Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 25, 1946)

Page 12 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY December 25, 1946 figure since it opened. The dauntless Stein accepted the challenge and took over the theatre. He inherited Gus Sun vaudeville and what pictures he could get. It was a 1,164-seat house bucking Famous Players’ Pantages with 2,230 seats, vaudeville and the pick of the pictures. Morris set about to put his house in order. He made a new deal with the film companies and was the first manager to introduce stage presentations in Hamilton. Knowing it just wasn’t financially possible to play the type of show his opposition could afford, he began building a strong staff of the best musicians, stage hands and other theatremen he could engage. He put the band on the stage and built a “production” idea around each vaudeville show. The first one was ‘The Old Lady in a Shoe,” which had a huge set piece of a shoe with the acts sliding down a runway and out the toe of the shoe. The names of the acts for that first show are interesting. The show included Mitzi Mayfair, later to be glorified by Ziegfeld and the movies; Tommy Wonder and Betty; Joe and Jane McKenna and a couple of comics called Salt and Pepper. Jack Pepper had a chubby little wife along with him who occasionally did the Charleston—she later went on to fame as Ginger Rogers. BECAME associated with Morris Stein in 1924 and we've been together since that time. He gave me the job of handling his ads and press stories and later I stepped into the production department, inventing names for our stage shows and acts and helping to design settings. We were, thanks to the best stage crew in town, the country’s greatest “cheaters” on settings. If a set cost us more than $15 we had long and grave deliberations. A few feet of 2x4’s covered with borrowed grass mats made a lovely clipped hedge, a properly lighted blue cyclorama, a moon box, a prop fountain, a statue and some blue gelatine slides transformed the stage into an old-fashioned garden. We borrowed props from department store windows and soon became known as Canada’s champion scroungers. Once in a while we'd splurge on a rented . shimmering silver drop or closein but usually the old blue “cyc”’ would be worked overtime. Because of his friendship with vaudeville acts established when he was a booker, Morris always managed to pick up layoffs around Detroit who would come to the Tivoli for a low salary. A few months later many of them would appear at Pantages under their right names and at their regular salaries. Morris had to take what pic K yg The Stein Song (Continued from Page 10) tures he could pick up—generally those nobody else wanted. He had an uncanny judgment and managed to pick up quite a few “sleepers” others theatres didn’t ‘get enthused about when they screened them. I can recall we had .tremendous success with two pictures he bought which were not highly regarded elsewhere starring a newcomer, Greta Garbo. One was “Flesh and the Devil” with John Gilbert and the other was “The Torrent” with Ricardo Cortez. He picked up others like “Slide, Kelly Slide” with William Haines and Harry Carey, which also took us nicely out of the red. Mae Murray was a constant screen visitor. Oscar Hanson was peddling a picture of the Tunney-Dempsey fight, which Famous and other companies wouldn’t book until they saw it. Oscar, in a rage, offered it to Morris who gambled on it and booked the attraction before the fight took place. The rest is history. It was the famous “long count” fight and we just opened the front doors and let them out the back. The house reached an incredible gross. Because the picture came ’* along during a religious holiday Morris turned the house over to me — that was my first and only ex SS RUCLE DERE RE RE REE REPEL LEEEREREIEs Pr The Season’s Best * SUNCLO PRODUCTS ‘TORONTO PEPE LENE NE IERIE RE ERG LE IE PELE RE LE REI LERELELE RARAANAAMAA MAND MVM SIN hi MAANAANAAMNMAMRAAMMNAARNAD , perience in theatre management! Presenting stage shows was Stein’s real love and on each little production was lavished more attention than Ziegfeld gave his biggest revue. It was nothing for us to work until two and three in the morning trimming sets and rehearsing. I remember one night Morris. mildly suggested to the drummer that he wasn’t giving out with the proper beat. The drummer intimated that a theatre manager didn’t know how traps should be played. Morris invited him to move over and sat down and played the number the way he wanted it. The Petrillo boys were most respectful from that time forward. After two years of blood, sweat and tears during which he pulled the theatre out of the red we ran into an unusually hot summer, even for Hamilton, and the owners of the theatre suggested that Morris trim his sails by cutting salaries—including mine. This he refused to do. The owners became insistent and rather than meet their demands he resigned. HE late N. L. Nathanson had his eye on Morris ever since, through sheer necessity, he had been giving Famous Players a uae saps ara ooh ag y RR ERIC W. a y a ¥ HOUNSOM a y wy i ¥ ARCHITECT R Ay § Toronto a ¥ z y Theatre rd ¥ Specialist a 8 A cA PADD DM DDD LDL Dt v7 ASU RE RPE NG EE LEE LE LENE NEI IEIEIE LE LELE ELE LEI UE LEE ELE LEE IE CIEE IEICE ICIE LE REC Le Le rg BENE OVE RE NE CEE EEE NEEM Ns Season's Greetings ‘MOM and DAD’ Hygienic Productions of Canada Canadian General Manager: GEORGE ALTMAN RRL ARHAANDARARAWUHADDWRH RAB MMA RMB RABBI WWBD BWM ARARAAMMNADM MADAM LIDS = kick in the pants. He made him several offers and finally Morris accepted one to organize the Canadian Vaudeville Managers’ Association and he set up offices in the Tivoli Theatre Building in Toronto. He booked acts for the Toronto suburban theatres and for all houses in eastern Canada using stage attractions. He was riding high for a few months when that old devil Sound came along and knocked his vaudeville booking agency for a loop. There just wasn’t any more vaudeville! Morris had played his first layoff in a crowded lifetime for a few months when Jack Arthur recommended him for the management of Pantages Theatres in Toronto. Morris arrived in Toronto and _ shortly afterward changed the name of the theatre to the Imperial. He booked RKO vaudeville into the house and also handled the booking for Pantages’ theatres in Hamilton. In June of 1930 J. J. Fitzgibbons assumed the management of Famous Players and_ spotted Morris as a man of outstanding ability. The following September he appointed him supervisor of Toronto suburban theatres and moved him into head office. His rise was rapid once he had been established and after turning in an outstanding job with the suburban houses he acquired the supervision of first the Tivoli theatre in Toronto and then the downtown Toronto showshops, branching out from a troubleshooter to supervisor of the Niagara peninsula houses. It was only natural that he should eventually become general manager of the eastern division of Famous Players. When Morris was in Hamilton he felt that if a country was good enough to give him a living it was good enough to belong to and he became a_ naturalized Canadian citizen. q EE MORRIS is happier about one thing than another it is the fact that the labor relations he handles for the eastern division of the company have been so harmonious. There’s really nothing remarkable in _ that, though the fact that for so long he held cards in both the musicians’ and projectionists’ unions has given him a sympathetic understanding of the union man’s problems as well as those of the company. Thus, so far, the story of Morris Stein — showman. There are those cynics who declare that one needs influence to get anywhere. Morris had no relative in top spots to help him but he had showmanship—and it seemed to work just as well. From projectionist to a top executive in one of the largest theatre circuits on the continent is a nice score for any man.