Boxoffice-May.12.156

: May
. . signed
Dana Andrews Is Honored
At Uvalde, Tex., Event
HOLLYWOOD—Dana Andrews, cuiTently
starring in RKOs •While the City Sleeps,"
was guest of honor Fi-iday ilH at ceremonies
marking the 100th anniversai-y of the founding
of Uvalde, Tex., where his father was a
Now if they could have dropped "vision"
somewhere into that label, it would have con-
minister for many years. Uvalde also is the
home town of former Vice-President John
to prove that there's
Garner.
JUST
always room trived to lift somrthing from the name of
for one more—especially at the top every established widescreen medium. Y.
A special public exhibition of 115 production
Republic has unveiled
the new, widescreen photographic
its contribution
to techniques.
drawings and paintings by staff
Frank Freeman isn't Koing to be too happy
or is he?—about boinR slighted thataway.
artist
John L. Jensen for Cecil B. DeMille's new
Paramount enti-y, "The Ten Commandments," Attractively tagged Naturama, the process
is being presented for two weeks at the makes its debut in the Trucolor outdoor action
Waxing uncharacteristically .sanguinary,
Chouinard Art Institute here. Jensen is a drama, "The Maverick Queen," co-starring
Milton Luban, currently a .stress agent for
Barbara Stanwyck and BaiTy Sullivan former student of the institute.
Frank and Walter Seltzer's Boss Productions,
and recently unveiled for press appraisal. The reports: "William Phlpps . ... to
who
Z^^cuti4JJ^ '1nxi4Ji^'il
anamorphic system, developed by Republic's
engineering department in collaboration with
Consolidated Film Industries, represents two
play a killer massacres four federal
agents and a horde of innocent bystanders
..."
years of research and development under
So, what does he do for an encore?
Ea.*it: C. V. Whitney Pictures dispatched
Aiin Hai-ris. head of it,s story department, to the supervision of Herbert J. Yates, Republic
New York to scout the eastern literary market,
president, and Daniel J. Bloomberg, chief
while Allan Reed of the art department engineer and technical manager.
"FOCR DASTARDS FOCL THINGS UP IN
headed for Missouri for a two-week stay to
In its application to "The Maverick DISNEY'S
check locations for the upcoming Whitney
Queen," Naturama eliminates practically all •DAVY CROCKETT AND THE RIVER
entry, "The Missouri Traveler."
graininess. and compai-es favorably, as concerns
PIRATES' "
depth-illusion and scope, with similar
—Joe Reddy-Walt Disney
Headline.
East: Robert Goldstein, who has a multiplepicture
releasing commitment with United
Artists, headed for Gotham for huddles with
UA distribution brass.
East: A visitor from Indo-China was Jean
Schwoerer. circuit operator in Saigon, who
conferred at Pai-amount with Cecil B. De-
Mille.
East: G. Ralph Branton, Allied Artists
executive and president of its video subsidiary.
Interstate Television, left for New York
on a w-eek's business trip.
West: Henry King, 20th-Fox megaphonist,
returned from a trek to Manhattan.
West: Expected in at the studio for planning
huddles were SpjTOs Skouras, 20th-Fox
president, and Joseph Moskowitz, eastern
production representative, who were to confer
with Buddy Adler, in charge of production.
East: Harold J.
Mlrisch, Allied Artists vicepresident,
headed for New York for parleys
with Ed Morey, also a vice-president, and
Morey Goldstein, vice-president and general
sales manager.
East: William Bloom, RKO production, took
off for Manhattan on a business jaunt.
East: Maxwell Amow, Hecht-Lancaster
vice-president and talent executive, left for
Gotham to test a number of new acting personalities
for possible term tickets.
West:
Mervin Houser, RKO studio publicity
chief, returned Thursday (10) from ten
days of conferences with New York executives
of the company.
West: Producer Arthur Hornblow jr.
planed in from London after three weeks of
planning conferences concerning "Witness for
the Prosecution," based on the Agatha
Christie stage play, which he will produce in
Britain next year in association with Edward
Small for United Artists release.
BOXOFFICE :
12. 1956
devices now in use. It utilizes specially designed
lenses manufactured by a French
optical firm, attached to standard Mitchell
camera lenses, which provide a 2.35-1 aspect
ratio. Prints will be available with an
optical -sound track only, and no additional
equipment is required for theatres now
capable of handling widescreen presentations.
For showcases that do not have wideangle
lenses Naturama will be squeezed down
to a 1.85-1 ratio. The system has one
"exclusive"—an automatic adaptor attachment
which controls the simultaneous focusing
of both the Naturama and Mitchell
lenses, thus eliminating the human element
of possible error and distortion.
Yates has revealed that the bulk of his
company's program for 1956 will be filmed in
Naturama and Trucolor. On the heels of
"The Maverick Queen," earmarked for early
distribution, will come two others similarly
garnished— "Lisbon," starring and directed
by Ray Mllland, and "Thunder Over Arizona,"
which features Skip Homeler and
Kristlne Miller.
Far-seeing industryites long since concluded
that the most potent and promising weapon
to curb and contain the growing competition
of television is constant accent upon the
theatrical .screen's— -the widescreen, preferably—superior
ability to reflect all that is
desirable and impressive in filmed entertainment.
Thus Naturama will be welcomed by both
the production and exhibition branches of the
trade as added strength for that weapon.
Expectedly, the rash of new processes is
not without its opportunistic, all-is-confusion
facets. Witness the announcement that an
independent outfit calling itself Ireland-
Grashoff Productions intends to launch an
actioner, "The Violent Wait," in an anamorphic
system ta£g:ed Ciramascope.
You must be more careful about those
typographical errors, Joe.
From Teet Carle's Paramount prai-sery, a
painstaking handout about the hardships involved
in moving "the film industry's largest
portable wind machine" to Lone Pine for
use in shooting scenes for "The Lonely Man."
It would have been easier—and cheaper—
to fly Bob Goodfried to the location.
Jovial
Johnny Flinn, chief adjective-agitator
for Allied Artists, advises that "Ann Griffith,
daughter of H. J. Griffith, Dallas, Tex.,
president of Frontier Theatres, Inc.," is making
her screen debut in an AA entry, "Night
Target."
The picture now Is assured of bookings
throughout the Frontier circuit, If nowhere
else.
A communique from the RKO Radio ravery
discloses that the studio is planning early
production of a feature dealing with the
launching of a man-made satellite into space
300 miles above the earth's .surface. Of three
titles tentatively selected for the venture, one
is "Around the World in 90 Minutes."
What are they trying to do, make a bum
out of Mike Todd? It's taking him 80 days—
and seven million dollars—to make the same
trip.
The same RKO's praise pundit, Mervin
Houser, broadcast word that Alice Englert, a
member of the publicity staff, had been selected
by officiak of the U. S. Volleyball Ass'n
to be on the AII-.American women's team,
which will compete in Paris this coming .August
for the world's championship.
That figures, .\nyone who has toiled for
Mervin should be quite expert at passing the
bailor buck.