Screen and Radio Weekly (Apr 4, 1937)

Le 1 ee eter O EA AST Sunday afternoon the place : was jammed. The place was a ge room in a music publishing house. There were studio big-wigs, sicians, newspapermen and seven candid cameramen. The room fas filled with smoke. Feet were tapping. This was a jam session. _ All afternoon musicians drifted in to play. There was Benny odman, with his trio; Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Frankie Tarmauer. We tried to take down all the names, but our pencil was going | a down to the music. A jam session is that phenomenon when a group of musicians, m various bands, get together and play for the fun of it. They y without music, making up their stuff as they go along. It is nty hot. f og ees Duke Ellington has brought to the air the closest thing to a jam ion. His new CBS program, the Saturday Night Swing Club, is ending the audiences away tapping and hi-de-hoing. Duke never xnows how many musicians he is going to have on nis program. He just invites the better musicians to come along—if “they haven’t anything else to do. The lads gather in the studio and enerally without music, let go. _ If these first few programs are any indication, jam is going te e the new rage. If you plan on dialing them in next Saturday night don’t forget to roll up the rugs—it will save you the trouble later on! has xe * * “Wy ahi Here’s a romantic note. Most of the afternoon dramatic shows contain the “boy meets girl—boy marriee girl’ angle. Gene Byron (a girl—don’t let the spelling fool you) and Ray Jones, of Mutual’s serial, Molly of the Movies, take care of the heart interest. Gene and Ray couldn’t wait for the script to marry them, they went out and had a Justice of the Peace do +h job! Peunios * * SILLY SCOUPS—Shep Fields, who ripples the rhythm, has had a special bowl made to create that watery sound effect. The lower half oi the bowl t.as a neon tube running around it, with Shep’s name in red and blue letters. The gentleman who creates the effect, by blowing into a funny looking tube, has been asked to join the Musicians’ Union. So yov won’t blow, huh? Or maybe a picket—Sit-Down Strike ‘or Bubbles. a He What’s in a name? Plenty, and three names mean more than one. Take the Marx Brothers (radio would like to take them), but the Marx Brothers want to take radio for $10,000, go it looks like the deal is off. On the other hand, a Chicago script writer was offered $25 a week for a program that was to be broadcastover a nationwide hook-up! 3 Ws Jack Oakie faces the mié aoe crophone each Tuesday night + 9:30, in his role as Prexy. of Oakie Colleg®, his sponsor writes out , check for $4,000. Yet, when Jack made his debut on the air, he was elighted to go on for nothing. He and Polly Walker were starring in “Hit the Deck.” Paul Whiteman invited them to appear on his show in 1929. The producers ‘ef the show congratulated Jack and Polly. What a plug for their show! On Whiteman’s next commercial, Oakie was paid $50. But he was foing all right, because at the same time Whiteman’s sponsors haa nreatened to take the whole show off the air unless Paul got rid of crooner in his line-up. The miscreant’s name was Harry Lillis Yrosby—Bing to you and now a million other fans! _ Radio has grown up since then. pt * ® & ‘Grace Moore is quite the loveliest radio person that we know. Grace is back in New York doing a new radio show. New York is her home town, so to speak. Greenwich Village, in its hey-dey, was her stamping ground. It was here that she spent _ her frugal days, and indulged in the long hours of practice that resulted in making her famous. She never comes to New York but what she goes down into the Village to spend time with | some of ner old friends. % Ah, fame! The latest news about Grace—and it seems rather cold—is that she gave up a command performance to _ sing before the King and Queen at London’s famous Convent Garden Opera during the Coronation in order to accept the en_gagement for the show she is now doing. When a small boy follows a band, it isn’t news. But when a band uch as Freddie Martin’s follows Wayne King’s band into the world’s nrgest ballroom, the Aragon, in Chicago, that is news. Particularly jen you consider that no group of followers is as loyally fanatic as he Waltz King’s. A band following King is starting behind the ight ball. Freddie had a tough assignment, and he made good. He hanged his entire musical organization from swing time into waltz ime, and added 16 pieces for nis friday night broadcast. ea