Evening star., 1955-06-06

Dave Herman.
Press agents do lead full,
accounts and they get to asso'
ciate with glamorous entertain
lnent stars and meet so many
interesting newspaper people
They have their special problems
however.
The press agent is constantly
In the middle as he works. Push
ing him from behind is his boss
who is determined that some
story or other will be given wide
spread circulation. Tending him
off is someone equally deter
mined to make sure that a
trumped-up yarn does not get
into the paper. Anything max
ing such a life more complicated
naturally is to be deplored.
Today it is Jack Foxe, OF
Loew's Capitol, Palace and Co.
lumbia Theaters. who has ma
neuvered himself up a cul-de-sac
only press agent could find
without a map. Arranging a
sneak preview for the Capitol
on Wednesday night, Mr.. Foxe
thought it would be a good idea
to invite Washington's 143 psy-
chiatrists to the special showing
This is common practice, OF
course. Movies are being shown
to special groups all the time in
the hope of calling some extra
attention to them. The trouble
this time is that a sneak pre-
view is not a sneak preview when
q lot of people are bandyiug the
title of the movie about. 1t is,
in fact, a violation of The Code
and you needn't expect to find
the name of Wednesday nights
film divulged here.
The problem never comes up
in the cas- of most special groups.
You could invite all the high
military brass, all retired Zieg-
field girls. all resident psychotic
killers. or all dancing masters to
a sneak preview without giving
away any secrets In each case
you might be showing any one
Of a dozen new movies.
There are not too many films,
however, in which psychiatrists
might be assumed to have some
special interest. Thre Is, in fact,
only one In the offing right now.
The next time Mr.. Foxe wants
10 invite 143 psychiatrists to
anything like this, he might well
do 1t from 143 couches. Profess
sional ethics would make cer-
tain then that his secret would
be kept. This time he did the
inviting by letter and Wednes-
day nights sneak preview isn't
80 sneaky any more.
y
REVERSALS - A couple of
established Hollywood trends are
taking a beating. One of them
In fact. is no mere trend but q
long established practice. This
is the custom of never having
people do what they know how
to do in movies-of hiring dane
ers to act. actors to dance and
singers to mouth words sung by
voice doubles. Well. George Ste
vens has assigned a girl named
Fran Bennett to the role Of q
Texas heiress in Giant" and she
is a genuine Texas heiress. Made
her debut last year in Fort
Worth.
The other trend is the swing
toward television by the stars
Alan Young is swinging back the
other way, against the tide. He's
giving up TV as of the end Of
his contract with NBC. He's had
other offers. specifically one for
a series in which he would play
a character akin to James
Thurber's Walter NIFTY, the man
of the secret life. Alan isn't hav-
ing any, though.
Il don't think you can sus-
tain that kind of idea week after
week." he told the APPS Bob
Thomas. Right now it appears
that no show can last more than
five years. I don't want merely
q five-year career. So I'm going
to sit back and wait"
While sitting and waiting, Mr.