Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1938)

February 12, 1938 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 37 ASIDES and INTERLUDES By JAMES P. CUNNINGHAM Musicman Lou Greenspan tells the story about the Hollywood production supervisor who was supervising his first musical picture. The high-priced orchestra was rehearsing a hot number, and the leader was pepping the boys up: "Forte," he shouted. "Forte!" The supervisor felt this was the time for him to exert his "weighty" supervisorial hand in the filming. "Boys," he piped, "this is a big picture. I think it can stand fifty!" V Running neck-and-neck in showmanship efforts to establish new Broadway box office records these past fezv weeks have been the managements of the Music Hall theatre and the Paramount. Music Hall started opening its doors at nine in the morning. Paramount came back with a 7 :30 A. M. opening. The Music Hall has been playing pretty little "Snow White" and the cute little "Seven Dwarfs." Paramount had the buxim Mae West, swooping through "Every Day's a Holiday." V Never having had anything like it before, some of the big-guns at RKO's home office in New York were frankly, but privately, in a speculative frame of mind over the box office success of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," when, at the Music Hall in New York, the picture opened to a mere $11,500 on the first day — "mere" in comparison to the $16,000 daily average which the picture grossed ir\ the following four weeks. So, we wagered two-to-one with one of Radio's executives that this first feature cartoon would be the first feature in the fiveyear history of Mr. Rockefeller's Music Hall to play five weeks! The winnings will be reported on the income tax blanks next month — if they are collected. V Exploitation Department : "Hollywood Hotel'' opened at the Warners Hollywood and Downtown theatres in Hollywood with a race of 30 bellboys, each carrying a glass of water on a tray over a distance of several blocks. Carrier pigeons were used to carry acceptances of notables for the world premiere of Samuel Goldwyn's "Goldwyn Follies" at the State theatre in Miami. The birds were delivered earlier in the week to the guests with instructions to place their acceptances in the metal containers on the pigeons' left legs and then release the messengers, which flew back to the State's roof. V Grover Whalen, carnationed president of New York's World's Fair of 1939, has been named winner in America's first "Mustache Derby'' his upper lip-trimming being adjudged to be the "most upstanding and manly." Jim Cron is talking to his lawyer. V Unionism has taken some unique turns in motion pictures, but none so humorously strange as the picketing of Werba's theatre in Brooklyn. Seems that there were three beads on the scanty garment worn by Annette Margules, playing Tondeleyo in a stock version of "White Cargo." One of the beads popped off and was sewed on by non-union hands. So the pickets came, picketed for two nights, and left only after the non-union bead was plucked and re-sewn by a unionist. THAT distinguished radio and motion picture character, Charlie McCarthy, caused some uncomfortable moments in the editorial room of Vancouver's Daily Province the other day. Edgar Bergen's young blockhead, a close friend of Mae (Adam and Eve) West, was nominated for the legislature, as a gag, of course, by a Saskatchewan political convention. A wheezy editorial writer of the Vancouver paper seized on the opportunity to toss off a bit of breezy humor, and learnedly wrote of the qualifications the dummy would have for public office — he could easily be manipulated, and, like many politicians, he had a wooden head. The editorial duly appeared — as follows : CHARLIE IN POLITICS CHARLIE MCCARTHY was nominated at Saskatoon, the other evening, for a place on the central executive of the Conservative Association. His name was applauded, but he was not elected. The members were not sure of his politics. It is too bad. Charlie, if only given an opportunity, should go far in politics. He has quite a number of characteristics that would help carry him along. He is voluble, and irrepressible, and his skin is, oh, so thick. He is never at a loss for an answer. He is the champion maker of excuses. He can pass the buck to the king's taste. He speaks up with the voice of the boss, and he dances when the boss pulls the strings. And would it be too unkind to add that he has a wooden head? The political writer was called on the carpet by the big boss. "What are you trying to do?" shouted the chief. "Do you want to ruin us? Think of the libel suits, you dimwit." "What libel suits?" queried the puzzled editorialist. 'Why, what do you think Mr. McCarthy is going to do when he sees this editorial? It accuses him of having a wooden head. And, incidentally, who is this McCarthy, anyway?" V Lou Nizer, counsel to distributors, says a motion picture lawyer is one who earns his bread by the sweat of his browbeating, and that every film executive believes motion picture trade paper reporters suffer from an interferiority complex. V Ned Depinet, head of RKO Radio, is quite pleased with the reaction of his home office and field workers to his call for support of the company's sales drive just inaugurated. Besides playdates, and more playdates, RKO workers^ would make Mr. Depinet happy with some hillbilly music. He's crazy about it. V On the other hand, Mr. Depinet's colleague at Paramount, Mr. Neil Agnew, doesn't care at all for hillbilly tunes. He likes playdates, too, though. But next to that gives his undivided attention to the stage. Particularly to the Broadway play, "All That Glitters." And to the beautiful Arlene Francis, who appears therein. She's Mrs. Neil Agnew, The motion picture business feels with Joe Kennedy in his absolute refusal to wear those knee breeches in his ambassadorial post in the Court of St. James. Of course Joe has a mighty shapely calf, but you really can t blame him for not showing it. Imagine the diplomatic embarrassment to President Roosevelt if Mrs. Kennedy were to see the Ambassador in short pants and mistakingly put him to bed with the rest of their nine children. Too, there probably would be the devil to pay if, dressing in a hurry one morning, for a date with the King. Joe inadvertently put on the long stockings of one of the kids and made the youngster late for school. V Phil Scheuer, of the Los Angeles Times, caught some one napping at the RKO Studios the other day. .Seems that, with the studio paring costs, one economy expert on the lot went prowling around the place one night last week, and came upon several illuminated pools on an otherwise darkened set. Tsk-tsking to himself all over the place, "Mr. Fish" promptly turned out the underwater lights. The next day the studio discovered that some $500 worth of tropical fish had died and zvere lying flat on the tops of the pools, due to the change in the temperature of the water when the lights were shut off. V Mervyn LeRoy wanted the sound effects of London's Big Ben clock bonging, for Warners' "Fools for Scandal," and arranged to have a sound crew in London record the bells. The least we Americans can do, in view of the new reciprocal trade agreement coming up, is to return the favor. The English could send a sound crew over here and make a good long and loud reproduction of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia Independence Hall. V Constance Bennett won her suit against GB Pictures for breach of contract, but not without a slap from Supreme Court Justice Charles S. Burnell, in Los Angeles, who, interrupting Connie when she became a little too quick on the trigger with her anszvers, informed her, "You are not here as a movie star. You're here just as the common, ordinary garden-variety ivitness. Jnst sit there and look pretty." V One for the newsreels: Exhibited at Boston University's school of theology was an automobile device that: Flashes a white light on the dashboard when a car is going 15 miles an hour; Flashes green at 25 miles an hour; Flashes red at 40 miles an hour; And plays "Nearer My God to Thee" on a music box at 60 miles an hour. V Will Rogers, Jr., son of the late motion picture comedian, as lanky and rawboned as his dad, and nozv on the high seas to Europe, had his passport amended to permit him to enter Spain, where he is going as a representative of the Beverly Hills California Citizen, weekly nezvspaper, of zvhich Will, Junior, is the owner, star reporter, managing editor, advertising manager, composing room foreman, travclinq representative, foreign correspondent, publisher and janitor. Asked by ship nezvs reporters at the Nezv York pier of the S. S. Aquitania hozv come he zvas able to get permission to visit Spain as the representative of a small paper, he replied: "We have a big printing plant,"