SEE OEM ertie eg apo ek ‘ Peggy Garcia, who caused Rubinoff those days of misery, was seen in the office of a prominent editor. Peggy is trying to sell her life story to a weekly magazine. * * Svuthern girls! If you are planning a career as a songstress, take eart. Statistics show that 70 per cent of the successful girl singers p the air are from below the Mason-Dixon line. Pardon your yuthern accent? Certainly, if you can swing it! * * oe At one of Jack Pearl’s Wednesday rehearsals we overheard Jack's wife telling a friend that the reason she married radio’s | Baron Munchausen was because he was the most truthful mar she knew. Of course, she was smiling when she said it. FACT DEPARTMENT—In 1929, there were 17,000 amateur radio enses in the world. Today, latest inventory reveals, there are over D,000, 40,000 of which are in the United States. How happy we are to report that a show called Pretty Kitty y has replaced Renfrew of the Mounted, and is doing nicely. was sach a long, cold winter. ; my ee * 2 @ al ‘Dickson’s powerful baritone voice caused the radio engiopal d of trouble until they worked out a way to handle it. Ss voice against the orchestra. Solution was balancing his Aa stand a foot farther from the microphone' iaon Siswt: went on the Saturday Night Party program they | SCREEN & RADIO WEEKLY RADIO REPORTER By Jack Sher Bernes Robert Listens In Tue thick, juicy voice of the artist’s agent comes hurtling out of your loudspeaker. The agent is telling Fred Allen how good the child prodigy is. “Why, he’s so terrific he'll bring back vaudeville.” To which Allen replies, after hearing the colossal tot work: “He’s so terrific he’li not only bring back vaudeville—but the War of 1812, too.” That sounded right on Fred Allen’s program. That gag bore the imprint of a great humorist who deals in as few Keystone Kops as possible, who, by use of. well placed, sugar-coated bombs, tries to upset smugness and pride and such things. He doesn’t always succeed, but that’s because he digs deeper than any other comedian in radio or films. Which means that that gag wouldn’t have sounded quite as right on any other program. Which, in turn, brings up the point we’ve been trying to snare for these many lines—in our opinion, the most important development in ‘radio entertainment during the past year has been the development of programs that stand on their own legs, as lively, individual productions. We’ve had more than our share of batty projects, to be sure— gutter interviews, spelling bees and question seances. But to counterbalance these rashes are the immensely improved programs of Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and that old hardy perennial, Rudy Vallee’s Variety Hour, which ironed out its policy long ago and by virtue of its foresightedness has been able to meet all comers in a pretty commendable fashion. But too many radio programs, as. they come out of our loudspeaker, sound as if the cast were making them up as they go along. That’s why these radio topnotchers sell the most cheese, dessert and motor cars. Hach program is produced as carefully—or let’s say, almost as carefully—as the new Garbo opus. a staff of writers, a staff of performers. some pages of music, a director with aides—and an idea. The director knows that the program must be built to point up Astaire’s bland personality, or Crosby’s good-neighborliness, or Benny’s self-needling. He uses writers, performers and music to that end. I eon to arrive at that formula, of course, is not an easy thing. The custom in the past has been to let the listeners listen in on the developing process —which may be fine in the interest of science but can produce a good many yawns. You have only to remember the early Astaire broadcasts, and then catch a current broadcast, to realize that. Perhaps the way out is the tryout method, long a standby of the legitimate theater. The Community Sing people did that — sent their show out over a few New England stations to test the tentative formula. Now East and Dumke, the old sponsor-baiters, will go on the air from New York to a limited area to test their appeal. The increasing use of spadework before the premiere of new programs should have happy results. Perhaps they won’t sound as if the master of ceremonies, an hour before the broadcast, had sent out a call to the nearest theatrical boarding house to send over all the boys and girls who didn’t happen, at the moment, to _ be involved in a poker game ora | bit of ma an ieuri ing. ? SAL Rte Hach production