Evening star., 1952-10-21

44A GA tA4dI 4106t a !
the Columbia Theater has never
BY the time the last custome
night. "The Shows Of Kilimanja
since the Columbia became the
parent house in the local Loew
chain, It has been this crowded
before. After all, it was the city's
top film palace for a long time
and many popular pictures played
there.
The difference is that prices
are up since Marcus Loew took
over the Columbia as the corpo-
ration's Washington nest-egg.
X X X
The remarkably free transla-
ton of Ernest Hemingways' lean,
lively short story into passion
ate pageant with Gregory Peck,
Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward,
is the Columbia's first film under
the houses new big picture"
policy.
Thus in its first week of moving
out Of the category of a move
over house. it achieves its greatest
fiscal glory. In boxof1ice take"
the Columbia this week will be
the National Capitals second
movie house. Under normal cir
cumstances, if there is any such
thing, it could easily have been
first. It will not because the Cap
itol Theater happens to be play
ing Mario Lanza's Because You're
Mine" LAMA musicals are gushers
In earnings. too.
Were it not vulgar to mention
dollars and cents, the management
OF the Columbia would be glad to
reveal that this weeks gross "a
word banded about in show busi-
ness as no where else) will be
close to $25.000. In one day, last
Saturday. gross business amounted
to $6.000-more than the total of
many a week in the theater's
move-over picture policy days.
The truth is that this is quite
a happy time for most of the
downtown movie houses. A few
more weeks at the same level of
business and they might begin to
forget that television has been in
vented and that people gather in
considerable punches to make
Saturday football one of the big
gest Of big businesses.
This. however, is an over
optimistic estimate of the situa-
ton.
The current state of movie
popularity in Washington is ex-
planned by the circumstance that
all Of the more successful pictures
OF the early autumn season are
concentrated here. Never in four
years have there been so many
holdover films for such long hold
over periods.
"Ivanhoe." the continued box
office champion for the Nation as
a whole for the last month, is
now in its fifth week at the Pal
ace. A sixth week is clearly in
dicated. the more definitely since
the Columbia no longer is avail
able as a move-over theater.
The second-place picture in the
national boxof1ce listings, 1.-The
Quiet Man." is in its third week
at the Warner and Ambassador
Theaters. This is a double booking
which gives it the equivalent of a
six-WeekS' first run.
Carrie" Paramount's costly
romance between Sir Laurence
Olivier and Jennifer Jores. is
hardly of a championship order
f1scally speaking, but it is doing
very well in the art houses. It is
In its fifth week at the Trans-Lux
and the end of it is by no means
IN sight.
X X
Following "The Quiet Man" into
the Warner and Ambassador on
Thursday of this week will be the
third most popular picture of the
fall releases. This is THE Miracle
OF Fatima," a religiously favored
picture about the success of which
all worries disappeared when the
public started flocking to it.
Another off-beat film which
quickly quieted all fretfulness
concerning it's fate opens tomor-
row at the Playhouse. This is
Clarence Green's and Russell
Rouse's THE Thief" the first
dialogueless screenplay since the
invention of sound. 1.-The Thief"