Variety (January 1953)

W ednesday, January 7, 1953' _ ” mini l,l " , ![!!H!l!ii!iiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiimi*t lll " ,, i" M nimiMiiimnmmmmini|i'. I HOLLYWOOD JOKERS minim Minin I mi mum By PETE SMITH Hollywood. “Happy memories are among the most prized treasures life ” someone once said, and I wish I knew who said it, Jo I could give him hilling. Among Hollywood’s happiest memories are the practical J 0 kes that held sway in the -days when pepper trees spoiled the paint job of racy cars parked near Hollywood & Vine. King of the practical jokers was the late beloved Sid Grauman. Few in Hollywood were spared his Puckish pranks. One that Sid enjoyed telling particularly happened at an important meeting of the Paramount board of directors, presided over by Adolph Zukor. In the midst of the serious business at hand, a janitor tiptoed into the room very quietly with his tool box and started to work on the radiator. At first, his tappings were gentle. Then they gradually built in volume. While Zukor was visibly an- noyed, he permitted the work to proceed. The janitor became more zealous in his tappings and, Zukor’s ire arose correspondingly. When the janitor had worked up to the point of giving a good imitation of how it sounds in a boiler factory, Zukor blew up and yelled, “Get out of here!” but in less dignified English. Ifwas then the janitor removed his cap, glasses and other props to reveal himself as—Sid Grauman. Came the day when a host of Grauman’s shorn lambs decided to do something about ft. They tossed Sid a tes- timonial dinner. The place was packed. After dinner came that fateful moment when the toastmaster arose and made a long glowing speech of introduction for “the greatest showman of our time.” He concluded with, “I now give you the man for whom we have come here tonight to pay tribute—that grand, old, white-haired master of the theatre—Frank Whitbeck.” Whitbeck, sitting in the middle of the room, gravely arose, bowed and sat down. Followed then subsequent speakers who spouted super- latives about Whitbeck, ignoring completely, and not even mentioning, Grauman throughout the entire evening. Tom Geraghty, screen writer and pal of Doug Fairbanks, Sr., was another practical Hollywood joker. Half of the movie citizenry had suffered titanic tortures by Tantaliz- Forly-sevenlh P^RIETY Ann iversary Nothing Wrong WitiT Pix That One of My Scripts Can’t Cure By HARRY RUBY * Hollywood. The one biography the motion picture business will never make is a picture based on the life of James Clerk- Maxwell, the British physicist whose discovery, of electro- magnetic waves in the atmosphere made possible the invention of radio—and a little gadget called Television. When the afore- mentioned worthy yelled “eureka,” or whatever it was they used to yell in his days when they found something, the scoffers said: “So what? Has it any practical application?” (Oddly enough, this is the same thing they said when, a little after the turn of the century, Gillette and I announced our invention of the safety razor.) It is too much to expect a man en- dowed with the genius of Clerk-Max- Harrv Rubv also to be blessed with the gift of prophecy. How could he possibly have predicted that his work in electro-magnetism would some- day lead to the invention of radio, TV, and the closing of the balconies in some of the film houses that are still open? It is now admitted by all that TV is the biggest of the factors contributing to the plight the pix industry is in. But there are other factors. And while they present a less formidable face, they can’t be ignored. The exhibitors keep crying: “Give us better pictures and the customers will beat a path to bur doors.” There is no gainsaying that better pictures will draw more people than worse ones; but to get better pictures, there must be better stories (which I’ll take up in the next paragraph). You hear and read so much how desperate the studios are for picture material. Why? One reason is they don’t know a good story when I write one. For instance: a few months ago I submitted an original, entitled: “I Was a Chinaman for the FBI.” It’s a gripping and suspenseful story about a man named Lazarus who passes himself off as Chinese and lives among a group of Chinese who are suspected of selling litchi nuts above the ceiling price. PICTURES 47 ' — IB ■ ■■ — MMII ■ ■ IIIlKIII ■■■■!>!