Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1924-Mar 1925)

42 EXHIBITORS HERALD February 14, 1925 “Naked Truth” Dinner Attracts Notables From Far and Near Entertainment Committee Has Completed Arrangements for A. M. P. A. Dinner-Dance — Harold Hall Added to First National Staff By JOHN S. SPARGO New YORK, February 3. — The success of the fifth annual Naked Truth dinner-dance and frolic of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers, Inc., to be held Saturday night, February 7, at the Hotel Astor in New York, is already assured. Highlights of the affair will be: 1. No speakers. 2. No Hashlights. 3. Four orchestras. 5. Entertainment in which leading screen stars will participate. 6. Dancing till dawn. The dinner, it is announced, will start promptly at 7 o’clock in the Gold Room of the Astor. T^HE entertainment committee has lined up all the motion picture stars now ip New York and promises that they will be at the banquet and in the show. Moreover, these screen celebrities have signified their intention to remain for the dancing, so here’s a chance for those who have long been pining for a dance with one of their screen favorites. Among the picture stars who will turn out for the big event are Bessie Love, Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Mackaill, Clara Kimball Young, Lila Lee, Adolph Menjou, T. Roy Barnes, Aileen Pringle, Lillian Rich, Neil Hamilton, Claire Adams, Richard Dix, Niles Welch, Bebe Daniels, Milton Sills, Ben Lyon, Phyllis Haver, Doris Kenyon, Kenneth Harlan, Betty Blythe, Ann Pennington, Mary Hay, Hope Hampton, Thomas Meighan, Jacqueline Logan George Hackathorne, John Bowers, Marguerite de la Motte, and many others. A. M. Botsford, Harry Reichenbach, Morris Ryskind, and other funsters of the motion picture industry have been sharpening their wits to assist the stars in their performances, and one of the greatest novelty surprises on record is prornised. John Wenger, noted artist and scenic designe;^ for the Ziegfeld “Follies”' and other outst^^rjg Broadway stage productions as well c^^h'JnoJron pictures, has made a valuable'"cbhtribution of his genius to the coming Naked Truth dinner. For the event, he has designed a special “Naked Truth” curtain, described as the last word in striking scenic effects. The combined orchestras of the Rivoli, Rialto and Criterion, who will supply music during the dinner have been rehearsing steadily .for the affair,, and under the direction of Pr. Hugo Riesenfeld will put on a speciaHy’ -arranged;, p.fogram of Classical Jazz. ^ The NassaujCouhtry Club Orchestra, famous radio, jichtertaih^rs, and society jazz players, wilf provide the music for the dancing which will follow the dinner and entertainment. The Naked Truth dinner will bring out executives of all the big companies. Cecil B.,DeMille will make his first public bow to Broadway, at the affair. Other important film personalities who have obtained tickets are Jesse Lasky, Gene Zukor, Richard A. Rowland, Earl Hudson, E. A. Eschmann, Sidney Kent, Alarcus Loew, Carl Laemmle, Joseph Schenck, Hiram Abrams, Earl W. Hammond, and a delegation of ten from Will Hay’s office. Exhibitors representatives from various organizations in different parts of the country will be present, and the Maryland Theatre Owners are sending to New York a committee headed by J. L. Rome of Baltimore for the announced purpose of studying the Naked Truth dinner with a view to ascertaining how such events are so successfully staged. The Maryland Theatre Owners are going to put on a dinner-dance in April at Baltimore, and because they are anxious to make their affair the last word in regional functions, it was decided to send the committee. The committee will include several prominent Maryland exhibitors and they hope to win for their affair some of the starring talent that will feature the Naked Truth dinner. A special table has been set aside for them in a position of prominence so that their studies may be carried out under the most favorable conditions. Special features of the Naked Truth dinner-dance will include ukelele-playing by Bessie Love, dancing by Aileen Pringle, a monologue by Adolphe Menjou, dancing by Jacqueline Logan, piano-playing by Milton Sills, singing by George Hackathorne, and many other interesting revelations of what noted film personalities can do. Moreover the A. M. P. A., beginning with this year’s function, will select the “ten worst pictures of the year,” going the critics who are always naming the "ten best” just one better. On with the dance ! The Naked Truth will out ! * * * And speaking of the Naked Truth dinner here’s a line on one man who tried to make sure he won’t miss it. Charlie Raymond, manager of the Rialto theater, Washington, blew into town early last Saturday morning and to the Astor where he had previously arranged for a room. With him were a couple of suit cases containing various and sundry things to back him up *in the way of entertaining. Arranging all this in the room, Raymond went down into the lobby and explained to some friends he met that he was now all set for the big night. “What big night?” asked one of the friends. “This night,” replied Raymond, “I’m all set for the Naked Truth dinner tonight and am going to do some entertaining.” “You’re plenty early,” the friend informed him. “The Naked Truth Dinner is one week from tonight.” Raymond disappeared and no one seems to know what became of him. * * Jjc Earl Hudson has added another newspaperman to the large staff of former news-gathers under his command at the First National studios in New York. The latest acquisition is Harold R. Hall, of Boston. Hall for the last four years has been assistant city editor and feature writer of the Boston American. He has also been successful as a magazine writer. “Theatre Is Justified,” Says Hoosier Pastor (Special to Exhibitors Herald) INDIANAPOLIS. IND., Feb. 3. — "If the theatre does no more than entertain, it is justiBed,” Dr. Frank S. C. Wicks, pastor of the All Souls Unitarian church, here, said in a sermon on “The Church and the Theatre.” The sermon was in recognition of the beginning of National Drama Week. “Amusement.” Dr. Wicks said, “has a rightful and necessary place in our lives. All our energies are absorbed and at the end of the day our one need is rest and relaxation. The theatre is a boon if it does no more than relieve this strain. It is a good thing to listen to a good musical comedy. It is a good thing to see a motion picture that has the same effect on the human system.” Dr. Wicks said the English drama “is the legitimate child of the church.” He added that the church has no right to ask the dramatist to preach, teach or moralize, but “simply to hold up the mirror faithfully to life as it passes.” Most people do not like black cats, but (Big Bill) William T. Tilden 2nd, world tennis champion, not only likes black cats, but insists on having ffiem around him whenever possible because they have always brought him good luck. “If I can see a black cat or have one around me whenever I have gone into tennis matches I have always come through with flying colors,” said Tilden at the Glendale Studios, where he is working in his first motion picture entitled “Haunted Hands.” “Why, do you know,” continued Tilden, “when George Terwilliger, my director, and myself came out here to make some screen tests, this big black cat jumped up on the table along side of me and as always follows, the screen tests were excellent.” * >i< * After reading that Napoleon Bonaparte captured Toulon and was made a BrigadierGeneral at the age of twenty-four and that William Pitt was made Prime Minister of England at the same age, George O’Brien of “The Iron Horse” fame is about to start the “Twenty-four Club” for those young men who achieve unusuah distinction at that age. The William EoX star at the age of twenty-four is a featured player in five big photoplays all of which will be_ presented on Broadway this year. His rise to stardom with his name in electric lights in front of theatres all over the country has been one of the most meteoric in screen history. -At' Taxi Industry to Be Organized by Elliott (Special to Exhibitors Herald) NEW YORK, Feb. 3.— Frederick H. Elliott, organizer of a number of flourishing enterprises, has recently launched an energetic movement toward the centralizing of the taxicab industry. Elliott has been identified with the organizing of the Independent Motion Picture Producers’ & Districtors’ Association, with I. E. Chadwick as president, and W. E. Shallenberger, chairman of the executive committee.