Meet Alex Gottlieb — Producer (1952) 🇺🇸

Alex Gottlieb has just completed production on “The Fighter” for United Artists release.

by Paul Manning

Alex Gottlieb has just completed production on The Fighter for United Artists release, and is about to start filming on Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd, for Warner release. His Macao, with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, has already been rated a hit by RKO.

“In all the years I have been in, around and about motion pictures,” says Gottlieb, “I have finally decided that the only single thing important to producer, distributor, or exhibitor is money. I love art, and have it hanging on the walls of my home. My wife paints. But I now know that as a producer, it is an absolute, basic essential that the pictures I turn out make money for the distributor and the exhibitor because, when they do that, they make money for me, and I can keep on turning out pictures.

“I have heard all kinds of arguments as to the kind of films that will make money, and there’s only one answer to all of these verbal junkets. If you examine the list of top money films, you’ll find that every single classification has made top grosses at one time or another. A picture about the south, Gone with the Wind, remains our all-time top grosser. For years no one wanted to do a circus film. Then C. B. DeMille [Cecil B. DeMille] did The Greatest Show on Earth, and I only wish I had a piece of the gross. Body and Soul and Champion demonstrated that fight pictures can score at the box office.

The talk turned to his production of The Fighter.

“The Fighter, said Gottlieb, “is going to be a top grosser for United Artists. The stars are fine performers. Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, and Vanessa Brown have won their acting spurs. The picture is directed by Herbert Kline, whose ‘Forgotten Village’ is an American great. This is more than a fight picture. It’s a story about a Mexican boy who fights for love and the love of his country. In Hollywood there is a feeling that Zapata, produced by Zanuck [Darryl F. Zanuck], is an important property. The Fighter combines some of the elements of Zapata with elements of Body and Soul. More important, with United Artists we’re going to fight for the public dollar.

All three of our stars are going to go on the road. You can tell exhibitors right now to watch for Brown, Cobb, and Conte. They’ll be in to see them plugging The Fighter. Our score was done by that great musician, Vincente Gomez. There will be an album published by either Decca or Columbia records. We’re now completing negotiations for a reprint of the Jack London story from which we made The Fighter.

“When we titled our picture The Fighter, it was an apt title not only for the film but also for the manner in which we’re going to get off our bottoms, and get out in the field to fight with the exhibitor for top grosses.” — P. M.

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Good Things to come from Hollywood… MGM’s “Invitation”

“Invitation” isn’t what one would call a big picture.

by Paul Manning

It is no sweeping epic, has no golden pageantry, no triumphal processions. The importance of Invitation is in its dramatic force, its depth of emotional appeal, and its superb excellence in playing, direction, and production.

Briefly I would like to get off some applause for this film. I list them in alphabetical order as I feel that the team made this picture possible, and teams should be listed in this manner.

• Louis Calhern — An extremely difficult role handled with the good taste and ability which we have come to expect from this veteran.
• Van Johnson — Who proves to the sceptics that he has more to offer than rah-rah boy roles. This should open new vistas for him.
• Dorothy McGuire — A smashing dramatic performance. This undoubtedly deserves 1952 Academy consideration. This is a “screen moment” that she was born for.
• Ruth Roman — Taking the bit firmly between her gleaming white teeth, this sure fire actress chalks up perhaps the best role of her career.
• Gottfried Reinhardt — Producer turned director, this son of the late famous impresario, Max Reinhardt, shows that delicate sense of feeling for the dramatic which presages future films of this calibre.
• Lawrence Weingarten — Leo, the Lion must be smiling in his whiskers at the thought of having this exceptionally competent producer securely wrapped in dotted lines. Weingarten has always been a favorite producer of Studio Survey, and Invitation sends his stock notches higher. — P. M.

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At upper left, Dorothy McGuire tries to keep the friendship of Ruth Roman in a scene from MGM’s Invitation, while at right Van Johnson and Louis Calhern talk things over.

At bottom left is seen producer Lawrence Weingarten, with director Gottfried Reinhardt at right.

Collection: Exhibitor Magazine (Studio Survey), February 1952