Just Like the Movies

On two continents, movie news--like the movies themselves--ranged from the spectacular to the curious to the affecting. Items:

P: In and around Rome, work was going forward on a production by a new screen writer: Homer. With assists from such upstart scenarists as Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw, Homer's Odyssey was being filmed in plaster caves and palaces and on board a Greek galley (thoughtfully provided with an engine as well as 100 oarsmen). The stars: Kirk Douglas as a bearded Ulysses, and lush Silvana Mangano as both Circe and Penelope.

P: In Chicago, the annual convention of the National Audio-Visual Association claimed that more people are going to movies than ever before. But what they are seeing are not the big Hollywood productions, but 16-mm. industrial, educational and religious films. In the past 17 years the number of 16-mm. projectors has grown from 1,000 to 450,000.

P: In Rochester, N.Y., the enterprising Lake Shore Drive-In theater urged auto-less customers to come out by bus, promised: "When you get here, we'll place you in one of our 50 cars parked inside the drive-in theater."

P: In Manhattan, the tradesheet Variety listed the top-grossing pictures for last month, in order, The Charge at Feather River (Warner) ; Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Warner) ; Shane (Paramount) ; This Is Cinerama (Cinerama Productions); Dangerous When Wet (M-G-M).

P: In Texas, The Moon Is Blue, though blackballed by the Legion of Decency and lacking the Production Code approval, was outgrossing the Oscar-winning western box-office smash, High Noon, in both Fort Worth and Dallas.

P: In Hollywood, production on the life story of the onetime child actor, Jackie (The Kid) Coogan, was halted by a letter. Written by a lawyer for Charles Chaplin Sr., the letter protested the plan to have Charles Chaplin Jr. impersonate his famous father in the Coogan film. Warned the attorney: "Mr. Chaplin has not consented, and refuses to consent, to being impersonated in this manner."

P: Another Chaplin ex-protegee, 33-year-old Joan Berry, who won a 1946 paternity suit against the comedian, was admitted to Patton State Hospital (for the mentally ill) after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child's ring, and murmuring: "This is magic."

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