Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

24 MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 1, 192/ CAME tlie NEW YEAR! And with it predictions from every side of the biggest and most prosperous year yet in the motion picture business. Laugh Month fittingly opens the season and many showmen will later regard January and their short subject specialization during this month as the beginning of a twelve-month of good business such as thejr have never had before. Also it marks the inauguration of a new epoch in the history of the short subject's development, or we miss our guess, and opens a new and profitable box office angle for the wise showman, who is learning for the first time what he can do with the big, little feature. HAPPY NEW YEAR! * Ned Depinet, First National's popular Southern Sales Director, who can be elected mayor of Dallas, Texas, his home town, any time he wants to settle down, is wondering what to do with a twenty-six pound turkey, which some of his admirers in the Panhandle sector sent him for Christmas. The bird arrived “on the hoof,” as it were, and not in cold stor age, and Ned, being too kindhearted to kill it and not wanting to give it away, is in a quandary, particularly as some of his friends have suggested he keep it for a pet. The big gobbler is still in the crate it came in, eating its head off in the kitchen of the Depinet menage and Ned is said to be inviting suggestions as to the course he ought to pursue. The situation daily grows more serious, but a delegation of the publicity department of First National plan to wait upon Ned around Jan. 1st and arrangements may then be made to formally adopt the bird, if Walter Eberhardt and C’em F. Chandler will stand sponsors. * Jack Alicoate, who helps “Red” Kann run the Film Daily, when he feels in the mood, beat out Santa Claus by a day last week by having his birthday on Dec. 24. This doesn’t mean that Jack is a day older than Santy or even that he can remember the Spanish War. It is only recorded because the event escaped our notice last wreek in time to catch the edition and so our apologies must accompany our felicitations. Like a lot of Christmas cards, though they come late, they are none the less sincere and cordial. Sam W. Reid, the so-called “alimony martyr,” who for eighteen months or so has been languishing in the luxurious (?) jail at The Willows, Glenn County, Calif., and letting his whiskers grow at the same time for publicity purposes, rather than pay his warring wife a cent, has written about his troubles to Leatrice Joy, because she happens to be creating the star part in “For Alimony Only,” one of the new season’s ProDisCo releases. Mr. Reid and his whiskers waft a warning that alimony as a practice, pastime or profession is a menace to civilization, a sentiment in which manj7 clean shaved men will concur. * Earl Rossman, the explorer, who made “Kivalina of the Icelands” for Pathe, is going to “shoot” a feature in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska. Earl is writing a book about his latest adventures in the northland, which he will title “Mad Mirage” when published, and it may be that this is the story he plans to picturize. In To help make the welkin ring during January, C. W. Kahles, creator of Hairbreadth Harry, the Public Ledger comic strip character, which Artclass is presenting in two reel comedy form, will devote this strip entirely to Laugh Month during the third week in Januar}r. Bert Ennis, of the Laugh Month Committee, arranged the tie-up, which will cover more than 100 newspapers including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. * To Ned Marin of First National and his charming wife, who is a sister-in-law of Rube Goldburg, the cartoonist, Santa Claus paid a visit just two days ahead of his usual schedule and left a big, bouncing boy. Henceforth the annual holiday festivities of the Marin family will begin on Dec. 23, instead of Christmas Eve, but Ned will be any event it is pretty sure to be interesting stuff, for Earl knows his Alaska and Eskimos better than a lot of us know our own Broadway and that’s saying a lot. * Jack S. Woody, as the new charge d'affaires for Sam Goldwyn’s interests in the East, is receiving felicitations from his many friends, who are also congratulating Mr. Goldwyn on annexing him to his organization. Jack’s popular personality, wide acquaintance among exhibitors and the trade generally, as well as his organizing and sales ability, should prove a big asset in the important plans which his new chief has under way for his popular young stars, Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. able to save money by doubling on his birthday and Christmas presents. Seasonable good wishes to the Marins this year from their many friends in the industry are naturally just double what they would have been and that is saying a lot. * Carroll S. Trowbridge, who handles the publicity megaphone for A1 Christie from this end of the Hollywood Turnpike, announces that Dec. 26, as the national release date selected for “The Nervous Wreck” has been a tremendous success. Reports from house managers in every section indicate that the picture is a riot, the date chosen for general distribution of “The Nervous Wreck” evidently striking a peculiarly sympathetic chord in the hearts of the public, coming just after the strenuous pre-Christmas period. Why not start a “Nervous Wreck” Club, Al? Right now there ought to be plenty of candidates. \ LL eyes turn toward Hollyx\. wood with the beginning of the New Year, to look over the big line-up of attractions planned by the leading companies for the coming season. Already many of the big executives are on the ground. Winfield R. Sheehan, of Fox, early this week left New York for the Coast to supervise the elaborate production program already under way by his company. Next week Adolph Zukor, Jesse L. Lasky, Richard A. Rowland and other topliners are slated to go, according to latest reports. The annual exdous from New York to Hollywood has begun. HAPPY NEW YEAR! * All the AMPAs now swear by Gloria Swanson as the gamest of good scouts. She climbed out of a sick bed, despite the explicit orders of the doctor to the contrary, and kept her promise to talk to the bunch at the regular Thursday Hofbrau luncheon a week ago. Sometimes stardom and its attendant honors doesn't change a regular trouper and in Gloria’s case it evidently hasn't. * E. Oswald Brooks, of Pathe, is sporting a new and fancy timepiece these days, the gift of some of his friends and co workers in the South, who have taken this means to show their appreciation of a regular fellow and his enthusiasm for Pathe pictures. So many people have lately been asking him what time it is, however, that Oswald is beginning to get suspicious of their motives. For the information of such we are glad to advise that the watch is suitably inscribed and can be readily identified, if lost. * G. K. Rudolph, Fox Films, wirelesses that Truman Talley, managing director of Fox News, has his head in the clouds these days. Reason for same may be found in composite news reel shown at new Paramount Theatre, which check-up, since opening by Fred C. Quimby, Fox short subjects sales manager, discloses, has carried majority of subjects from Fox News. * Harry Bernstein, Max Fleischer’s right bower at Red Seal suggests abolishing all the pessimists, kibitzers, and shysters in the business for 1927. Speaking officially, we didn’t know there were any left, Harry! All the same we endorse the sentiment and accept with enthusiasm Harry's suggested slogan for the coming year “CROAK THE CROAKERS!”