Exhibitors Herald (1926)

46 EXHIBITORS HERALD November 13, 1926 sponsible for the current shortage is responsible for a general prosperity in publishing circles yielding the capital required to cope with it. Relief will be forthcoming, but in the meantime anyone with a satisfactory substitute for popular song hits ought to get rich.* *Of course there aren't any. Chicago Chicago Week Ending November 7 Richard Dix in “The Quarterback” was the big item of the Chicago show this week, and how it stood them out ! A look at the waiting line, full of young folks talking about this or that game, left no doubt as to what drew the business. However. the show ran like this: “Songs of Italy,” started as the regular classical overture by the pit orchestra under direction of Adolphe Dumont, then into accompaniment with the Fitz Patrick music reel from which the title is taken, every subtitle clicking perfectly with the music and the whole stacking up as the best overture this outfit has done in months. Boyd Senter and Jack Russell on the stage doing “Breezin’ Along,” “Love to Call You My Sweetheart” and “How Many Times,” on sax clarinet and piano. Senter’s manner has been toned up somewhat, recently, and he hit ’em so hard with a broadside of minor blues set into the final number that they were still applauding when the newsreel, following, was well under way. Newsreel with pit orchestra. Jesse Crawford at the organ breaking the news about his going to New York and Henry Murtagh’s coming to the Chicago, then playing “Dancing the Waltz Away” (which doesn’t look like the right title) in good shape for good returns which might have been better had he finished instead of opening with the going-away thing. “The Giant Piano,” John Murray Anderson unit in the vein of a stunt used by Harry Gourfain for Art Kahn at the Senate a couple of years ago touched off on that occasion by at least one full page newspaper ad. The unit was reported in detail by this department’s New York reporter on the occasion of its Rivoli opening, but this reporter begs permission to add the opinion that a bunch of novelty numbers superimposed upon the strictly novelty idea of the thing would have done more for general results than the classic stuff Anderson employed, good as it is. Chicago Senate Week Ending November 7 For beauty of production the presentation, at the Senate. Chicago, easily topped the* list of several caught by this reporter last week. Talent working in the show rated from ordinary to very good. Worthy of record is that Mark Fisher's drummer. Jack Kelly, was one of the biggest hits of the bill in a xylophone specialty. The show, titled “Harvest Time Frolic,” ran as follows? Drapes parted to reveal band mounted behind a jack o’lantem cutout drop, the mouth of the lantern forming a frame for the band. Yellow and pale blue predominated in the mounting, which in its entirety was a triumph of stage craft. “That One Day When I’m with You” was the band opener. Two girls stepped out to do a chanticleer dance and were followed by four others doing a jack o’ lantern number. Then six in crinolines stepped to “Beside a Garden Wall.” Ben Blue walked in after this for a couple of gags. Following his exit the drop in front of the band flew and the band did “Birdseye View of My Old Kentucky Home.” Fiher sang a chorus of this. He has a neat manner of delivering a song and usually takes a big hand for it, as he did in this instance. Jack Kelly, the band’s regular drummer, stepped out here and played “Second Hungarian Rhapsody” on the xylophone and knocked over roof-shaking applause. For his encore he swung into “I’d Love to Call You My Sweetheart” and then ran into “Rose Colored Glasses,” doubling the tempo for the second chorus of it. This caused another panic. Kelly tears rhythm apart and puts it back together again with great facility and, unlike so many xylophonists, he doesn’t miss nor slur a note. “Ting-a-Ling,” by the band, and featuring the first trumpet, Beatrice Gardell and the Gould ballet, followed. Fisher sang a chorus. The yellow drapes banded with blue opened at left of platform stage after Fisher sang his chorus and revealed a good looking Dutch scene as a panel of the drop, two girls in Dutch costume stepping in front of the panel. At right a Spanish panel was undraped, two more girls stepping. Then the large center drapes opened on a Venetian panel, and two more girls did a turn. Miss Gardell in blue stepped out in front of the band and did a brief acrobatic dance that merged well with the other parts of the number. Vale and Stewart, tap eccentric dancers who were given a puff announcement, opened with a duo to “That’s Why I Love You” and then went into solo specialty bits. One of the