`Action` Fair 15G, `Stickup` 5G Peter Cowie`s Swedish Thesis

46
INTERNATIONAL
'Betsy' Sock $41,882, London;
'Action' Fair 15G, 'Stickup' 5G
London, May 30.
Belated arrival of spring appears to have clipped firstrun totals
in the round herein covered. Biz was
substantially off from the previous
lap, and even some of the stronger
entries softened. But "The Betsy"
bucked the drift handsomely. The
United'Artists release opened with a
sock $41,882 total for the Marble
Arch and London Pavilion theatres. . .
Other frosh entrants were "A
Piece of the Action" (WB), with a
fair $15,306 for three sites, and Trident-Barber's "The Stickup" (with
"Starsky & Hutch's" David Soul)
rated a poor $5,263 at two.
Second week for " H e r o e s "
shaped okay with $12,586 at four,
West End Boxoffice
(Estimated Total Net)
Current week
$331,679
. (L182.241)
(Based on 55 theatres)
Previous week
$394,354
(L216.678)
(Based on 55 theatres)
while "MacArthur" was a brisk $7,959 in third at the Ritz. "Oh, God" in
fourth was an okay $5,959, and
"World's Greatest Lover" reaped a
soft $2,514 in single smallie.
Holdovers with legs included
"Saturday Night Fever," classy
with $31,903 at three houses including a hot $23,273 for the Empire
theatre; "Close Encounters" with a
tall $55,603 in 10th at the Odeon Leicester Sq., and "Goodbye Girl" with
a stylish $26,159 at five sites through
ninth turn.
"Turning Point" tallied a fine
$21,217 finale session (the sixth) at
the Leicester Sq., ousted by UA's
"Coming Home" Viet drama.
Fourth lap for "Herbie Goes to
Monte Carlo" took a good $9,258,
with "Full Circle" third frame soft
at $5,124. British-flag "The Stud,"
also cashing in apparently on the
disco fever, rated a nice $12,251 sixth
turn at two. Longrunner "Julia," in
17th Haymarket week, pulled a fine
$12,795.
Also new in town: "Gray Lady
Down" (U-CIC) day-dating five
theatres, and "High Anxiety"
(20th).
A three-day holiday weekend (2729) figured to uplift totals via the
next West End wrap.
Note that all estimated net dollar
figures above are at the $1.82 exchange rate as offiling deadline.
FRANCE'S SFP SKEDS
3 C0-PR0DS. TO ROLL
Paris, May 30.
Societe Francaise de Production
has three feature coproductions set
for coming weeks • "Sophie and the
Captain," featuring Julie Christie;
"A Simple Story," toplining Romy
Schneider, and "The Key in the
Door," to be directed by Yves Boisset, according to director general
Jean Drucker.
SFP is currently filming "Sugar," with Gerard Depardieu and
Jean Carmet in leading roles.
Just completed are "Other People's
Money," with Catherine Deneuve
and Jean-Louis Trintignant, and
"Go It, Ma," featuring Annie Girardot.
Latest SFP coproduction to be released in Paris is "Roads to the
South," directed by Joseph Losey
and toplining Yves Montand and
Miou-Miou. Picture was made in
conjunction with Trinacra Films,
French tv web FR3, and Profilmes, of Barcelona, Spain.
Drucker disclosed that presales
covered the cost of "Roads to the
South."
, . ,.
Schein No Subordinate
Stockholm, May 30.
Harry Schein, here at Cannes
Film Festival told about having
turned down an offer to stay on
as manager of the Swedish
Film Institute but not as chairman.
Schein is convinced that the
government will not dare lose
face by bowing to his demands
of all or nothing at all although it
is known that none of the applicants for his dual job (now two
separate jobs) have been found
worthy.
Over 9,000 Theatres
Operated In India;
3,350 Are Mobile
f^RjffY
year and are also allowed to conduct matinees on weekdays even in
village areas. The distance factor
also has been narrowed down to
such extent that two villages on either side of a river are permitted to
have separate cinemas within a
mile of each other.
Towards the end of 1977 there
were concerted movements for the
construction of purely utilitarian
cinemas with reduced seating capacities to serve the interests of a cluster of villages. Maybe 100 new
cinemas will be added to the total by
the end of the year, due to a shortage of cement and high costs of labor, steel and building materials.
It is a paradox that the theatre
movement is gaining added assistance for further development in the
very state where there is an adequate number of them but not in the
other states where they should receive encouragement. Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Mahrashtra
in that order occupy the first, second and third position in the matter
of theatres, each state having very
nearly 1,500 permanent and mobile
cinemas. Nearly 50% of all the cinemas in the country are located in
these states themselves. With Kerala and Kamataka added, the south
would claim 60-65% of all theatres in
the country.
With an estimated audience of
10,000,000 per day, the annual boxoffice collections now are estimated to be about $490,250,000. The
state governments collect as much
as $240,625,000 by way of entertainment and show taxes. The net collection of $249,625,000 has to be
shared, after paying $2,462,500 as
rental for their news reels and documentaries, among producers, distributors and exhibitors. The producer hardly gets 20% of the net
boxoffice even on a blockbuster film
like "Sholay."
