Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Apr-Jun 1930)

42 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD April 5, 1930 DEAR HERALD-WORLD: Boone, la. On Iowa’s road maps she prints this slogan: “Iowa Has Stepped Out of the Mud.” Yeah, we are pleased to note this, but she still has some of this Iowa mud clinging to her feet. It is something like 20 miles from here to Ames where we can get pavement clear into Chicago, but, hoy, those 20 miles is what gives us the nightmare. There is said to be mudholes in those 20 miles that a caterpillar tractor can't negotiate and that doesn't sound good to April Shower. Maybe she can make it and maybe she can’t. We have just come from lunch and a four-hour visit with Mr. and Mrs. Weaver. You might never suspect it if you knew Bill Weaver as we do, but it is a fact that these delightful people are his parents, and what’s more, they don’t seem to be ashamed of it. In fact, his mother especially seems to he rather proud of him. Bill, you know, is the guy who has, in no small degree, been responsible for pushing the HERALD-WORLD up onto the front seat next to the bass drum, where it occupies the most prominent position of any motion picture trade publication — and that’s why it covers the field like an April shower. A year ago now we were stuck in this town for a whole week on account of mud, and a year from now we hope to be driving some other state and give the mudhens and turtles a chance to wallow in these mudholes unmolested. Iowa has two slogans: “Out Where the Tall Corn Grows” and “Iowa Has Stepped Out of the Mud.” The first one is a dandy, but the last one isn’t worthadam. From March 1, to June 1, Iowa ought to come over to Nebraska to do her driving. But she is improving every day, so let’s pray for her. * * * You have no doubt surmised, from what has heretofore appeared on this page, that we are unable to work ourself in to a frenzy of ecstasy over jazz music. If that has been your conclusion, you are right about it. We have long hoped and prayed that somebody would make a picture dealing with this subject, and last night in the Empress theatre here we found our prayers had been answered. Columbia will have our everlasting gratitude for making “THE MELODY MAN.” William Collier, Jr., was the director of a jazz orchestra. John St. Polis was the director of an orchestra that played only classical music. Collier’s buzzsaw organization rehearsed its agony in a room adjoining the studio of St. Polis. Alice Day was the daughter of St. Polis and her father sent her over to Collier’s room to try and persuade him to shoot the members of the saxophone section and to poison the trombonist and otherwise put the kibosh on the bunch so as to give bis orchestra a chance to play a few selections from Beethoven, Mozart and a few more Democrats. As soon as Collier saw Alice, the stuff was all off with the jazz orchestra, for he fell for her like a brick chimney. He’d have been a sucker if he hadn’t, and we would have had it in for him the balance of our life. Then Collier goes back with Alice and she introduces him to her papa, and when papa finds out he is the director of the jazz orchestra he blows up and orders him out of the house, which makes it rather tough on Alice as well as Collier. But William wasn’t the kind of a boy to be pushed off of a warm trail, so the next day he goes back and slips into the room and hears papa playing a classical selection from Anheuser-Busch, or some other Missourian, and that settles it. for it is the first strain of real music he has ever heard, so he apologizes to papa and they make up and everybody is happy, including Alice. Now, if you have a notion that papa can’t tickle the ivory, you just listen to him when he sits down to that baby grand. “THE MELODY MAN” isn’t the biggest picture in the world, but when we saw it we felt like the old man did when he bought a Ford car and he and his wife went out riding and he had printed across the back, “IT SUITS US.” * * * A few days ago we read an article in one of the Omaha papers giving an account of Estelle Taylor’s visit to Atlantic, la. It seems that Estelle was going into vaudeville and she went out to Atlantic to try her act out “on the dog” and see what effect it might have. According to the account, Stella didn’t seem to like Atlantic. She wanted four rooms with baths in the hotel and couldn’t get ’em. She wanted an orchestra and the manager finally got one by taking a saxophone player from the garage, a cornetist from the barber shop, a trombonist from a filling station, a violinist from a ten cent store and a trap drummer from a saw mill, and when they went to move the piano into the orchestra pit it fell to pieces like a Volstead beer keg with the hoops all gone. Betcha Atlantic won’t like that report very well, and we’ll betcha that manager won’t play any more vaudeville acts very soon, and we will wager also that should Jack Dempsey stage a pug fight in Atantic he wouldn’t get a corporal’s guard. We have been in Atlantic and it’s a nice town and they have a nice hotel and a swell theatre and the manager is an all-right guy, and the Atlantic folks are about as nice as we care to know and we are sorry that Stella didn’t like the town, but of course we will admit that main street isn’t quite like Hollywood Boulevard or Broadway, for it doesn’t have as many hot dog stands and screen actors out of a job, but the Atlantic women are usually pretty busy getting the children ready for school and the corned beef and cabbage ready for dinner, both of which places them ace high with us. * * * There’s a notion that is pretty prevalent among the boys higher up that only the de luxe theatres of the country can have good sound. We hope that this opinion doesn’t become chronic, for there never was a bigger fallacy in the world. We have heard talking pictures in theatres of 300 capacity and less that were as good as any we have heard in the largest theatres of the country. While it will likely not be admitted by many, yet the facts are that the acoustics of the smaller houses are universally better than in the larger ones. We recently heard a talking picture in a town of 600 that was as clear and distinct as any we ever heard, and we have heard quite considerably many. * * * Down in Carroll yesterday we saw Richard Barthelmess in “A SON OF THE GODS,” a Chinese picture wherein Dick played the part of the son of a wealthy Chink. We can’t say whether the picture was good, bad or indifferent, for we only saw it for a couple or three minutes. The picture struck us as rather peculiar, in that Dick was playing the part of a Chink’s son when he was dressed in the height of fashion and resembled a 1930 Broadway sheik, while he looked about as much like a Chinaman as a bullfrog looks like a snapping turtle. If they keep on making ’em that way, maybe some day we can get in pictures and be cast in an Old Mother Hubbard part and make love to Bull Montana. Gosh, wouldn’t it be a wow? We are headed for old Michigan. Girls, you better get the washing in off the line. And don’t call us up unless you are darn sure he’s away from home. J. C. Jenkins, The HERALD-WORLD man. P. S.— The HERALD-WORLD COVERS THE FIELD like an April shower.