boys does a knee-drop and whirl-recovery bit that won spontaneous applause. The boys wear their trig costumes well and are above the average at hoofing. Mildred La Salle followed, singing “Lay Me Down to Sleep in Carolina,” which is not her kind of number, and “Baby Face,” which is. An encore was drummed up for her. She didn’t have it coming on merit. Ben Blue, next, entered to a reception and unwound a string of gags, some of which were funny, and then hit like an air gun with hoofing to “Milenberg Joys” and a slow motion number in a flicker-spot. The split-and-lift finish of the slow motion turn was a wow. After all that he did his David and Goliath pantomime story and some more gags and then had to beg off from a flock of customers who wanted more. “For My Sweetheart,” by the band, in front of which most everybody in the cast did a romp, was the finale. The whirling mirror-balls above the platform stage added to the flash. Chicago Oriental Week Ending November 7 After sticking with the Paul Ash outfit the innumerable weeks preceding the inevitable “utterly clean show” reported a couple of weeks back, your reporter helped himself to what seemed a fairly well earned vacation as regards attendance at this houses— but it seems he shouldn’t have done so. In the interim Messrs. Ash and McDermott, the latter being Ash’s production expert, seem to have suffered the hunch that presentation could be perked up a bit by inserting the type of entertainment known to the Earl Carrolls as the “blackout.” There is one in the show reported and Mr. Ash remarked that there had been one in the bill preceding it. Since the stuff is by nature dirty and the picture house audience is by nature clean as concerns its demands Mae Tinee's harsh words about the Oriental audience notwithstanding these two are at least enough. The show, which was called the “Black Bottom Revue,” ran like this : Opening: Orchestra in pit playing incidental stop-time for Ash as judge on bench and uni formed bailiffs of the court to conduct contest between Felicia Sorel leading Black Bottom ballet of six and an unnamed dancer leading six others in a dance called Heebie Jeebies. Audience applause, is finally elicited by way of deciding winner and Ash calls it a draw, doffing judicial wig as drape closes in and announcing “another of our three-minute blackouts which you liked so well last week.” This gave the band time to get from pit to stage and was called — “Married Life.” Husband and bachelor in front of drape discuss matrimony pro and con, husband admitting he doesn’t know color of wife’s eyes and going home to find out. Drape parts to reveal wife seated alongside screen. Husband enters, looks at wife’s eyes and says, “Aha! Brown!” Brown, in the person of A1 Kvale, pops up from behind screen with “L thought you saw me” for the blackout. Some of the folks laughed, as some ot them always do at this house. “The Stampede” by the band. Bert Tucker, still working Sophie Tucker’s name to the limit, opening with a special song about his parentage and then doing a tap Black Bottom for good returns. Next an imitation of his mother singing “Say It Again” in English and Yiddish, followed by an impression of the same gifted lady singing “Turkish Towel.” Then he did the tap Charleston that went big on his first visit to this house and it did that again. Tucker’s a good little hoofer and the over-emphasis on the parental angle, a big help at first, isn’t helping him now ; it’s about time he started out on his own. “Mary Lou” by the band with various members doing solo bits and a song plugger kicking in a chorus. Comedy Team, unnamed, the boys doing burlesque bride and bridegroom with a character song to open and the bride singing “When We Were Seventeen” in a falsetto that carried above the band. Not a great act and not a strictly presentation number, but it got a good hand. Milton Watson singing a marine classic in a production set up and back before coming down to sing Ash’s “Thinkin’ of You.” (Ash romped into the first row to pick up a copy of the song from one of the gals and hold it up so all could see the 35-cent price mark.) They still like Watson. Michel, boy xylophonist, in two sessions with too many mallets for one boy and not enough for two. “Birth of the Black Bottom,” announced at considerable length as tracing the evolution of the exercises Ann Pennington has made more or less popular, produced in four episodes with the flying stages working hard and everybody on for one of those radiumesque finales. A flashy finish for quite a hand. Henri A. Keates had prologued the presentation with his usual singing bee, using “Red, Red Robin,” “Eli Ho the Merrio,” “For My Sweetheart” and “B’aby Face” in the face of