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| Hugo Fregonese |
Films Can't Played Off Too Fast; Public Catch Up, Declares Fregonese
By Richard Bernstein
(The Independent Film Journal, November 1952)
"Phoniness in pictures, as in money, has no real value,” explained Director Hugo Fregonese at lunch. Fregonese has just returned from Europe where he directed the Mike Frankovich production, Decameron Nights, which stars Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.
“I feel that an audience can sense a formula picture,” Fregonese said. “An audience likes to be surprised. They don't like to see the same film over and over with a different cast.”
Fregonese pointed out that nowadays a film goes through the theatre circuit too fast. Many pictures are worth a holdover and don't get it. Pictures should be exploited like plays for longer runs. Many times a person finally gets time to see a picture and finds that it has gone. By the time word-of-mouth on a film gets around, a film is sometimes not even playing in the city anymore.