■ I'l I I HUT T~*l T~I^M ll’l * I! THEATRE IN THE FLAT II , if = NiiiiiMuiiiiMiiiiiuiiiiiiiiMuniiHiiiMifiiiuiHiinMMiiHiHmiiiHiiiiiMiiiiiiwiiiiiiiiiwiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiHfiiiiiiiiiiiiinMimiiiiiiiniiiiiHiiiiiiimmniiiuiiHiiir g ^tlMIJinilllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllMIIIIMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIItlllllllflMHIIIIIIIIIHIIUlliriMlllllllltMllltllllimillllllllMlllllflfflllllMlllllllllIJIlltr By WILLIAM SAROYAN There is one kind of anything: one kind at a time, that is. Effective is the kind that is desired. All the other kinds may be grouped together under one heading: non-effective. -Theatre in the round has had its day. Theatre in the flat, if effective, could be no less astonishing. This is a brand new idea, invented Sunday evening, Aug. 31, 1952. It works like this: The audience stands around the performers the way people stand around a drunk in the middle of the side- walk, flat on his back. They stand close up around the performer. First Performer: How are things going with, you? Second Performer: I’m not in the habit of talking to people I haven’t been formally introduced to. Are you perhaps Charles Abernathy. First Performer: No, Ma’am. I am Arnathal Charles- ton. Second Performer: Names are interesting, aren’t they? First Performer: I suppose they are—to strangers. They never did mean much to me. I find faces rather unusual—- two eyes every time. Second Performer: Well, glasses help a little. First Performer: Oh, yes. Now, the fact that these people are crawling instead pf standing on their feet makes the things they say pre- cisely as dull, or fascinating, as they would be if the people were standing on their heads. Still, it’s nice to give theatre-lovers theatre in the flat. After all, that is the shape of their heads. What is desired in any kind of theatre, aside from effectiveness, is a message. The best message is: Go home. It is the best because it is the most polite. Get up and go home where you belong and drop dead there— 1 to give the message it’s full support of “wordage.” That was the message of Mr. Eliot’s celebrated play, with of course decorations, which are always nice. They are always suitable for a party. I have recently written six new plays. One is a vine- yard play. It’s a small vineyard, only 10 acres, or I’d be tempted to make an industry of it. It’s* a muscat vine- yard. The muscat is a -grape,,-wjth a fine flavor, a large berry, a strong resinous stem*, a thick skin. I’ve always liked eating muscat grapes. ‘ Ten acres for a play, though, ing Tom, who lived at the Alexandria Hotel. Finally the worms turned. One morning Tom was aroused at seven by a call from the desk clerk who frantically asked Geraghty to come to the lobby immediately. Upon arriving there, he found the place packed with noisy laborers carrying picks, * shovels and lunch, all shouting for Tom Geraghty in various dialects, some wav- ing a newspaper with an advertisement asking for day laborers to report to Tom Geraghty. Alexandria Hotel. It took stttrte explaining and no little coin of the realm to settle this practical joke. There was a time when Eddie Cantor and your scrivener gave up consulting doctors. We just consulted each other. Our respective medicine cabinets reached from the floor to the ceiling. They were packed with every cure-all known to the science of patent medicine. I must admit, however, that Eddie’s cabinet beat mine by three bottles, four pill boxes and one half-squeezed tube of salve. One day while my ulcers were giving an Academy Award performance, the quaint little Cantor came up with a new and amazing cure! Ofle full glass of ginger ale mixed with - one full glass of rich cream to be taken five times a day! After the third day I felt like a fully inflated blimp. It just so happened that during this period my tempera- mental ulcers had gone into a state of temporary tranqull- , ity. Soon, they kicked up again. But manfully, in private and in public, I continued to pour the Cantor Ulcer Goo into my gullet until it began to come out of my pores. It was not until weeks later at the Hillcrest Country Club where, in the locker room, I overheard amidst roars of laughter, a detailed account of the gag that had gagged me for weeks. J L. B.’s Rib oil Churchill In Hollywood, even statesmen are not immune from practical jokes. There was the time at Metro when Win- ston Churchill spoke eloquently at a luncheon tendered him by L. B. Mayer. When the thunderous applause that followed Churchill’s speech had subsided, L. B. said, “That Mas a magnificent speech, but you are about to hear another speaker^who is just as good as Mr. Churchill.” The audience was aghast and Winnie was abashed, when suddenly from nowhere came the voice of Winston Churchill repeating