Inside facts of stage and screen (Jan 11 1930)

PAGE TEN INSIDE FACTS OF STAGE AND SCREEN SATURDAY, JAN. 11, 1930 VANCOUVER, B. C. A. K. MacMartin REPRESENTATIVE 901 Bekins Bldg. ^NORTHWEST'' JEAN ARMAND DISTRICT MANAGER WASHINGTON OREGON IDAHO MONTANA SEATTLE Joseph D. Roberts REPRESENTATIVE 1118 Northern Life Tower GROSSES OVER AVERAGE WITH ‘SHOW OF SHOWS’ VERY BIG SEATTLE, Jan. 10. — Grea weather, good bills and the holiday spirit brought grosses up over the average, with the Music Box, Hamrick’s house, the big surprise. This one did a few dollars short of $14,500 for the week with “Show of Shows.” Great billing for this helped. Same house took in $1600 for a New Year’s Eve Show. Across the street, the Blue Mouse did $9250 with Warner Brothers’ “Tiger Rose.” Add to this a $1350 gross for the mid- night show. Hamrick’s Tacoma Blue Mouse did $7000 with the same opus. The Fifth Ave. walked away with the honors of the week grabbing close to $18,500 with Joan Crawford’s M-G-M “Un- tamed.” They flocked in from noon till closing. Midnight show was great, close to $3000. The Orpheum picked up for the initial week for the new manage- ment with an estimated $14,500 for R-K-O’s “Dance Hall” and a nice vaude bill. Olsen and John- son, in on Saturday, smashed the house record for this day. The Fox did well with Norma Shearer’s M-G-M “Their Own Desire” doing close to $13,000 for the week. Vic Meyers is in his t+fourth week here and with Henri Le Bel at the organ all help to add their bit. Lou Golden is stacking them in this week with “Hot for Paris” (Fox). Lou did a mean $1700 for his midnight show. Bob Blair had an off week with “Marriage Children” doing a $9300 gross for the week with a $1560 Midnight Show. Duffy did a nice biz at the President with “Uncle Dudley.” PORTLAND Jack Hays, formerly manager of two RKO theatres in Rochester, New York, has been installed as manager of the R-K-O Orpheum Theatre in Portland, succeeding Earl F. Wadge, who has been transferred to Minneapolis. Hays is a young fellow who has estab- lished a reputation in the East, where he had been associated with the Schine Interests. * * * Olsen and Johnson, nuts of vaudeville at the R-K-O Orpheum Theatre, wired all city editors of the dailies stating that they were going to shower the city with live turkeys from a plane at a height of one thousand feet. This caused considerable comment and won a goodly amount of space in the papers. It was a gag. Orchestra Reviews VANCOUVER By A. K. MacMARTIN New Year’s Eve midnight mat- inees were pulled by practically all downtown houses and they did a capacity business in most cases. The New Orpheum, with Olsen and Johnson headlining, took a dollar from each fan and prob- ably held the largest party of them all. Special stunts, paper hats, horns and the usual what- nots were distributed free by the ushers. Organ Review BOB HAMILTON ORPHEUM LOS ANGELES Adding an ingenious idea to his well-known qualities as an organ virtuoso, Bob Hamilton had a num- ber on the program for the ini- tial picture period at the Orpheum which is bringing him a large share of the day’s applause honors. Hamilton calls the offering “Meet the Organ,” and that’s just what it is. To the amazement of those not familiar with the mani- fold possibilities of the class instru- ment at the console of which Bob presides, he makes it talk, get a train under way, do a piccolo num- ber, whistle, sob, laugh, sing, and evervthing else in the roster of en- tertainment except dance—and with the genius Bob is bringing to his job it wouldn’t be surprising to see him make it do that some day. Hamilton opened at the Orpheum Christmas week with the RKO special, “Hit the Deck,” the first feature screen attraction at the for- mer vaude headquarters. From the response he is getting from the natrons, Bob should be set in for a long and pleasant oceunancy. He was formerly at the Hillstreet, and he has drawn many of his fans there to his new stand. Woody. WVLER TO DO “STORM” William Wyler has started pre- paring for production of “The Storm” at Universal. A difference of opinion on production matters between Carl Laemmle. Jr. and Wvler, resulted in voung Laem- mle’s der’sinn at first to secure another director for “The Storm.” However, a recent conference be- tween these two resulted in a change of this decision. CLYDE LOCKWOOD’S BAND TOPSY’S ROOST San Francisco Out on the Great Highway at the beach there’s a cleverly deco- rated and presented spot called Topsy’s Roost, a dine and dance emporium that has for its chief feature Clyde “Red” Lockwood’s orchestra. And there’s no getting away from the fact that this aggre- gation of pep purveyors are an at- traction. When “Red” and his gang bust out into one of those trots you can hear the customers in the booth say, “Boy, listen to that rhythm, will you,” and thej' get out and dance to it too. The excellent rhythm main- tained throughout is one of the band’s highlights. It makes the hoofing easy and pleasant. In ad- dition they’re all nice looking fel- lows and the gals like to dance past the. stand to get a glimpse of rusty-haired Lockwood and his boys. Personnel of the organization is Charles Ballou, banjo; Harry Miles, piano; Lloyd Webb, bass; Frank Lockwood, drums; Morry Winans, trumpet; George Meyers, sax, and Lockwood, leader. Hal. George Clark, of the Strand, who has been looking after local stage effects and productions, assisted by Jackie Souders, is also han- dling the productions at the Pan- tages. This houes recently opened by W. P. Dewees, who operates the Strand, is playing revues and pictures. Business so far has been poor. LAWS BARRAGE OF PUBLICITY TO OPEN ‘THE LOVE PARADE’ SEATTLE, Jan. 6. — Setting a new high record, which overshad-' ows all previous efforts made by press agents in this town, Bob Armstrong of the Seattle