Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1946)

2 MOTION PICTURE DAILY Thursday, February 28, 1946 > Personal Mention HARRY A. KALMINE, general manager of Warner Theatres, left New York last night for Chicago. • Nat Levy, RKO Radio Eastern Division sales manager, has left New York for Cleveland where he will be joined by his assistant, Frank Drumm, who will leave New York tomorrow. • Mrs. L. Bach, of the Bach Theatres, Atlanta, and Jack Dumestre and Mrs. Dumestre of the Southeastern Theatre Supply Co., Atlanta, are visiting New Orleans for the Mardi Gras. • Harry Goldberg, director of advertising and publicity for Warner Theatres, is to be in Philadelphia today from New York. • David Rose, managing director of Paramount in Great Britain, will arrive here from the Coast tomorrow en route back to London. • T. F. Dolid, Warners supervisor of exchanges, is visiting Atlanta from New York, and will fly to Chicago from Atlanta. • William Erbb, Eastern division sales manager for Paramount, is visiting the Buffalo and Albany exchanges from New York. • J. Joshua Goldberg, Raybond Theatres executive, has returned to New York following a three-week vacation in Florida. • Matthew Fox, president of United World Pictures, is expected back in New York from the Coast over the weekend. • Harry H. Thomas, PRC president, will return to New York from Washington today. • Charles C. Deardourff, M-G-M Cleveland exploiteer who has been ill since Christmas, has returned to work. • Freddie Levine, manager of the Ponce de Leon Theatre, Atlanta, has returned from a vacation trip. • Robert J. O'Donnell, general manager of Interstate Theatres, Dallas, is a New York visitor. • Danny Kaye will leave New York for Hollywood on Saturday to report at the Goldwyn Studio. • Rudolph Weiss, head of Warner Theatres real estate department here, is in Boston today. Hal Perreira of Paramount left New York for the Coast yesterday. • S. S. Krellberg has left New York for the Coast. David Loew will leave New York for the Coast tomorrow. Insider's Outlook By RED KANN HpHE advance word was *■ around that Danny Kaye would really give out at his last performance Tuesday night at the Paramount. He did, if you will rely on this eye witness account. It was a remarkable demonstration of holding power and audience allegiance to a great comedian, apparently never at a loss to convert unexpected and unpredictable circumstance into uproarious fun. During his three weeks at the big Times Square house, Kaye has played pleasant havoc with schedules.. He did somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes at any given show, as a minimum, but varied it according to condition and applause. The peak — that is, until closing night — was 71 minutes. That evening, however, he was on the stage for 91 minutes by the stop watch employed for this and attendant purposes by the Paramount management. ■ At 71 minutes, Kaye had established the perpetual motion record at the theatre since its inception in the late 20's, barring benefit shows. No other performer at any time had held the stage for such a marathon. At 91 minutes, Kaye broke his own earlier record and, of course, established a new one thereby. Bob Weitman, whose gratifying headache the comedian has been, has been moving routines around to fit the state of affairs. The Paramount usually puts on its last stage show around ten o'clock each evening, follows with the feature — "Masquerade in Mexico" and then "Miss Susie Slagle's" while Kaye was providing the chief live action — and then repeats the feature. There have been a number of occasions when the repeat run has been dropped if the theatre were to be cleared out and cleaned up for an 8:30 A.M. reopening the same morning. Hollywood won't like it. ■ Tuesday evening the first approximately ten rows of the orchestra in a jammed house were packed to the brim with ecstatic fans — 'teen-age youngsters who presented Kaye with gifts, including ties, fountain pens, chocolate bars and other things which the comedian never opened. This was a repetition of goings on all through the final week. It proved to be an astonishing, if frequently unexplainable, demonstration of hero worship. For these youngsters to bring their food and sit through show after show at the Paramount, of course, has its precedents. Weitman and his staff are resigned to it and, besides, they probably don't quite know what to do about it anyway. A careful and impartial sifting of the facts, however, appears to demonstrate Kaye established new highs in screeches and yowls of delight. It's been a job to shanghai him out of the theatre every night, too. B From time to time psychiatrists and others interested in the eccentricities of human behavior have delved