Boxoffice-March.20.1948

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RKO Lists 12 Releases
Into Early September
starting with its current booking of "I
Remember Mama" at tlie Radio City Music
Hall in New York, RKO Radio has lined up
12 releases to carry the company through
Labor day, most of them in the high-budget
category. The schedule .was mapped in conferences
at the studio between Ned Depinet,
sales chief, Dore Schary, production topper,
and the company's independent producers.
Following "Mama" during March will be
"The Miracle of the Bells," with "Fort
Apache" set for April release and "Berlin
Express" going out in May. In June "Tarzan
and the Mermaids" and the reissue of
"Bring 'Em Back Alive" will be available
for bookings, as will "Fighting Father
Dunne." The July output will comprise Samuel
Goldwyn's "The Best Years of Our
Lives," going into general release, and "Your
Red Wagon." Walt Disney's "Melody Time"
and Independent Artists' "The Velvet
Touch" are the August entries, with Leo
McCarey's "Good Sam" scheduled for September.
Three New Independents
Established in Week
Another bumper crop or new independent
units went through their corporate laborpains
during the period to maintain the
bullish market that has prevailed for the
past several months in this field.
A partnership association finds Claudette
Colbert, Jack Skirball and Bruce Manning
merging their interests to produce "The Soft
Touch," an original by Joseph Fields and
U-I Wants to Know:
Is Xiss the Blood'
Good Title
or Not?
Confronting: the Universal-International
studio brain (rust at the moment
is
the vexing question:
Is "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" a
good title for a movie, or ain't it?
After a hot debate over Its boxofflce
value, the problem now Is to go directly
to exhibitors for their reaction. Harold
Hecht of Norma- Productions, which Is
making the film version of the Gerald
Butler novel as a Burt Lancaster starrer,
sent querying letters to more than 500
theatremen, Including showmen, circuit
heads, bookers and buyers, and has also
asked for reactions from the heads of
100 university psychology departments.
Another survey is being conducted by
Audience Research Institute.
The studio "does not want to lose the
advance boxofflce interest stimulated by
the book," said puzzled U-I spokesman,
"although the title admittedly has a
shock reaction with some persons."
By
IVAN SPEAR
Fred Kohner, with Miss Colbert in the
starring spot. A major release will be set.
She toplined an earlier Skirball-Manning
venture, "Guest Wife," made for United
Artists release in 1945. Her partners hi the
new enterprise were, until recently, turning
out film for Universal-International.
In association with Art Leonard, eastern
producer. Bill Deming set up an independent
unit with a tentative three-picture slate,
the initialer—for unannounced release— to be
"Second Sight." Deming pulled out of Gibraltar
Pictures, outfit headed by Al Rogell.
to form the new association with Leonard.
Robert L. Lippert, Screen Guild vicepresident,
set himself up as president of
Crestwood Pictures, with Carl K. Hittleman
aligned as executive producer. The outfit's
first three pictures, all for SG release, will
include "Return of Wildfire," "Last of the
Wild Horses" and an untitled dog yarn.
Hal Wallis Signs Dieterle
To Director's Contract
Producer Hal Wallis tagged
WiUiam Dieterle
to a term ticket as a director and assigned
him to "The Accused," which Wallis
will make for Paramount, as his initial chore
production reins on RKO Radio's
"Honored Glory" were handed Frederic UUman
jr. . . . Stuart Heisler will direct Walter
Wanger's "Tulsa," which Eagle Lion is set
to release . . . "Sun in the Morning," newest
the Lassie vehicles, will
MGM by Richard Thorpe .
be piloted for
at 20th
in
Century-Fox William A. Wellman was booked
to hold the reins on a new western, "Yellow
Skies," to star Gregory Peck . Wedlock
and Howard Snyder are scripting an
upcoming Abbott-Costello comedy for Universal-International,
for which no title has
been dreamed up yet . . . "Bury Me Not,"
next in Monogram's Charlie Chan series,
is being written by W. Scott Darling from
an original by George Callahan . . . LilUe
Hayward is scripting "Powder River" for
Republic, which intends it as a William
Elliott
starrer.