PuFlix, pulled a nifty for the opening of “The Love Parade” starring Mau- rice Chevalier. For the past two weeks, the opus has been getting a dandy send-off via the screen with the pay-off that includes the follow- ing: The Philco Radio dealers in The Maurice Colbourne Co., fea- turing Maurice polbourne and Barry Jones, closed at the Van- couver January 4, after a week of poor business. They played a split week with two different bills, open- ing with “The Philanderer,” and closing with “The Doctor’s Di- lemma.” Colburne holds the rights for the George Bernard Shaw comedies in Canada and Australia. This is the second Canadian tour of his English company. Gordon McLeod and his English company opened at the Vancouver, January 6, in Edgar Wallace’s “The Ringer.” He is supported by Lillian Christine playing the fem lead. Mac. PORI The annual report of the Acad- emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences covering their transac- tions for. the year of 1929 has been issued in booklet form. Aside from the secretary’s report and proceedings of the third annual meeting, the book sets forth the various aims and accomplishments of the Academy. The work of the Conciliation committee is set forth in detail. What the members have done for the advancement of the Arts of the. Cinema is also told. The various awards of merit are listed as well as a statement for the future. A recount of the doings of the Sound School is told in detail as well as its endeavors in college affairs, and the schedule of lec- tures proposed. Blair Making Strong Bids For Skandies SEATTLE, January 10. — Bob Blair, managing director of the Publix Seattle, believes in giving the local Scandinavian pasteboard buyers what they want. The story goes that Blair overheard one of our prominent Scandinavian citi- zens comment about the local popu- lation of his countrymen. The bug began to work in Blair’s fast thinking dome, and, with the cables busy, brought the result that this week a shipment of Swedish art arrives from Stock- holm for display in the palatial lobbies of the Seattle theatre. The other evening, before pre- viewing Ronald Colman’s “Con- demned,” Bob sprang a Swedish film on the critics. The opus was great, but it was tough on the gang trying to decipher the sub- titles. The film together with the exhibit will be attended by the Swedish consul and other Scandi- navian dignitaries, as part of a special Swedish night to be shown at the Seattle during the coming week. Blair is plugging the Swed- ish dailies heavily, figuring on bringing in a few of the 100,000 Scandinavian residents in this city. Paramount has entered into an expansion program with reference to the enlargement and further de- velopment off its Hollywood stu- dios that promises much greater facilities for its field of operations. The first project, necessitated by the increasing demand for talking pictures, will be the construction of a four-story administration building, in which will be located the executive personnel of the company. This structure is to re- place a one story business man- agers’ and library building. Reconstruction of at least two more of the silent picture stages for the making of talking pictures is a part of the program. Several already have been rebuilt and pro- duction is under way on them. With the new ones. Paramount will have twelve fully-equipped and modern sound-proof stages. A new assembly shop for the putting together of sets and an extension of the monorail system, an overhead railway which trans- ports sets from the assembly plant to the stages, are among the con- templated construction plans. Several new sound picture pro- jection rooms are to he installed in a new building located where Paramount’s former experimental stage now stands. In this building also will be housed a second por- trait gallery. The capacity of the studios’ transportation departments is to be increased, permitting the hous- ing of many more passenger auto- mobiles, camera and property trucks, Schulberg states, and the town and suburbs tied in 100 per cent on window space, the local N. B. C. station KOMO plugging the tunes, exclusively. In addition, Armstrong grabbed off 25,000 rotogravure lay-outs topping that off with a six-page tie-up, gratis to him, on the lead- ing sheet, the Hearst Post-Intel- ligencer. In case that wasn’t sufficient to smash all preceding records, he landed over a score of win- dow tie-ups in downtown music stores, and for good measure plastered all the taxicabs in town. The Canterbury Candy Com- pany featuring a special box with a picture of Jeanette McDonald on the outside, sweetens off the ef- forts of Armstrong. The neat tie-uo, net cost being nil to the Seattle, is a gigantic effort to break all preceding house records in the next two weeks, formerly held by "Welcome Dan- ger” for $24,000 here. LENORE ULRIC HERE Lenore Ulric has arrived from New York to spend the winter with her husband, Sidney Black- mer, First National player. Pos- sibly, Miss Ulric said, she will make some more pictures. That isn’t settled yet. IS STORY EDITOR Prof. Walter B. Pitkin, author and journalist, has been engaged by the Equitable Pictures Cor- poration as eastern story editor. laying of new concrete streets in the “back lot” is soon to be under way. Another important item in the expansion program will be the construction of a new electrical and equipment building, wherein will be stored and repaired the vast assortment of arc and Kleig lights needed for motion picture production. Announcement of the Hollywood building program follows closely on the heels of word from Jesse L. Lasky that a similar expansion has been launched in the Astoria, Long Island, plant of the com- pany. NOW ! “CHIC” KENNEDY Headlining Golden Gate, S. 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