during the
past year, including "La Ronde" and the current
"The Sheep Has Five Legs." "La Ronde"
was one of the tliree biggest money-makers
among French films shown in America during
the last few years, the others being "Symphonie
Pastorale" and "Devil in the Flesh,"
shown in 1948 and in 1950, respectively.
Because the U. S. is still a "very small
market" for French film product, the Ministry
of Industry and Commerce, the Syndicate of
Producers and Uni-France Film ha\^ unanimously
decided to establish a French Cinema
Center in the U. S. with Maternati as director
to represent both the government and the
film producers.
The French Film Center intends to establish
a closer liasion between the American
distributors and the French producers in the
hope that some of the U. S. majors might
handle French fUms. Maternati also plans
to contact independent distributors of French
pictures in the U. S. to interest them in the
product not yet released here. He also hopes
to persuade French producers to make their
films to conform to the U. S. production
code. Some of the new French features
may be dubbed into English in order to insure
wider U. S. distribution, he said.
The French industry has already estabilished
similar centers in Italy and Germany.
major part of the financing for the
Center will come from the government, the
rest from the producers in France, Maternati
said. His appointment is for three years.
ABC Vending Income Rises
As the Business Expands
NEW YORK—Earnings of ABC Vending
Corp. for 1955 will show a substantial increase
over 1954, states Charles L. O'Reilly, chair-
.nan of the board.
Earnings for the first nine months of this
.vear were S1.37 per share against $1.40 per
share for the full 12 months of 1954. Earnings
for all of 1955 should total $1.60 per
share, O'Reilly states.
The increase is due to a continuing program
of expansion in the catering, concession and
vending machine fields.
For 20 years ABC (directly in recent years
and previously through one of its merged
companies) has operated the concessions
in a majority of RKO Theatres. In 1955 RKO
extended this contract to cover many additional
houses, thereby increasing ABC's
annual income by one and one-quarter million
dollars.
A contract signed in 1955 to operate the
concessions in the Los Angeles Coliseum
should add $700,000. according to O'Reilly. A
similar contract with Franklin Field and
Palestra in Philadelphia totals $250,000. The
company has added four restaurants, plus
:offee shops and snack bars on the Ohio
Thruway.
Germany Now Producing
110 a Year, Some for U.S.
NEW YORK—The German film
industry,
practically at a standstill after World War II.
has been steadily growing since 1950 until
now there are about 110 local features made,
not including French and Italian co-productions,
according to Dr. Guenther Schwarz, the
general manager of the Export Union of the
German Film Industry. The number of German
moviegoers also has Increased from 1950,
when there were only about 2,000 film theatres
which had not been destroyed In the war,
to the present time, when there have been
3,000 additional theatres built.
In 1955, it is estimated that there will be a
total of 1,000,000,000 moviegoers who attended
these 5,000 theatres in Germany, the figure
being an increase over the 800,000,000 who
attended films in 1954, Schwarz said.
"Germany is a great market for U. S. films,"
according to Schwarz, who now hopes to gain
more playing time for German pictures in the
V. S. To this end, the Export Union was
founded in 1953-54 to promote the German
language films internationally and to deal
and negotiate with governments and organizations
outside Germany. The membership consists
of film producers, film distributors and
representatives of export companies with its
main office in Frankfurt. The Export Union
has established outlets in Paris and in Rome
and hopes to open offices in New York next
year in order to distribute information about
German films and stars in America. To finance
new offices for the Export Union, the
German film industry pays a voluntary tax of
1 per cent of all export sales.
To date, German films are exported to
Austria, the Saar, German-speaking Switzerland
and, to a lesser degree, to Belgium, Holland
and the Scandinavian countries. German
film exports are now just beginning to
be shown in FYance and Italy. In the U. S.,
50 German features are exported yearly but
the majority of these play without titles in
German-language houses only. The few German
films that have played in key city art
houses, such as "Desires," "Angelika" and
"No Way Back," have had mild success and
brought only $60-$70,000 to Germany in 1954,
according to Schwarz.
Now that both Warner Bras, and Universal-
International have bought German films
starring O. W. Fischer, Germany's most popular
male star who has also signed an acting
contract for one picture yearly for U-I,
Schwarz hopes that more German films will
be shown in the U. S. Warner Bros, will release
"As Long as You're Near Me," starring
Fischer and Maria Schell in a dubbed version,
early in 1956 and U-I will release another
dubbed feature "Portrait of an Unknown,"
starring Fischer, before he makes his first
film in Hollywood. In addition, "The Devil's
General," "The Moth" and the first German
CinemaScop>e feature, "Canaris," will be released
in the U. S. by independent firms.
About 200 American films are exported to
Germany yearly which take in a gross of
about $15,000,000, according to Schwarz. who
did not know the net figure as most of the
American companies have their own branches
for distribution in Germany.
AT 'C.\ROUSEL' DEMONSTRATION—Seen above are some of the industry
leaders who attended the 20th Century-Fox showing of scenes from "Carousel,"
made on 55mm negative and reduced to 35mm. Top, left to right: Nicholas M.
Schenck, Loew's president, and C. C. Moskowitz, vice-president and treasurer of
Loew's; W. C. Gehring, executive assistant general sales manager of 20th-Fo.\; Max
A. Cohen, head of Cinema Circuit, and Eugene Picker, vice-president of Loew's.
Bottom: Joseph H. Vogel, president of Loew's Theatres; Charles M. Reagan, vicepresident
and general sales manager of MG.M; Charles Einfeld, 20th-Fox \nce-president
in charge of advertising, publicity and exploitation; Robert S. Benjamin, chairman
of the board, and Arnold Picker, vice-president of United .\rtists.
BOXOFFICE :: November 19, 1955 19