Exhibitors Herald (1927)

April 23, 1927 EXHIBITORS HERALD 43 One Short Story About Indecency Theatre Men Weigh Organ Solo Values Community Singing Breaking Down Prestige — Real Organists Oppose Practice Theatreowners with small fortunes invested in organs, and substantial weekly payroll items representing expert services required in that connection, are taking a keen if belated interest in the box office results thereof, according to increased inquiries with reference to the future of the organ solo as a program item. Although direct reply has been made to letters received, so pronounced is the interest displayed that the following carbon copy of an answer made to one of them is published as of general interest; Dear Mr. : While we feel sure that abandonment of organ solos by the Chicago circuit you mention was not a result of anti-box office reaction, it is true that there is increasing concern among exhibitors hereabouts as to the future importance of featured organ numbers. According to our Information, obtained chiefly from exhibitors featuring organists and from executives of the various organ manufacturing concerns, the present fad for socalled community singing is the direct _ source of existing doubts. It is regarded as inevitable that the fad will go the way of others if not artifically prolonged and the current disposition of leading exhibitors is against its continuance beyond the period of usefulness. While it has been whispered that certain employers of name organists have encouraged them in the use of community singing numbers for the purpose of “letting them hang themselves” and then enforcing salary reductions or replacing them with cheaper talent, a whisper apparently but not actually substantiated by recent incidents, careful investigation has failed to authenticate this rumor and it is pointed out that such a couree would prove an eventual boomerang to the exhibitor following it, since the inevitable result would be permanent loss of prestige for both instrument and house. During recent weeks a sharp tendency toward discontinuance of the community singing, sometimes extending even to resumption of the classical solo number discarded long since, has been noted. Summed up, the situation seems to be much as it has always been with the exception of added emphasis upon the organ element of the DeLuxe program due to sensational increase in the number of fairly competent organists available — many of whom make ridiculous bids for employment — and to preoccupation on the part of exhibitors resulting from trade developments outside the theatre itself. The careful theatreowner is still featuring hts organ solos, still keeping them up to standard, and still making them pay at the box office. The careless theatreowner is not. ITiat is as it always was and, no doubt, always will be ; but it is hardly a thing to worry about. The better organists it may be interesting to note, continue to disfavor the singfest and to use it only when exhibitor employers (for reasons with which no doubt you are familiar) make it mandatory. Cops the Bacon Nothing in names— nope, notta thing, but when Mark Fisher dropped into the office and ripped off a row o' rippling rhythms on the Bacon banjo he uses to bring home the bacon for Lubliner & Trinz theatres on Chicago's West Side, Joe Fisher HERALD office boy and no relation (he's down* right sorry) to the Chesterfield of bandshow leaders ^^went into a Black Bottom he never learned over the radio and the ^'Presentation Acts" personnel marked time while the staff photographer shimmied his lens to get the delightful soft>focus effect noted. Mayor Gives a Lift On Friday evening, April 15, at 11:30 p. m., the N. V. A. Club of Chicago held their weekly Clown Night frolic at the Sherman Hotel in the Grand Ballroom. Over l,p00 people were present. Including artists and their friends. Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago was present as guest of honor and offered a commendable tribute to the artists and theatrical profession for their ever-ready spirit of help and charity response. Frank Fay, the Broadway comedian, was appointed master of ceremonies and was assisted by A1 Herman and Joe Whitehead in presenting the well selected program of entertainers. Among the notables present were Paul Ash, Henry B. Murtagh, Milton Weil, Baby Peggy, Dave Apollon, Jack Ostermann, Dr. H. J. Schireson, Peaches Browning, Del Delbridge. Jack Pearl and several stage and screen names as well as city officials. One of the evening’s important moves was the auctioning of ten box seats to the N. V. A. Benefit show to be held on May first. Mayor Thompson bought the first box for two hundred dollars. Try Baseball If it hasn’t occurred to you to do a baseball presentation — especially if you run a bandshow • — abetter get on it while it’s hot. And Perhaps Not Even One Is Required So Let’s Just Ponder the Matter and Get the Box Office Slant Clear A momentary, impulsive, thoug^htless and variously extenuated dip into indecency by a presentation outfit customarily so sane and successful as to have won acceptance in certain quarters as a model prompts unwilling but just possibly worthwhile discussion of the elements involved. The indecency referred to, trifling in itself but an incident occurring in a sequence of incidents headed the wrong way and therefore a bit threatening, need not be described. Indeed, the remainder of this short story about indecency need not be set in type of even this pointage. To go back a bit — motion pictures attracted the largest amusement following in history because they affoided an ideal family entertainment and won the support of the family element. ’This made possible the building of the large theatres which, by reason of various well known circumstances, brought about use of the thing known as presentation. Motion pictures have done very well without indecency, better than any other form of entertainment has done with or without it. No subject matter unfit for family contemplation has gone into pictures save in isolated instances distinguished rather by the celerity of correction than by the fact of error. It is ancient history in the picture business that decency pays bigger dividends than anything opposed thereto in whatever degree. All this is elementary. Newcomers in the field, brought in from vaudeville, revue, night club, what have you, are not familiar with the history of picture house policy and — perhaps — cannot be expected to know at once the things that are old stuff to the veterans. 'The low admission scale, responsible for the high grosses, is misinterpreted by the newcomer to indicate a low mental state beyond the footlights. The actor confuses these and other items and emerges with the idea that folks out front are about the type of folks found in a small time vaudeville or burlesque audience. If the actor has been doing dirt for the $5.50 clientele of the Broadway theatre, the snozzled night lifer or the broad minded addict of burlesque, it looks like duck soup for him to slip these simple folks the crimson gag, the dirty lyric or the high-toned insinuation and get a response. It is an easy mistake, then, for him to construe the audible reaction (which emanates, in reality, from shock) as approbative laughter. Having elicited which, it is his way to assume that more of the same will elicit more of the same. All this has been gone over repeatedly by those who had in charge the early destinies of presenta{Continiied on page 44)