Critical Times

If the hour of crisis had not yet struck in Hollywood, the times were at least unsettling:

P: At Republic Pictures, where four new stages are being built to make films for television, President Herbert Yates noted that his laboratory processed more TV film than motion picture film in the past year. "There's only one way to beat television," said Yates. "That's to get in it."

P: Director Frank (It Happened One Night) Capra revealed that he has been preparing a series of educational TV movies for the past year. Titled Man, the Explorer, each film will run about an hour as a "combination of entertainment and factual science like LIFE magazine is doing."

P: Twentieth Century-Fox, which last month suspended film production in Great Britain (so that its personnel abroad could bone up on Fox's new CinemaScope), admitted it would shut down Hollywood production for a month this fall. The New York Times estimated that Fox's total layoff of Hollywood personnel would reach 30 to 50% by October.

P: Things were so slow at M-G-M that Joan Crawford, working on Torch Song, had the full use of three dressing rooms.

P: At Paramount, where even the big tank (for shooting water scenes) was dry, most of the gardeners were let go and secretaries were permitted to uproot the plants and take them home.

P: Hollywood's Production Code Administration announced some changes in the self-censorship system. Among the subjects to be okayed for filming will be drinking (the antidrinking clause dates back to Prohibition days) and miscegenation (which already figures in the current Return to Paradise--TIME, July 20).

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