Inside facts of stage and screen (April 12, 1930)

SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1930 INSIDE FACTS OF STAGE AND SCREEN PAGE THREE INDES SEE NEW CHANCE SOON LEGIT HOUSES GENERALLY OFF; ‘HERO’ MAKES HOUSE RECORD Legit earnings, although off in+! a few cases, did not sag any more than expected for 'this particular off-season, and last week was marked by at least one new high record for the year, established by the opening week of “The Hero,” Civic Repertory production at the Hollywood Music Box. The take on this was $6500, against a previous high of $4200 and an average of $3600. “The Hero,” originally scheduled for two weeks, is to be continued a third stanza. The first week of “The Desert Song” at the Majestic took $15,000, and the second week promises a little better than that. The previ- ous Albertson-MacLoon produc- tion, “New Moon,” average around $17,000. “Desert Song” closes Sat- urday and the same company opens in “New Moon” in San Francisco on Easter Sunday. “Stu- dent Prince” is now in preparation at this house. Andy Wright’s production of “Philadelphia” at the Vine Street Theatre grossed $5200 for the opening week, which is about the house average. Scheduled for a three weeks’ engagement, the pro- ducer is trying to get the run ex •tended for a fourth. He is pre paring “Souvenir Sadie” to follow. Fred Waring’s “Rah Rah Daze at the Mason is said to have been polished up to a high finish and is drawing about equal to the first week’s take of $8000. The Bilt- more is running a travel picture. The Duffy houses are running along at a steady gait. First week of "Broken Dishes” at the El Capitan, with Percy Pollock, brought in a gross of $5400, a con- sistent showing. May Robson at the Playhouse in “Helena’s Boys” brought in $4100 for its third week and closes Saturday night to make way for Dale Winter in “Holiday.” The President declined somewhat on its fourth week of Uncle Dudley” with a gross of $4700. Easter Sunday sees the opening there of “Blue Ghost.” The Egan, now dark, is set for new production to open about April 21, and the Figueroa and Actor’s are dark. The Mayan opened April 10 with Tiffany’s talkie of “Journey’s End.” EKED FOB PBOFITS I'll FEMES OPEN FIFO LENT SEASON DROPS GROSSES FOR NEW LOW PICTURE B. O.’S Plans for an international music festival and contest, similar to the famous Beyreuth event and other such fetes, are being laid in con- nection with forthcoming Olympic games in Los Angeles in 1932. According to present plans, the festival would be held at the Hollywood Bowl and would be for one month’s duration. Max Rein- hardt, noted impresario, is under- stood to be interested in the proj- ect, which, on a less stupendous scale, has been a matter of con- sideration in Hollywood for several years. Tremendous exploitation possi- bilities of the Hollywood Bowl, linked with radio and pictures, are seen for the proposed event by those now formulating plans. Un- der one arrangement, it is under- stood, the festival would be linked with a plan to form an art and music center around the Holly- wood Bowl. Support of Hollywood and Los Angeles business people and civic organizations would be assured such a project, it is believed. The music festival idea is but one of a number now popping up in the formative stages, by those who see in the forthcoming Olympic games here, one of the biggest all-around amusement events in world history. Already the eyes of the sharp- shooter, as well as the art-minded, are upon the coming event, and along with legitimate activities, a number of more or less shady propositions are expected to crop up. ADDED TO BABEL CAST M-G-M has added Margaret Mann to the cast of “Monsieur Le Fox,” which Hal Roach is direct- ing in five language versions. Miss Mann is to appear in all versions, as will Barbara Leonard, who plays the heroine. Gilbert Roland will be in the English and Span- ish, John Reinhardt in the Ger- man and Andre Luguet in the French. The fifth will be in Ital- ian. The situation in Southern Cali- fornia is the healthiest of any sec- tion of the United States, and by a wide margin, according to a prominent member of the Film Board of Trade, visiting in Los Angeles this week. He was referring to the ex- hibitor situation in general, and the independent in particular. ‘There are only one-fifth the number of closings and arbitration cases in this territory as compared with any other state,” he con- tinued. “Bankruptcies are un- known. To the uninformed, as you know, that last statement seems preposterous, but the answer is simple. “The exhibitor has to do his picture buying on a cash basis. There is no question of credit in- volved. He pays or he can’t play, and that is a universal rule. If he hasn’t the money to place on the line for the film he has no show, and so the house goes dark. “There are some failures for that reason, of course, but no bankruptcies, so when an ex- hibitor who has been forced to close gets enough money together to open up again he finds no credit troubles in his way. He pays his money and he takes his film, and if he has a decently. comfortable house he can hardly help but come out on the right side. In South- ern California the odds are all in his favor, according to the per- centages. “Another reason for the clean bill of health for this region is that the Film Board has one of its best representatives here in the person of Miss Lola Gentry. Her diplomacy and energy has settled many a doubt before it be- came a dispute. We wish we could coax her to come back