an evident lack of singable song hits. The gang didn’t sing so heartily as usual and maybe this thing’s wearing thin. Chicago Central Park Week Ending November 7 (First Half ) Harry Gourfain built his first half Central Park show around what one ordinarily would say is the poorest kind of presentation material, a drunk act, and made it stand up. Sammy Kahn delivered it in nice style. “Jazz a la Kahn” was the title of the performance, which was run off as follows: “Precious,” by the band, was the opening number, started before the drapes parted to disclose a cabaret setup, with tables at sides of main stage and on the platform stage above the band. Kahn sang a chorus of the song and the whole number was given a good hand. Orville Rennie, tenor, came down from the platform stage and sang “Pretty Cinderella,” of which the house demanded an encore chorus. Following this the band did “Meadowlark,” well arranged. Kahn sang this, the bandmen turning in the whistling sections. Kahn’s small jazz combination gets a great deal of music out of Arranger Milan’s stuff, and straight band numbers usually go over well in this house. Freda Leonard, blonde blues singer, was next up, with “Where’d You Get Those Eyes” and “Something to Write the Folks About.” This turn caused no excitement. “Bed” Carter, who had been the originator of a number of laughs up to this time came tumbling down from the platform stage to do his specialty, a song about his intoxication and a flock of staggers and falls that are deliberately and thoroughly taken. Carter portrays the clamorous, irrepressible inebriate who laughs and is laughed at and finally — and somehow — makes his way home. “Jellybean” Johnson, fast footed colored hoofer who sings his rests, created a small panic with his turn, and did two swift encores. Taylor and Hawkes were the last extra-band act, singing “Peoria” and giving it new values, and “Barcelona,” a tune which never yet has had a proper break. The boys did some new things with it, but it is deserving of even more. The band played it hard and hot to close the show. Chicago Capitol Week Ending November 7 A1 Short’s leisurely policy of getting a lot of vaudeville acts together and letting them do everything they want to do between show-saving orchestral numbers went on the rocks last week when a presentation called “In Araby” and advertised in the newspapers as the director's best show to date struck approximate bottom as to audience reaction and somewhere below that as to talent involved. Maybe the newspaper line was intended to jam it across notwithstanding, but if that was the idea it didn't work, at least on the second-show occasion Friday night. Your reporter got in late, missing the opening number, but not late enough. It is necessary, therefore, to set down the following bad news about a band unit which is this reporter's favorite one. The show ran : Opening: “Just a piece by the band,” said the usher who told us what had preceded — Six Tumblers, names unknown as they were working when we went in, who have a better than average circus act but no very substantial reason for picture house bookings. They got the best hand of the current show, however. “Who Could Be More Wonderful Than You” by the band under Short’s direction, played as a straight number without any considerable amount of dolling up and without substantial returns. The boys seemed weary and, in view of what was to follow, no wonder. Doree Leslie, held over at this house, singing “Happy Go Lucky Days” up and back with Damon Thomas, Short’s drummer, kidding along. Miss Leslie has been encountered by this reporter in three presentations and seems to unlearn rather than to learn what picture house entertainment is all about, but Thomas is popular with the folks at the Capitol, popular enough for his questionable gestures with respect to the lady’s nether extremeties to get by for laughs — this time. Short gave them an encore but didn’t need to. Johnnie Quinn, out of the band, then sang “Sunday” and got an honest encore. Quinn’s good looking and has enough voice for a bandman. The Roberts Trio were next and A1 Barr didn’t tell half the story in his report of their work at the Central Park in last week’s issue. These children are not an act. Pity is the emotion their exertions stimulate and, while this gets them scattered applause from kindly patrons, it’s a shame (to use the words of the lady customer in the row behind) to let them go on. “High Fever” by the band was next and it didn’t run very high. Louis Herman, Cantor Rosenblatt’s protege and always announced as such, followed with “Wish I Had My Old Girl Back” and “Little White House.” This boy’s been around the city’s presentation houses and has changed his