the opening lines of the speech he had just made. This, of course, was a “play-back,” but it was the first time that, the assembled crowd at M-G-M had ever heard a “play-back,” and probably the first time that Churchill ever heard a recording of his voice made just a few moments before. The mike, concealed in the-flower table decoration, was something new’ and novel in those . days. II Mas at King Charney’s hotel in Palm Springs. A line of gorgeous gals were modelling the merchandise of a prominent Los Angeles furrierr" They paraded around the swimming pool, and at the erid of the line of girls came Jimmy Ritz, attired in a costly Kolinsky. As Jimmy reached the edge of * the pool, brother Harry. reached Jimmy and shoved him into the drink, A practical joke that got a big yock from the spectators and got Harry Ritz a bill from the furrier for 3,000 bucks for one ruined coat. I’hc next day, the furrier received a bill from Harry Ritz for $3,000 for “entertainment supplied by the Ritz Bros.” r Thon.th,ere was the time during an amoeba epidemic, Mlion Jack Conway began to bore people with his preach- ments against drinking tap water and the importance of . drinking bottled water. . . Cue. night Jack/returned .to hig hotel room, opened * 1 door but could not enter. The room was packed ^ Uh inverted bottles on their respeptive stapds. Someone nan subscribed to the service of every bottled water'dis- nnulor in the community. Anyone who has ever at- etnpted 1° empty the water out of such inverted bottles Everything is going fine. They have no idea that Lazarus is not one of them until they see, on his right arm, a tattoo of Washington crossing the Delaware. It looks like cur- tains for our herd. But, thanks to a very small two-way radio set that he has concealed in'the buttonhole of a lapel, he is rescued by the FBI. The Chinese "gang is rounded up and put where they belong. Another Smorgasbord . Of the six studios this yarn went to, no one showed the slightest sign of interest in it. Interested only in saving the industry, I submitted another story, entitled: “I Slept in Peer Gynt’s Suite.” It’s about an indigent Hollywood composer who sells his Cadillac to buy a piano. His urge to write serious music is so great that, from dawn to mid- night, he does nothing but compose, compose, compose. But he can’t get started. From the girl he is going with, he gets.everything but the inspiration he needs. He hates writing popular songs, but for once he is prac- tical. He quickly writes a big song hit, just to get enough money to take him to Bergen, Norway, the home town of his favorite composer, Edvard Grieg. .There, he will get the inspiration he is looking for. He stays at a very old but quaint little inn; in fact, he occupies the very same suite Peer Gynt once lived in. His first night there, he dreams he has written a great symphony; the second night, he dreams it is being per- formed at Carnegie Hall; the third night, he dreams he has received a big royalty check from the publisher. All the dreams come true—except the one about the publisher. Here was a chance to make a picture that, would delight the millions of lovers of good music—which I happen to have in my trunk. x . Don’t ask me why the yarn was turned down. Your guess is as good as mine. The next thing I submitted was not a story; it was a title. It seems a certain studio was toying with the notion of making a picture out of “I Am a Camera,” but they didn’t think the title was good for jpictures; and they couldn’t find one that was. As you may ' know, the central character in that play is a girl of extremely easy virtue; a born bimbo, 1 if I ever saw one. The title I suggested is: “Call Me Madam.” When my agent phoned to tell me there was no inter- est^ it, I decided, right then and there, to sit babk and .wait* for Cinerama. can understand why Conway never talked about bottle water after that. ■ ■ Hollywood jokers .flourished among the men of the pen (polite for “Press Agents”). During an earlier era, the p.a.’s had an organization called “Wampus.” One day, the members gathered to welcome a new addition into their ranks in the person of Howard Strickling. The welcome program included a crap game. Howard was hot and before you could say “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,” he began winning, but fast. As the gaihe progressed he gra- ciously exchanged the money he had won for I.O.U.’s, which he piled up between his knees. If someone had lit a match, there would have been a holocaust, so plenti- ful were the alphabetical promises to pay. When the * game was over, Strickling