into the phenomena which long has been on display at the Paramount. With Sinatra, for instance. Some high flown language dealing with presumably scientific conclusions of deep penetrating power has resulted. And for all we know, they may be right. But, irrespective of the alternate amazement and misgivings which stem from these conclusions, it cannot be denied there is an obviously simple one : That these youngsters are pretty vociferous in making known what they want and how much they want it. Kaye has had a rough time of it. How he has stood up under his self-inflicted punishment is for him to diagnose or to wonder over, but he can have no misgivings about the overwhelming success of his personal appearance on Broadway. ■ Now that this is ended, his next appearance in Times Square will be in celluloid, not in the flesh. He will show up in "The Kid from Brooklyn" when "Spellbound" leaves the Astor theatre. Therefore, the Paramount won't even be able to hold the fans who turned out in such hordes for Kaye. Final footnote to these footnotes : Benny Goodman opened at the Weitman Emporium yesterday morning. The chanteuse is Liza Morrow. She is known to many as Ruth Morrow, long in the publicity department at Universal. ■ ■ The growth of exhibitor booking combines may or may not have distributors worried. Salesmen at large reportedly are. They are worried about the effect of concentrated buying power on their work and their jobs. This may explain why they are talking about organizing. Coming Events Feb. 28 — Loew's annual stockholdj ers meeting, New York. Feb. 28 — Allied of Illinois annual meeting, Congress Hotel, Chicago.,! Feb. 28-March 2— Warner sales! meeting, Blackstone Hotel, Chi1 cago. | March 4 — Quigley Publica^ y showmanship awards lunchi M, 1 Hotel Astor, New York. March 7 — Academy Awards, Grau man's Chinese Theatre, Holly wood. March 13 — Universal stockholders' meeting, Wilmington. March 20-26 — Red Cross drive in, theatres. March 25 — Motion Picture Association of America board meeting,,. New York. April 21-28 — Cancer Week in theatres. Trotta Heads AMPA\ Nominating Group At a luncheon-meeting of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers, • held here yesterday, Vincent Trotta of National Screen Service was elected! chairman of a nominating committee which will select candidates for office I who will be voted upon by the mem : bership in April, for 1946-47. Other ; committee members are: Rutgers Nielson, Leon Bamberger, Blanche Livingston, Herman Schleier, Chester Friedman and Robert Wile. Harry Blair and Evelyn Koleman were named alternates. David A. Bader, president, conducted the proceedings. Gertrude Merriam Is Honored by AMPA Gertrude Merriam of Motion Picture Herald was elected a life member of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers at its luncheon-meeting here yesterday. Miss Merriam is resigning as associate editor of the Herald's "Managers' Round Table," effective Friday, to enter private life. Miss Merriam was associated with the old Pathe here for a number of years before joining Motion Picture News in 1929. When the Nezvs was absorbed by the Herald in 1930, she went over to that organization, assuming her present post in 1938. She is one of the founders of the American Women's Association. Bader Leaves 20th For 16mm. Field David A. Bader, trade paper contact for the company, has resigned, effective March 1, to enter the 16mm. industry, Charles Schlaifer, head of 20th Century-Fox's publicity-advertising-exploitation departments, announces. Bader, who has been with 20th-Fox for three years, is a veteran of the industry. At one time he was executive assistant to the late Carl Laemmle, and before joining 20th-Fox he headed an international agency with headquarters in London. Bader is president of AMPA. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Martin Quigley, Jr., Associate Editor. Published daily except Saturday, Sunday and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, President; Red Kami, Vice-President; Martin Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan, Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; David Harris, Circulation Director; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, Sam Honigberg, Representative; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Bldg., William R. Weaver, Editor; London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London Wl, Hope Burnup, Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address, "Quigpubco, London." Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, International Motion Picture Almanac, Fame. Entered as second class matter, Sept. 23, 1938, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; Single copies, 10c.