Motion Picture Herald (Sep-Oct 1935)

October 12, 1935 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 37 ASIDES & INTEI^LLDES By JAMES CUNNINGHAM FLOYD ODLUM'S financial holdings in the motion picture corporate structurein Paramount, Fox, and perhaps eventually RKO — make him eligible for mention in the motion picture press. So, we pass along Whitney Bolton's story about the Odiums and the near-collapse of the century-old dignity of New York's extremely dignified Union League Club. Seems that Mr. Odium, who buys up ailing corporations and gives them a dollarsign shot in the arm, recently bought a withering women's wear store — one of the big ones — and appointed Mrs. Odium president of the new acquisition. In due time she received notice of a stockholders' meeting for two in the afternoon at the Union League Club. She got there at 1:58 and a stern guardian at the door refused admittance to her. "But there is a stockholders' meeting here of a firm of which I am president!" she protested. "I cannot help that, madam," he said. "No woman ever enters here. No woman ever has." She got fairly firm and the custodian finally went in to see the boys about it. They'd forgotten about the woman president when they arranged the meeting. They hastily got together and talked it over. The decision was that the no-women-allowed traditions of the Union League Club were more sacred than the stockholders of the dress firm. So the meeting was adjourned to the orchid-decorated tea room of Sherry's. V Newsreel photographers now in Abyssinia for the American producers are learning much about some of the unique customs oj the Ethiopians the while they observe Benito Mussolini conducting his African war. In parts of Ethiopia, they have observed, a native cannot marry until he has killed at least one man. In other places a woman who marries is allozved to associate with five lovers. As for shoeless soldiers and natives, they have found this simple explanation : The callouses of the soles of their feet are thicker and tougher than the heaviest walking shoes worn by white men today. And, in the desert, the only landmarks are the thinly covered graves of travelers the natives have killed. And to Broadway's "Beau Broadzvay" we are indebted for the text of the bluntest orders issued to American newsreel cameramen concerning their Ethiopian coverage, as forwarded to Fox Movietone's crew by Laurence Stallings in this tone: "We have got to point our little boxes at shell holes in the act of creation, at bullets on their vuay to zvork, AND NOT REMAIN BEHIND PLAYING POKER WITH THE GENERAL STAFF!" V The stories of the expressions of wrath of the great John Barrymore during and subsequent to his recent escapades de protege in New York are many, but best of all is the incident where a woman clerk in a bookshop, not noticing his identity, asked him for his name. "Your name please," she queried when Tohn told her to send the package to his hiding place. "Will you spell it?" she continued after he had replied "Barrymore." He spelled it. "Now, your first name, please," the damsel went on. "ETHEL!" roared the "Great Lover" as he stamped out of the place. "The Night of January 16," Broadway stage play, has 12 of the audience for a jury, and tzvo endings, depending on whether the vote is "guilty" or "not guilty." Most of the verdicts, incidentally, are "not guilty." "Not guilty" it was the other night when the jurors' vote was counted backstage. They filed back into the jury box, so Johnny Chapman tells us, and the judge ordered the verdict. The foreman, a mild little guy with spectacles and a "dead pan" countenance, rose. "Guilty !" he shouted. There was a buzz in the jury box, but the play went on to its prescribed ending for such a verdict. Afterward, the eleven other customers asked their foreman what zvas the idea of reporting their verdict as "Guilty," when they had voted "Not Guilty." "Oh, nothing," declared the timid foreman. "I thought she was guilty but I knew I couldn't do anything zt'ith the rest of you." V The latest newsreel "scoop" is the "Fox Movietone News" cocktail on the cocktail list of "Sloppy Joe's" bar at Havana. It is made of the juice of half a lime, one-third Scotch whiskey, one-third Italian vermouth, one-third Cointreau and drops of Curacao. Shake well with cracked ice, serve in a "Manhattan" cocktail glass and call in the Cuban army. Jose Abeal (Sloppy Joe) went from Spain to Cuba in 1904 and tended bar at Galiano and Zanja Streets, Havana. He bartended there and in New Orleans and Miami for the next 12 years, returning to Havana in 1918 to the "Greasy Spoon." Later, while in business for himself, friends remarked about the sloppiness of his place. Since then he has become internationally known as "Sloppy Joe." V "At our new Minsky's Music Hall in