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P:In another move toward closer ties between movies and TV, the National Broadcasting Co. bought 50% ownership of Joseph L. (The Barefoot Contessa) Mankiewicz' independent Figaro Holding Co. NBC will finance future Figaro productions.

P:After viewing a rough cut of Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, United Artists decided to release the picture whether it receives Production Code approval or not. The story from the Nelson Algren novel deals with a young Chicago gambler (Frank Sinatra) who becomes a drug addict; thus it conflicts with the code's anti-narcotics clause. U.A. may have been influenced by the fact that Preminger's The Moon Is Blue, which it released without a code seal, made a killing at the box office. P:The box-office success of Universal's To Hell and Back spurred a rush of World War II and Korean war movies. Four have recently been completed; eleven are in the works. Among the prospects: Universal's Battle Hymn, Columbia's The Good Shepherd, Paramount's The Proud and the Profane.

P:The Blackboard Jungle, rejected at the Venice Film Festival last summer, was rated "especially valuable" by West Germany's Film Classification Board, and theaters showing it got a reduction in amusement taxes. At the same time, U.S. Army and Air Force reviewers in Nuernberg, who had formerly banned the picture, reappraised it and released it for showings in Armed Forces special circuit theaters.

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