had all the I.O.U.’s, but' some- how the Wampus members had all the cash! Howard had become a full fledged Wampus member. Hollywood studios in ye good ol’ American 1 manner are wont to indulge in a bit pf holiday hey-hey. around the Yuletide. ’Twas the night before Christmas in 1942 and a • bunch of the boys were making merry With the Ovaltine at M-G-M. A certain producer decided that a certain Ger- ' man paperhanger was the cause of the/world’s fnis^ry. *So he decided to do something about it. He’d get the so-and-so on the phone and tell, him the facts of life. After several ' unsuccessful attempts’ to get Adolph Hitler in Berlin, the ' producer’s pals eritered the picture. They put Charlie Judels, famouf dialectician, on the phone in another office and a^anged for the studio operator'to make the connec- tion.' “Charlie raved and ranted, while tlie producer ranted ’ and raved. And all concerned were satisfied*. is modest. Nothing ferocious happens in the play. I thought, of winning sympathy for kept women in it, but I decided against it. I then thought of winning sympathy for intelligence in it, but that was even less appealing, and so nothing*%£Wpni iry'tlie play. But one thing I know and take pride in:v-an^od^ who sees the play is going to think twice abo'ut eating muscat grapes, and since that is what I set out to do, I think I may permit myself to say, “Well done, old friend.” Apart from its agricultural value, the play is artistic. It is written in words. Some of the words are round, some are flat. None is misspelled because when in doubt I choose a word I know how to spell. This is how theatre in the flat was discovered: A producer said, “It’s a shame for a writer like you to be neglected by Broadway.” I came right back with, “Broadway never neglected me.” At that moment. I fell off the chair—leather and Slippery. “I’ve been turning down offers from producers for years,” I went on, speaking from the floor. But there he was, a producer, a millionaire, unaware that a new trend in the theatre had been launched. I got up, and said, “Most people don’t know I’ve got money.” (Ordinarily I wear my money .on my sleeve, sometimes in cash, sometimes in IX).U.’s, but that eve- ning the only thing on my sleeve wSS a rubber-band be- cause I’d lost the button gambling.) . “Come back to Broadway,” the producer' said. “No,” I said, “You go to Frqsno and buy a muscat vine- yard.” Theatre in the flat is exactly like theatre in the round. If you’ve got your mesasge straight, if you’re in earnest, if you understand industry, if you make the aesthetic choice of writing in English instead of in Sanscrit, you’re just about made. Theatre in the open is very good, too. Anything in the open is nice. Theatre closed makes greater demands on audiences, but the rewards are as negligible. One guesses as to what’s going on. Theatre in the red is commonplace. Something is pro- duced and it is discovered that everybody should have stood. Or understood. What about theatre in Wyoming? Well, I was at |J}e University there for three week a couple of years ago. “Teaching?” somebody asked. . “No,” I replied. He waited .some time for an* elaboration, which I am ' proud to say he didn’t get. Wordage is money. I produced and directed a play of mine* at the Uni- versity. I could have made ah industry of the play, but just the one performance was enough. In the play every- body stands. On both feet. There was furniture in the play, too. Two chairs and a table—not very good furni- ture. Picnics—they’re nice. I mention this because I went on one, 25 miles out of Laramie in a place of hills eroded by time, wind and rain. Very nice. Sandwiches. To sum up, little theatres are fine. I look forward to their getting littler and littler. There may be a time when the theatre will have gotten so little as to install itself in the home, and then—wonder of wonders—in people themselves, so that every moment anybody stays alive will be as good as, if not better than, anything anybody ever saw on a stage. ' This .will -be called theatre in the first place. Cheaper by V2-Dozen When George M. Cohan appeared in vaudeville and was writing vaudeville sketches, Gus Hill produced popular priced 1 .shows like “Happy Hooligan” and “McFadden Flats.” Hill^became ambitipug'to produce Broadway musi* cal shows. * "He sent'for‘George, told him of his* plans, and asked Cohan if he thought he was capable of writing* the book, lyrics and music of a Broadway musical show. Cohan replied that he thought he" could and then' Hill asked him: “How much do you waut'for a half dozen?” * ' - * * * < v 1 IWnaj Gordon. * ■