Hollyzt'ood," drolled Herbert Minsky, "Minsky Burlesque" king, "zire do not call the production by such a name as burlesque. Oh, no! We call it a Nudeal Revuesque, which is far more refined." But it's still burlesque, isn't it, Mr. Minsky? V Into our editorial workroom the other day walked one whose profile and frontface so strongly resembled Mr. President Roosevelt that for the moment we thought F.D.R. was acoming askin' for some advice on governmental procedure. He introduced himself as Mr. J. Henry Smythe, of the Pennsylvania Smythes, a Who's Whoian who said he has received overtures to impersonate President Roosevelt in motion pictures. Mr. Smythe is the chan — (he's 52, the President is 54)^ — who led the movement in the Methodist Episconal Church for revision of the half-century-old ban on dancing, theatregoing. card playing, the circus and such. Largely through his efforts the M. E. Church rule was abandoned. The Dancing Masers' Association made him an honorary member. Seems his gal had turned him down because she, not being a MethodistEpiscopalian, became annoyed because his religious affiliation prevented their dancing, theatregoing, card playing. J. Henry Smythe admits that he's the world's best slogan maker: — "Buy and Keep Liberty Bonds!" "Do Your Bit and Keen it Lit!" "Lend to Defend!," et al. He, with stars and stripes and a megaphone, led the cheering in the Republic National Convention, in 1904, that led to the nomination of Teddy Roosevelt as president. V Mark Hellinger says the average Brnadzmyite has his own formula for success. He zvants to start at the top — and work his way up! ONE Kansas exhibitor is walking around on air these days. He is W. J. Burke, of the Strand at Oxford, Kansas, where they brought in the state's largest oil gusher the other week. Mr. Burke's theatre has had a wiggly career, opening and closing on and off these five years, for the town has never been able to support a showhouse consistently. But with three or four gushers gushing, and a well going full blast right on the main street, the folks thereabouts should be able shortly to support his Strand handsomely. Burke may even tear it down and dig for oil himself. They say that Kansans are quite able to conceal their discouragement. Perhaps the case of hopes deferred and final reward for patience and perseverence is best illustrated also by the western Kansas settler who has the euphonious name of Ezra Dingleberry. During the first year of the long drought in 1931-34, Mr. Dingleberry sowed 100 acres to wheat. Not a grain sprouted. The following spring he sowed oats in the same ground. Nor did they sprout. In May he planted corn with the forlorn hope of getting a crop, but the corn didn't come up either. In the fall he sowed rye, again hoping for a fall pasture. It didn't even sprout. Undaunted, the next spring he sowed sorghum cane. He began to get discouraged when that did not grow, but bucked up in the fall and seeded the ground to wheat again. There was no rain, and the wheat did not sprout. But along in the winter a fine rain came and the wheat grew and made 30 bushels to the acre. Then things began to happen quickly. Mr. Dingleberry and his sons had just got the wheat harvested when the sorghum came up. The first of September they harvested that. They had a tremendous crop of rye. Things had been coming along so well they went away for the winter to hunt in Canada. When they returned in the spring, the oats were well up and when harvested, turned out a bumper crop. They had no more gotten the oats harvested when they found the corn coming up, and it turned out to be the best raised in that section. And, last straw of all, the second crop of wheat he had sowed came on. Dingleberry sold out and moved away, sore as an angry pup that "the dern countrv a-needed too much harvesting." V Neatest trick of the year, by Jean (Midsummer Night's Dream) Muir: "I shall talk to Professor Einstein to confirm the opinion that I cannot understand the theory of relativity." V The "milk bottle tops" issued by Missouri's authorities as mills in making change for' consumers payinsr the one per cent sales tax, are carrying some significant slogans written in on their backs. "J. P. Morgan paid no tax — Just us poor suckers" is typical. "The rich get richer — the poor get sales taxes," is another. It used to be "The rich get richer and the poor get children." V "I've zvantcd a farm for years, a small one, remote and practical," whimpered Joan Crawford, as she zmlked into a four-room suite of great dimensions and pretensions, running halfa-block long in the sumptuous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. V William Shakespeare's crashing into motion pictures with his "Midsummer Night's Dream" caused Advertising Age to observe, "You just can't keep a good man down."