Employing nearly 110,000 persons, the exhibition trade has called
for an investment of nearly $108,000,000. Most theatres in the metropolitan cities are not utilitarian
but decorative palaces which a poor
country like India cannot afford.
India has now three drive-in theatres. The first one was started in
Ahmedabad in Gujrat; the second
one was recently started in Bombay, while the third one is under
construction at Bangalore in Karnataka.
New Delhi, May 30.
The number of theatres operating in India today total 9,324. Of
this figure some 3,350 are mobile
cinemas. In the middle of 1977, the
figure was 9,167, which represented an increase of 150 theatres
over the 1976 figure of 9,017. Only 150
theatres were added in each of the
last two years. This is in contrast
with the 500 cinemas added in 1975.
Most of the additions have been in
Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu,
followed by Karnataka in the South.
State governments like Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Kerala have
recently come forward with offers
of financial assistance to build more
theatres in their states. The Film
Development Corp., set up by some
of these states along with the Film
Finance Corp., are also giving
strong fillip to the construction of
more theatres all over India.
The demand for more theatres is
to obtain fuller exploitation for the
increasing number of films made in
the country. India is the top film
producer in the world but the
mounting annual production is a
burden, viewed from the economic
angle.
State governments have liberBert Remsen into producer Stealized procedures for mobile cinemas which are now given licenses phen Friedman's (Regal) "Fast
for periods of two and three years at Break," to be directed by Jack
a stretch instead of six months and a Smight and toplining Gabe Kaplan.
rPeter Cowie's Swedish Thesis:
1 They're Film Actors, Not 'Stars'
By ROBERT B. FREDERICK *
It's the fault of the international
It's amazing how familiar the
names discussed in Peter Cowie's cinema, he avers, which has not ac"Stars and Players" in the "Film in cepted Swedish films as freely as it
Sweden" series (A.S. Barnes - has the country's Greta Garbo or
U.S./Tantivy Press - London; $7.95) Liv Ullmann, that some of the
are to the international film fan. Of equally worthy players are not betthe 20 odd actors and actresses dis- ter-known.
cussed in the small book, only a
Birger Malmsten or an Eddie AxIs the reader familiar with Gunberg give pause. Cowie, a British nar Bjornstrand? If not, he's profilm book publisher (his Interna- bably not an Ingmar Bergman fan
tional Film Guide is a must on all as that highly-talented actor is
film bookshelves), is almost as pro- prominently cast in most of Berglific in his coverage of the Swedish man's films.
film scene.
Personalities he discusses include
Cowie claims that there are no Maj-Britt Nilsson, Bibi Andersson,
"stars" in Swedish cinema, only Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson,
players. This isn't likely to be ac- Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck,
cepted by the Western viewer who Agneta Ekmanner, Lena Nyman,
knows that an Ingrid Bergman or Anita Ekstrom, Gunnar Bjornan Ingrid Thulin or a Max von strand, Max von Sydow, Birger
Sydow is a "star" in his book. What Malmsten, Stig Olin, Erland
the author may really mean is that Josephson, Per Oscarsson, Gosta
there are virtually no star "tem- Ekman Jr., Thommy Berggren,
peraments" in Swedish film. It's a Eddie Axberg. There are also filmmatter of putting in a good day's ographies of many of the personalwork.
ities discussed.—Robe.
Wednesday, May 31,1978
I INTERNATJONAI SouNdTRAckj
London
London-based film director Cy Endfield who co-wrote Samarkand's
upcoming "Zulu Dawn" — he also directed the original "Zulu" (Embassy) in 1964 — has invented a computerized pocket typewriter which, he
reports, works on a simple picture code which can be learned in around
half an hour ... Paramount's "The Godfather" had its British tv first run
Sunday night (28) via BBC.
Anil Bhimjiyani and Royston L. Byrne of Success Films picked up
world rights to three shorts: "Revolutions in Fast Circles," "Clockmaker," and "Seychelles the Smiling Islands" ... Cannes fest entry for
Britain, "The Shout" (Rank), opens June 1 at London's Warner West End2. Pic's produced by Jeremy Thomas, directed by Jerzy Skomilowsky and
stars Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt and Robert Stephens ... National Film Theatre holding a weekend seminar (June 2-4) on "new Australian cinema." Event's arranged in jointly with the Australian Film
Commission ... EMI's "Convoy" is one of the films slated to unreel during
the annual convention next month of the Cinema Exhibitors Assn. Site for
the June 17-20 conclave is the resort burg of Torquay.
A&M Film Consultants (Arthur Abeles and Henri Michaud by name)
handling foreign sales of "Dominique," suspenser coproduced by Milton
Subotsky and Andrew Donally. U.S. distrib is to be assigned by Melvin
Simon Productions which financed pic... It's never too early to plan ahead.
