Surprise Smash

Five days after the coronation, a full-length documentary film of the event opened, with little fanfare, in a few U.S. theaters. J. Arthur Rank's A Queen Is Crowned, written by Playwright Christopher Fry and narrated by Sir' Laurence Olivier, is an impressive Technicolored job, but few officials of Universal-International, which is distributing the picture, expected much interest from American moviegoers, who, after all, had had a chance to see it all on TV.

But in its first week of U.S. showings, A Queen Is Crowned began making unheard-of box-office records. In Manhattan, the little (450 seats) Guild Theater opened with six shows a day, hastily raised it to nine when waiting lines strung out around the block. In five days with the film, Boston's Exeter Theater drew in twice as many patrons as usual. In Richmond, the Capitol's business was four times bigger than normal in one day; the Pix in White Plains, N.Y. did three times its average business.

This week 150 U.S. theaters will have fresh prints, and one U.-I. official, delighted by a surprise box-office smash, crowed: "However fantastic it all sounds, don't believe it--it's even more fantastic than that!"

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