Boxoffice-December.25.1948

'Goldwyn Girl' Is Added
To '49 Production List
HOLLYWOOD—Added to Samuel Goldwyn's
1949 production slate was "The Goldwyn
Girl," a Technicolor musical which will
glorify the group of chorines used by the
producer in every musical he has made since
"Whoopee," filmed 18 years ago.
Noted stars who began their careers as
"Goldwyn Girls" include Betty Grable, Lucille
Ball, Paulette Goddard, Virginia Bruce, Laraine
Day. Jinx Palkenburg and Virginia
Mayo.
The film will be for RKO release.
Lee Kirby Nominated
BOTHELL, WASH.—Lee Kirby, co-owner
of the Avon Theatre here, was nominated as
a candidate for mayor of Monroe, his home
town.
East: Director WUliam Dieterle checked out
for an extended stay in England and France,
during which he will pilot a picture to be
produced in Paris. Just signed to a new nonexclusive
contract by Producer Hal Wallis,
Dieterle also will devote some time to scouting
European talent.
West: Arthur Hornblow jr., Metro producer,
checked in at the Culver City studio
after a trip to England and the continent.
His next picture may be filmed in Italy.
East: Warners' eastern executives including
Albert Warner, Ben Kalmenson, Samuel
Schneider and Norman Moray returned to
their New York headquarters after studio
conferences concerning production plans for
1949. The parleys were held with Jack L.
and Harry M. Warner.
West: Howard Strickling, Metro studio
publicity chief, returned from Manhattan
after a two-week stay, during which he huddled
with Loew's, Inc., toppers about advertising
and exploitation campaigns being
formulated for upcoming releases.
West: Col. William McCraw, executive director
of Variety Clubs International,
checked in at Monogram for huddles with
President Steve Broidy and Pi'oducer Paul
Short, concerning "Bad Boy," which Short
produced under Variety Club sponsorship.
West: James R. Grainger, Republic sales
and distribution head, planed in after a
country-wide tour of the company's exchanges.
He planned to remain here over
the holidays.
West: Nat Cohen, British representative for
Producer Edward Small, arrived from London
for conferences with the independent
picture-maker concerning plans for launching
a new picture in England next March.
East: R. B. Roberts, independent producer
who recently made "Force of Evil" for Enterprise,
planed for New York to attend the
eastern opening of the John Garfield starrer,
which is being distributed by Metro.
MT
ALL started as a gag, this business of
referring to the president of Screen Guild
Productions as "Orson Lippert." But the
ever-expand'ng activities of that gentleman
whose first name is Robert, as is well known
by anyone who reads film tradepapers—are
rapidly divorcing the nickname from the
category of ribs.
Lippert can now lay claim to more designations
and accomplishments than were boasted
by Orson Welles at the peak of that wonderboy's
mercurial career; witness: Exhibitor,
distribution executive, distribution franchise
holder, producer, director and promoter.
Enough has been printed, here and elsewhere,
about Lippert's impressive operations
in the f .rst four of those classifications, their
genesis and their co-relationship, to make
further comment unnecessary. It is with the
latter pair that these paragraphs concern
themselves.
"Last of the Wild Horses," a current SGP
release, demonstrates the company head's
ability to apply the same versatOity and effectiveness
to those facets of the film business
as he already had manifested in his
other varied chores.
The picture was filmed almost in its entirety
on location in the Rogue river valley
outside of Medford, Ore., in which northern
municipality Lippert owns and operates all of
the motion picture theatres. And it was
there that he established his status as a
promoter par excellence. Medford. like most
of the west's communities, has and is proud
of its sheriff's posse, a riding organization
made up of local business and professional
men who own their own horses. Producer
Lippert enlisted the services—and for free
of this group of horsemen as riding extras
in the picture. Day after day, they brought
their own horses, their own equipment and
themselves to the outdoor location to ride
thataway with the heavies or in pursuit
thereof.
But that was only the beginning. Near
Medford is a smaller community, Jacksonville,
once a thriving center of Oregon's
goldmining and caltle-raising country but
now virtually a ghost town. Through generous
publicity in the local newspapers, Lippert
interested the citizens of Jacksonville in
digging into their attics and trunks for clothes
of the period portrayed by the film and then
appearing in street and courtroom scenes as
atmosphere extras. Hundreds of them turned
out and made a holiday of the shooting of
those sequences, which were' filmed in and
on the quaint buildings and streets of Jacksonville,
which have changed but little since
their heyday in the '70s and '80s.
Resultantly, the picture is endowed with
production values which transcend by countless
thousands of dollars its budgetry classification.
Not being satisfied with having promoted
a setup which any producer and/or director
would have cherished as a Utopia for
top film-making at comparatively limited
cost, Lippert elected to direct the picture
himself—he was also its executive producer
—his f.rst try at that tricky and important
assignment. Here, too, he chalked up a
credit of which any of Hollywood's more experienced
megaphonists could and would be
justifiably proud.
What is to be concluded from this enumeration
of Lippert's apparently limitless accomplishments
and versatility is rather selfevident.
His work on "Wild Hor-ses," the
tradepaper critical acclaim accorded the offering
and the profitable bookings it is fulfilling
establish that with ingenuity and
level-headed business tactics, it is still possible
to turn out sound, acceptable film entertainment
at reasonable costs. With most
film-makers and production companies
frightened to near-hysteria by rising costs
and faltering grosses, that's a demonstration
from which the entire industry can borrow
courage as concerns the future of motion pictures.
Twentieth Centurj-Fox's "The SnaJie Pit"
is set for New Year's eve openings in San
Francisco, Boston and Oakland.
Elsewhere imbibing celebrants will have to
resort to the more time-honored method of
seeing their New Year's eve snakes.
Arthur P. Jacobs, a comparative newcomer
to the ranks of catch-as-catch-can spacesnatchers,
distributes a far-afield item about
one cf his clients, Johnny Green, composer
and musician. It seems that Green has been
commissioned by the Abbott Laboratories
apparently a pharmaceutical house—to write
an original, serious musical work for their
annual publication, "What's New."
Green's opus, a piano suite, is titled "Materia
Medica," and is divided into three parts
— "Narcotic," "Hypnotic" and "Stimulant."
The divisions of "Materia Medica" should
open many film-making doors to Music-
Maker Green. Many the ciUTent feature
whose score could logically avail Itself of the
"Narcotic" and "Hypnotic" passages, even
though there are few, unfortunately, for
which the "Stimulant" might be considered
appropriate.
Too bad he didn't include a few bars dedicated
to "Nux Vomica"—then he couldn't
miss.
From the Paramount blurbery of George
Brown a touch of humor, in itself something
of an innovation, as well as a courageous
or is it foolhardy"?—exhibition of lese-majesty.
Note
"Remark of the day: Cecil B. DeMille was
rirting the camera boom 25 feet in the air
on the 'Samson and Delilah' sret at Paramount
when one of the players looked up and remarked:
'God's in his heaven, all's right with
the world.'
BOXOFFICE December 25, 1948
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