Annual dinner dance of the London regional branch of the Cinema Exhibitors Assn. is skedded for Dec. 13 (a Wednesday) in the Savoy Hotel.
Entertainment-angled titles on the summer-fall-winter list via London
publisher W.H. Allen: Valery Panov's (with George Feifer) "To Dance,"
Booton Herndon's "Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks," Melville
Shavelson's "The Eleventh Commandment," "Balanchine's Festival of
Ballet" by George Balanchine and Francis Mason, Michele Morgan's
"With Those Eyes," "A Dancer's World" by Dame Margot Fonteyn, "No
Bed of Roses" by Joan Fontaine,"The World of Tennessee Williams"
edited by Richard Freeman Leavitt, and "The Great Villains" by
Christopher Lee.
Mexico City
Per National Film Bank topper Hiram Garcia Borja, that financial institution is ready to return to the policy of granting cre8its to private producers cancelled during the Luis Echeverria regime with the details still
to be ironed out... Par will film some sequences of "Rocky Part H" with
Sylvester Stallone during the month of September in the city of Queretaro
... Churubusco Studios is attempting to lure foreign filmmakers by offering a "package" wage-and-facilities deal on a weekly basis which would
cut production costs, per the installation's gen. mgr. Gerardo Rivera.
Helmer Jose Bolanos has one very good reason to feel blue — his
remake of "Pedro Paramo" (titled Half-Moon Man) didn't arrive in time
to be registered in the non-competitive division of the Cannes Film Fest
and as a result he lost a screen date in that important event... Conacine
has acquired the rights to "Acali" about the sea voyage made by a group
of scientists headed by anthropologist Santiago Genoves who had also
been with Thor Heyerdahl on the Ra I and Ra II voyages.
Operadora de Teatros reports it's investing 10,000,000 pesos (about
$450,000) revamping the Briseno, Orfeon and Marina hardtops into firstrun houses with more pesos going into the Cine Mundo which will be
renamed the Madrid programing Spanish pix and the Lido which will
screen features from the '30s ... The current administration's austerity
measures reached the Churubusco Studios press office which went out of
business after six years.
"An Intimate Story" — the tale of a would-be starlet's hurdles on the
way to the top—finished shooting after 31 days with Jose Estrada directing newcomer (model) Blanca Baldo and with Ariadne Welter returning
to the screen ... General Society of Mexican Writers gave Guillermo
Murray the fifth national screenwriters contest prize for "For You, Chief"
and he will receive 200,000 pesos (about $9,000) plus a guarantee that the
script will be produced as a film...Mexican Actors Guild threatened to stop
the shooting on "Mill of Fire" and "George Predna Retorts" for their
employing foreign actors without going through regular union channels.
Conacine puts three features before the camera this month (May) — to
wit (1) Emilio Fernandez "Erotica" with RebecaSilva and Jorge Rivero;
(2) Julian Pastor's "The Ruins You See" with Grace Renat and (3) Tito
Davison's "I Love You" with Daniela Romo and Fernando Allende ...
America Studios to film "Action at Rio Blanco" which received honorable mention in the General Society of Mexican Writers competition and
"Desolation" which deals with Alcoholics Anonymous.
Last year's "Miss Tourism," Mariagna Prats, will be first to benefit
from a new policy inaugurated by Conacite Two which signed the newcomer to an exclusive pact and will undertake all her drama training
which could eventually lead her professional screen work.
Manolo Barbachano Ponce, topper of the revitalized film industry
pioneer company Clasa Films Mundiales, is reaching an agreement with
Par's Robert Evans for two features... the first titled "Getting Off" for Ali
McGraw and Dino Martin in a tale about the tennis circuit.. .Carlos Gomez
Barrera, of Society of Authors and Composers of Music was re-elected
secretary-general of the Motion Picture Industry Workers Union Central
Committee.
Yvonne de Carlo ended up doing the role originally slated for either
Olivia de Havilland or Joan Fontaine in "Mill of Fire" which just wrapped shooting in Oaxaca...National Film Bank Club headed the Mex delegation including Katy Jurado, Ernesto Gomez Cruz and Miguel Littin (all
of "Recourse to the Method") plus Pel Mex topper Carlos Pascual Acuna
toting a package of 15 pix under his arm to be shown outside of Cannes fest
competition ... Adventure pic "Carnada" with Andres Garcia, Rodolfo de
Anda and Eleonora Vallone (daughter of Raf) wrapped after only three
weeks of shooting in Acapulco with a crew that pitched in and worked as
long as 15 hours a day for film editor Jose Munguia who debuted as director.
Carlos East added to the cast of "A Legend of Love "with Estela Piquer.
newcomer Mariagna Prats and Rafael Baledon Jr., with Abel Salazar
directing ... Ala Muriel joined the cast of Bob Lerner's "Dracula" which
started rehearsing with Jose Galvez and Enrique Alvarez Felix (as titlist) under Dimitrio Sarras direction.
.