Low Week for Story Buys;
Only Three Transactions
The story market went on the toboggan,
after several weeks of above-par activity,
and nosedived to a dismal low as only three
transactions were completed, Warners accounting
for two of them.
To the Burbank studio's slate were added
"Marriage '48," by Vera Caspary and Isadore
Goldsmith, and "These Many Years," an
original by J. Redmond Prior. The Caspary-
Goldsmith yarn, to be published as a magazine
serial, will be produced by Henry
Blanke. "Years" is being prepared as a
starring vehicle for "The Voice of the Tur-
Documentary
Production
Growing More Active
the present documentary, shoot-'emon-the-sccne
If
trend among filmmakers
gets much more active, Hollywood may
yet turn out to be a veritable ghost
town committed to the manufacture of
an occasional cartoon or boy-meets-glrl
musical in the making of which productional
authenticity as to backgrounds
and atmosphere is not demanded.
Latest to Indicate pursuit of such realistic
technique is Jack Wrather, Monogram-Allied
Artists producer, who is
laying plans for the filming of four subjects
dealing with various pha.ses of
Americana. To make them he will transport
casts, crews and equipment to the
designated locales by air. Wrather's
initialer along these lines, slated to go
into work next month, "Strike It Rich,"
is
dealing with the discovery and development
of an oilfield in Texas. He intends
to follow it with "The George
Washington Story," "In His Steps" and
an untitled yarn based on the lumber
Industry.
MGM, too, is swinging into action on
its recently announced program of semidocumentaries,
which it will turn out
with Samuel Marx at the production
helm. Jules Furthman is scripting the
initialer, "Bread Upon the Waters," and
Malcolm Stuart Boylan is writing the
second, "Cowboy and Indians." Both
are based on recent actual happenings in
the
news.
Susan Hayward Gets Lead
In Wanger Film for EL
Susan Hayward snatched an acting plum
when Walter Wanger booked her for the
title role in "Anne of the Indies," story of
a woman pirate, which he will make for
The heavy role in U-I's
Eagle Lion . . .
"Rogues' Regiment" went to Vincent Price
. . . Cast additions to Warners' "A Kiss in
the Dark" included Broderick Crawford and
Wayne Morris, while the same studio set
Dancing Star Ray Bolger for "Silver Lining,"
the upcoming Marilyn Miller biography,
which will star June Haver . . . Enterprise
borrowed Lilll Palmer from Milton Sperling's
United States Pictures to co-star with
Dana Andrews in "No Minor Vices" . . .
Supporting roles in Samuel Goliwyn's next
for RKO Radio. "Take Three Tenses," go to
Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger and Philip
Friend . . . Republic ticketed Jimmy Lydon
and Lois Collier for the romantic leads in
"Plight From Fury" Reed will
appear opposite
.
Van Johnson in MGM's
"The Story of Monty Stratton" . . Into
.
Paramount's "The Tatlock Millions" went
Robert Stack . . . Comedian Benny Baker
was booked for the Columbia musical,
"Sweetheart of the Blues."
After five years with the studio as a
writer .and associate producer, Virginia Van
Upp has terminated her Columbia post by
"mutual consent." Her last chore was the
writing assignment on "The Loves of Car-
tle" leads, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Parker
and Wayne Morris, with Anthony Veiller producing
week's only other sale was
a Mary Loos-Richard Sale original, "The
Grave Scratchers," picked up by the King
Brothers and added to their Monogram-Allied
men" . Johnson is celebrating his
Artists slate. They will star Eddie Albert 17th anniversary as story editor for 20th
Century-Fox, his option having been picked
in the property, which relates the delivery
up for another year.
of a locomotive overland in 1876.
BOXOFFICE :: March 20, 1948 27