il NY TIME is a GOOD TIME to read and use the busy BOXOFFICE CLASSIFIED WANT ADS Use these speedy little business builders to get quick results at slight cost Buyers meet sellers Employers locate good help Suppliers find a market BOXOFFICE Clearing House Best Reader Coverage in the Field—^Most for Your Advertising Dollar W-8 BOXOFFICE ;: February 5, 1962
Variety 3rd Encore Awards February 17 INDIANAPOLIS—The third annual Variety Club Awards ball, sponsored by Tent 10, will be held Pebi-uary 17 in the Riley room of the Claypool Hotel as the culminating event of Variety Week. Maurice De- Swet and E. Edward Green are chairmen of the awards program which will see the presentation of Encore Awards to local nonprofessional theatre personnel and special awards to Hoosier professionals. Those on the ball committee are Mrs. Franlc S. Crowder, representing Ballet Society of Indianapolis: Betty Williams. Starlight Musicals: Allen W. Clowes, Avondale Playhouse: Mavourneen Harshman, Footlite Musicals: John Kautz, Civic Ballet: Carroll Reynolds, Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, and Prank Powell, Circle Players. Other representatives planning the affair are Norma Geraghty, Variety Club's women's auxiliary: Julian Bamberger, Civic Theatre, Dorothy Kauffman, Jewish Community Center's Theater-in-the Woods: Charles Johnson, Catholic Theatre Guild; Ted Popoff, Episcopal Theatre Guild; Travis Selmier, Intro Productions, and Maxcia Davis, Morris Street Players. Also included are Shirl Evans, chief barker of the local club. Rex Carr, Margaret Eastridge, Mrs. Jules T. Gradison and Ross Williams. Proceeds from the ball will go for the support of Variety Club charities for retarded, handicapped and underprivileged children. Muncie Theatre Building Bought by Two Lawyers MUNCIE, IND.—The Wysor Grand Theatre Building, southwest corner of Jackson and Mulberry street, has been purchased by George W. Pierce and Frank E. Gilkison jr., local attorneys, from the Muncie Theatre Realty Co. C. V. Bender and Fred Miltenberger negotiated the $76,000 sale from Pierre F. Goodrich of Indianap>olis, head of the Muncie Theatre Realty Co. The theatre company has a lease on the property running until May 31, 1963, and an option for another year's lease. Two other businesses in the building, the Mayfair, a women's apparel shop, and the Central Grill, have had their leases renewed. One other business room is vacant. The theatre company pmxhased the building in 1951 from George S. Challis, who had bought it from the HaiTy Wysor estate and operated it as a theatre from about 1914. The Clarence Howards Buy White Pigeon, Ind., Sun WHITE PIGEON, IND.—Sale of the Sun Theatre to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Howard of Constantine has been announced by Mr. and Mrs. Basil Burchett, who built the theatre in 1948 and had operated it since its oF>ening. Bmxhett now is engaged in carpenter work while Mrs. Burchett is assistant in the office of a local doctor. The Howai-ds formerly opened the Park Theatre, Constantine, which is now closed. Chicago Tent 26 Installs Officers CHICAGO—Over 150 Variety Club members and friends turned out for the installation of the new officers and crew of Chicago Tent 26. Pictured above, flanked around re-elected Chief Barker Nat Nathanson are, left to right: Jack Rose, property master: Richard Graff, second assistant chief barker: Nathanson; John Jones, a past chief barker and installing officer: John Clark, first assistant; and Harry Balaban, dough guy. Fifteen members who joined the club during 1961 were inducted by past chief Jones. Nathanson, midwest division manager of Allied Artists Pictures, presented checks totaling $51,000 to Albert Pick jr., chairman of the board of trustees of LaRabida Jackson Park Sanitarium, the pet charity of Tent 26. This sum represented proceeds from audience collections conducted in Chicagoland theatres last August, the Joe Swedio "Man of the Year" dinner, various fund-raising activities conducted by the Women's Variety Club, and memorial funds raised in honor of the late Jack Kirsch and Benjamin Lourie. Also included in this sum were funds raised in behalf of Vai-iety Club by Sig Sakowicz of Chicago Radio Station WGN through a celebrity bowling tournament. Irv Kupcinet, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, acted as toastmaster. Speakers included Pick and Jack Brickhouse, local sportscaster. Other crew members installed: Arthur Holland. Ben R. Katz, Harry Lustgarten, Al Raymer, Mayer Stern, Wallerstein. Elvis Film, Booked in for One Week, Stays Two in Lively Suburban House INDEPENDENCE, MO—"Blue Hawaii," the newest Elvis Presley film, set a longevity record at the Englewood Theatre here when it played a total of two full weeks. The film originally was booked into the Dickinson circuit de luxe neighborhood house for one week—in itself a rare practice usually reserved for major Disneys and spectacles. Opening night, January 17, was good despite teiTible weather, and the good business kept up. Another thing that kept up was the almost continuous ringing of the phone with questions of "How long will the pictui'e stay?" and wails of being snowbound without transportation. This stream of calls was largely responsible for the first four-day holdover. When neither calls nor the business fell off very much. Stark finally arranged for the final three days, bringing the run to its two-week length. It should be noted here that the film already had played an extended first-run engagement in nearby Kansas City, plus multiple neighborhood and drive-in availabilities in the metropolitan area. In addition to the pictui-e itself, crowd lure was the nightly appearance on stage and in the lobby of "live hula-hula girls" as the marquee read. These teenage dance students from Paul Zimmerman school of the dance appeared twice nightly, at 7:45 and 10 p.m. Dm-ing the 6 o'clock rush hour traffic from Kansas City which passes by the theatre, Stark used a battery-E>o\vered bullhorn to give an old-fashioned barker's spiel about the hula girls and the pictm-e. Also during the first few days of the run. Stark cut out four 14-foot palm tree shapes from beaverboard, mounting one in front of each of the steel posts which support the marquee. These realistically painted trees drew much attention to the theatre. (For the many-faceted preliminary campaign worked out by A. R. Stark before the pictui-e opened, see the Showmandiser section of Boxoffice for February 12.) Collins Theatre in Joliet Victim of $45,000 Fire JOLIET, ILL.—Fire destroyed the Collins Theatre on a recent Wednesday night, firemen losing the battle to flames that reached as high as 200 feet in subzero weather. The theatre at 668 Collins was empty, having been OE)erated only on Sunday in recent years. Mrs. Hope Angeles, owner of the theatre, estimated the damage at $45,000. Cause of the fire was undetermined. Rothschild Named St. Louis Branch Manager of NSS ST. LOUIS—Al Rothschild, salesman for National Screen Service in Kansas City, has been appointed NSS manager here. He succeeds Ben Lass who resigned, effective Januai-y 26. Rothschild started with NSS in 1943 and has held sales posts with the company in Memphis and New York. BOXOFHCE :: February 5, 1962 C-1
Change language