East, but we don’t dare even try.” new iIvernTplay WILL BE TRIED OUT Leon Errol was placed under long-term contract to Paramount this week. With the major studios gen- erally coming out for pictures to be made in the so-called “high- brow” classification, independents around Hollywood are showing an increased activity toward .prepara- tions for productions. They size up the situation to mean that the major companies think the only way to get their money back out of talkies, with increased costs of shooting _ and with more expensive casts, is to .put out class pictures for hot com- petition in the first-run houses. And that, so the saying is mak- ing the rounds, is where the indes are going to get their wedge for re-entering the production game. The big names and “high-brow domestic and moral dramas don’t mean much around the former inde exhib spots, they declare, and somebody has got to begin manu facturing the rough- and - ready thrillers and jaw-clipping westerns of the old silent days. Universal, which used to be a .prolific plant for turning out the thrillers, has just announced a pro- gram of class product. Pathe re cently did the same. The old FBO, which was dedicated almost entirely to the mellers, became the Radio Pictures plant of the RKO, and is now entirely engaged on films suitable for the class first runs. Columbia, which use to be the leading inde outside of the major plants, has also gone in for the more high-brow stuff, nabbing off boxoffice names for its cast and purchasing stories of the same va- riety. So, reason the indes, who’s go- ing to supply the cliff-jumping, hard-riding, all he-men product of the old days, where action is the thing and story secondary. There are plenty of houses that want this type of stuff, and more and more of these houses are becoming wired. So market reports are being studied carefully, several indes al- ready have started and a flock of them are preparing to go as soon as the wiring progresses to a point where the old time thriller stands are ready in sufficient quan- tity for talking pictures of the same ilk. While some of the studios are going in for westerns, such as Paramount with its “The Vir- ginian,” M-G-M with “Montana Moon” and Warner Brothers with its “Under ' Western Skies,” this is not the type of picture which the 10 and 15-cent grind houses want—and that’s the trade the indes are going to go after soon. PLUGGERS TRIMMED Lucille La Verne’s original ve- hicle, “Red Mother,” is to have its first tryout at the Pasadena Community Playhouse about April 20, following “They Had To See Paris.” “Red Mother” is authored by Rinault Romero, and is the story of an Indian mother in the Okla- homa oil fields, “fighting against the white man and his oily con spiracies.” After its production at Pasadena under the direction of Gilmore Brown, it is the intention to take it to San Francisco and then return to a downtown theatre in Los Angeles, but its ultimate destination is New York, where its production in September is said to have been already arranged for. No casting for supporting roles has yet been done, although it is expected that some of the Pasa- dena players will be used for the initial presentation. An offer for film rights is re- puted to have already been made by M-G-M and another major film company. DANCE TEAM RETURNS The Lenten season strength-+ ened its grip on picture house box- offices last week, establishing a w low level for this year at Loew’s State and United Artists, and keeping several other houses below season’s average. Fifth week of “Happy Days” at Carthay Circle, featuring the Gran- deur screen, fell to a gross of $8761. The season’s average for this house is around $13,000. This PUZZLE FOR EXHIBS One of the new problems heaped upon the backs of exhibitors by the talking pictures is the com plete abandonment by the pro- ducers of the standard length film which was the rule in the days of the silents. The producer now strives for the best effects when cutting and editing film, without particular re- gard for the exact footage. The result is bastard length pictures, which leaves the exhibitor without a standard to measure his time schedule by and give him a hard time putting a complete program together to work out for the right number of shows per day. In the old days an exhibitor ran ■ “Hold seven-reel films. He is now get- ting six reelers, six-and-a-half reelers, seven or seven-and-a-half reelers, and sometimes he has to dash out on a hunt for a patch-out film to round out his bill to proper length or else send back a short without playing it. However, it is just one of those things. The producer does not contemplate doing anything about it, at least at present, and the exhibitors so far have done noth- ing formal in the way of com- plaint, accepting the situation as one of the upsets thrust upon them by the advent of the talkies. SANTELL DIVORCE UP Thieves centered their activities on Tin Pan Alley last week and went through every music pub- lisher’s office in the Majestic Building. The total take amounted to $47, which is a high financial record for the local industry. THREE NEW HOUSES The Orange Belt Theatre Chain is preparing to open three more houses, including the State at San Bernardino, the New Ritz at El Centro, the Rector’s Ritz at Pomona. President Rector reports business as excellent. ACTOR TURNS BARBER Franklyn and Warner, sensa- tional acrobatic dancers, who were trained by Earle Wallace, have just returned to Los Angeles from a tour of the entire Fanchon and Marco circuit. They