Inside facts of stage and screen (March 28, 1931)

RADIO NUMBER EDITED BY JACK JOSEPHS Saturday, March 28 , 1931 Entered as Second Class Matter, April 29, 1927, at Post- office, Bos Angeles, Calif., under Act of March 3, 1879 Published Every Saturday at 6253 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Calif. Levey to TakeOver 2 Houses More Pay to Talent Demanded Launching a $1,000,000 picture corporation and two $25,000 stage corporations, Bernard Levfey, prom- inenit' New York producer, this week V -.i - taking <)>•• - the 1 hilly wood .h'Uyhouse, and the Hollywood Music i Box and preparing' for eiafly pro-i duct ions in both spots. Levey, who arrived here last 1 week, immediately organized a com- 1 pany. which in turn launched the three corporations. One of these, formed for the pur- pose of lriakiiig pictures, is desig- nated as The Levey Talking Pic- ture Corporation, Ltd., with capital- ztsitdon of $l,000,fXX). Stage Companies A second company, capitalized at $25,000 for the purpose of present- ing stage productions, is to be known as the Brovey Productions, Inc., Ltd., the name being derived from the first three letters of one j of Iris associates, Mary K. Brooks, i and the last three letters of Levey’s ] name. fc. r The third corporation, also eapi- ; talized for $25,000, is the Yevel! Productoits, Inc., Ltd.. Yevel being the name Levey spelled backwards. It also is for stage'productions. Levey plans to open the Play- house April 20 with an original comedy drama by Miss Brooks. Title is -“Kinio'ck Wood.” Opens April 27 The Music Box will be opened about April 27 with the New York comedy, “Bedfellows,” by Louise Carter. Executive offices will be opened in the Hollywood Playhouse Build- ing Monday, with subsidiary of- fices at the Music Box. Associated with Levey and Miss Brooks is William P. Cullen, who has been in charge ait the Playhouse. Hie will be Levey’ts general repre- sentative on the coast. Attorney for the organizations is Charles Summers, who arrived in Los An- geles about a year ago from Kan- isas City, where he was on the bench for 12 years. The cheap policy of a majority of radio’s program sponsors came in for hearty condemnation at the hands of one of Southern Califor- nia's most prominent eXTC week. The studio man, who for obvious reasons refused to allow his name to be published, foresaw disaster ahead for air entertainment unless a right-about-face is done on the extreme economy policy practiced by sponsors when time comes for hiring talent. This practice, the exec stated, has its aftermath in that the ad- vertisers fail to get value for their money, paying any price to reach the. public and then failing to hold the public after, it is reached. « Flea Circus "It is as though, a producer were to hire the Los Angeles Coliseum- pay out big money on advertising and then put on a flea circus, to which no one would come,” he stated. “Sponsors of programs, con- vinced of the power of radio to reach the people in their most re- ceptive frame of mind, will gladly pay out $1000 for an hour over a well established chain. And then, in hiring talent, they seem to think the time for budget trimming has come. They take the cheapest (and that usually means the least desir- able) acts obtainable, or else pay the many excellent radio performers so poorly that they haven’t the heart to do their best, and the public, after hearing the opening, tunes out, and what has -the advertiser obtained: about two minutes of lsteners-in for his $3000 plus expended. How To Get Value “The man who more than gets his money’s worth on the air is the mari who hires talent that will deliver his message and pays them good salaries. For the man who doe!s this, presuming he buys time on a good chain or station, there is no more valuable medium of adver- tising in the world today.” The executive also blamed spon- sors for the loss of listeners through too much forced advertis- ing. “Program value is ruined by yanking in advertising by the heels,’.' he declared. “The first blurb is the only one anyone lis- tens to. Let that one be good, and the following entertainment sufti- (Continued on Page 2) CHAS. M'. HANS® Dr* Strasska’s Big Boy FRANKLIN RESIGNS J. J. Franklin, who was with Har- old B. Franklin when the latter was Weslt Caa‘st president, and more re- cently. with him i:i the Hughes- Frankfcn chain, this week resigned from the latter organization. At -the Hughes-Ftanklin offices no state- ment was forthcoming other than that J. J. Franklin “has resigned to go into business for himself.” AVERILL WITH LAUGHLIN BUYS HOUSE TAKE OVER RIMPAU The Columbia Theatre at Santa Paula has been taken over by J. S. Asher and will be renamed the Lyric. Douglas sound equipment is being installed and the opening is scheduled for April 25. As previously reported in In- side Facts, the Rimpau Theatre has been taken over by Hughes-Frank- lin. The name has been changed to Metro Theatre. Bud Averill has been made as- sistant to Jack Laughlin, ' who is producing the stage shows for the Los Angeles and San Francisco Or- pheum Theatres.