were featured dancers in Fanchon and Marco’s “Screenland Melodies” idea and in- terpreted “The Pagan Love Song” in an original Earle Wallace dance routine. Louis Durling, old-timer of the New York stage, is meeting many other old-timers and a lot of new- timers at a $10,000 barber shop and beauty salon he operates on Beverly Boulevard near Vermont. EINFELD IS HERE S. C. Einfeld, First National’s New York advertising and pub licity director, is in Hollywood looking over the year’s product and planning his budget. GERMAN ACTRESS DUE Marlene Dietrich, Berlin screen and stage star, is coming to the United States in a week under con- tract to Paramount. She will ap- pear in a picture under Josef von Sternberg’s direction, which will start soon after she arrives in Hol- lywood. A1 Santell, picture director, and wife are embroiled in divorce troubles in the local court. She charges him with kissing other women and he charges her with trying to shoot him. Case con tinues. TOUR FOR MATERIAL picture is scheduled to close April 20 and the ads say “You’ll never see it again.” Twelfth week of “Rogue Song” at the Chinese took a further slump, drooping to $11,796 for six' days, a little matter of ten grand below the weekly average estab- lished for this season. This bill is due to close April 14. First week of Universal’s re- issue of “Phantom of the Opera” at the Criterion bettered average a little bit by taking $13,027. The mean level of this house is around $12,500. This film was yanked April 9 to make way for a second run on Joan Crawford’s “Mon- tana Moon.” Loew’s State furnished the sur- prise by nosediving to $18,761 with “She Steps Out” on the screen and Singer’s Midgets on the stage. The previous low for the year at this house was $20,048 on “Hollywood Revue,” a down- town showing following a run at the Chinese. House average for the season runs about $32,000. The Boulevard strengthened with a showing of $8244 with “Ship From Shanghai” and F. & M. Varieties .This is five hundred better than this year’s average. The Egyptian showed a little stimulation also, grossing $13,633 against the house average of $11,- 701, with the F. & M. “Coral Idea” in support. The Warner houses showed health, the Hollywood taking $28,500 with the second week of Everything,” eight grand over average, and the Downtown just holding average with the sec- ond week of “Texas Moon” at $22,900. Buddy Rogers in “Young Eagles” at the Pai^mount sagged a little with a gross of $25,000, slightly better than “Honey” last week but still substantially below the average of $28,788. Second week of “Hell Harbor” headed for that same harbor with the low bid of $10,000. This is two grand under the previous low set by the third week of “Taming the Shrew.” Average so far this year is $18,000. William Boyd’s “Officer O’Brien” and vaude bill headed by the Four Diamonds attracted $14,500 to the RKO, which clears the low figure by some $800, and at the Or- pheum, Columbia’s “Ladies of Leisure” drew $14,500, which is very little below average and satis- factory for the off-season. Len Levinson and Ed Albertson are touring South America acquir ing material for operettas in both Spanish and English. They expect to be away six months. STEPIN STEPS picture colored Stepin Fetchit, colored actor, was assaulted by a auto washer last Monday and had to be rescued by the police from the refuge of a chicken coop. The assailant was arrested. Barclays Hit In Long Tour Of Australia Florence and George Barclay, featured on our front page this week, have just returned from Aus- tralia after a highly successful eighteen months’ tour, which in eluded full play dates throughout that country and a period of 42 week at the State Theatre, Sid- ney, regarded as the premiere show house of the British Empire. During this engagement they pro- duced all ballet numbers for the elaborate stage productions and were credited by the management with having “proved beyond dis- pute they were the only persons in Australia who could make the State Beauty Ballet, the ballet par excellence.” They have eight years in the show business to their credit and an experience of five years as dancing teachers, and have a flair for originality that should make them a valuable acquisition to.any picture or stage producer desiring this class of talent. PRINCE' READYING TO OPEN APRIL 24 “The Student Prince” is set for opening at the Majestic Theatre April 24 under the Lillian Albert- son banner. Allan Prior, of the New York and London produc- tions of this Sigmund Romberg operetta, is cast as the prince, and supporting him are Elvira Tanzi, Richard Powell, Blanche Le Claire, Sylvia De Frankie, Hadley Hall, Thomas Ahearn, Gordon De Main, Russell Scott. Mary Frances Tay- lor, Neill McKinnon and Ed Marr. Julian Fowlkes, stage manager of the original New York produc- tion, is assisting Miss Albertson, and Leo Flanders is orchestra leader. The “New Moon” company is to have a week’s lay-off after the close of the “Desert Song” this week, and will open at the Curran, San Francisco, on Easter Sunday. NEW BILTMORE PLAY Brock Pemberton’s comedy “Strictly Dishonorable” is booked for the Biltmore Theatre begin- ning May 4. The cast is being put together in New York and will be shipped west as a unit. The current New York production has been running since September 18 to capacity business and is still going strong. MART PLAY SET The play, “Woodrow Wilson,” scheduled for the Theatre Mart, has been delayed, but is expected to go into production about the 18th of the month.