has: stuffed with liquor, claims he sees pink mice. ree Who, What, When, Where— qu in New York and Coast to Coast — SHORT while ago, Deanna Durbin A made her first trip to New York. Eddie Cantor introduced her at a swank press party held in ner honor at a Park Ave. hotel. Eddie treated her as if she were made of tinsel. His attitude was “look, but don’t touch.” Well, a few days later, Deanna and I took a trip to the Statue of Liberty. It was the one thing that Deanna wanted to see most. If Eddie could have seen Deanna climbing about the Mistress of Linerty, he would certainly have had heart failure. When Deanna returned to California she wrote back and “thanked a plenty” for her grand day’s romp. It was the only time she had been able to pet away from the grind of work. Just an inside look ai a human, lovable, little Alice in Radio’s Wonderland. * * * George Burns and Gracie Allen, having nothing else to do, sat down in the California hills and figured out they had spent 5,700 minutes on the air. Gracie was amazed to learn that she had spoken over three times as many words as George. “Which proves,” she giggled, “that I am a banter man than George.” he Burns and Allen script is broadcast every week from Paris, France, by a French couple known as “Grace et Georges.” : The royalties provide George and Gracie with pocket money— $300 a week. = * * Six months ago, Morton Bowe the tenor, was having tough ‘ sledding. In a lull between radio engagements he tried his hand at sculpture—the career for which he was originally trained. But he still kept plodding away at his music, until he finally landed the Jack Pearl program. Then followed, in rapid succession, three commercials—Joe Rines Dress Rehearsal, Melody Matinee and the Five Star Review. The money came jumping in A St. Louis realtor, who six months before had commissioned Bowe to do a series of bas-reliefs for a new building, had called the order off. Just last week Bowe received a rush telegram from this same realtor offering him a pretty sum of money for the job. Bowe had to refuse. His radio chores keep him so busy that he hasn’t time for any outside work. * * «& Grace and Eddie Albert, whom I knew in my home town, Minneapolis, have been doing a weekly television program, Grace and Eddie tell me that television, for your home, is making rapid strides. Right now, however, the farthest a television broadcast can be made is 45 miles—so don’t hold your breath waiting. The cost of erecting a large number of transmitters every few | miles runs into many figures. Z * * oe , ENT to the hockey game the _oe other night with Guy Lo do i an armen. In between periods we were entertained by the i States Army Band. Guy and Carmen (what sensitive pic dittiace boys Spotted a sweet playing trumpet player. They decided he was wid just what they needed for his orchestra, and Carmen, after the con_ cert, cor-.ered him. The fellow agreed to come in for a tryout, and curing the conversation Carmen asked where he came from. _ “You've probably never heard of the place,” the trumpeter replied. “A little spot in Canada—London, Ont.” If you have followed the career of the Lombardos you know that London, Ont., is their home | tewn. Carmen and the trumpet player discovered they had many | mutual frier4s. s ¢ «* eae A look in time sometimes saves a job. A control man in a Chicago station was ordered to switch a program into a different channel in order to bring it in more clearly. When the signal was given ae — the plugs and, not looking, put th:m in the wrong slots. For over a minute an NBC CBS hook-up. Yes, he was fired. Becta el at * * ! _,, He Jack Benny bunch arrived at their hotel in New York amidst | wild confucion, meaning fans and reporters. When they managed to | get to their separate rooms Don Wilson (he sells a dessert) discovered that he had lost one of his pieces of luggage. In the grip was a pearl-handled brus: and comb set that was given to him by Jack. Don | spent a frantic day trying to locate the grip and thinking up apologies | to make to Mr. Benn-. All this time the grip was in Jack’s room and he was gett_ng a tremendous kick out of Don’s consternation. | * * * J That new book on Bing Crosby’s life, which was written by his brother Larry, is now being re-written by Bing. The reason— pane after canes (i —— that Larry had made his cureer sound too much like the life of Frank Merri : [ 7 attempt to de-bunk himself. ph pple ike dt aa * * * ; Let’s rretend is probably the oldest children’s show a-2oi A { Nila Mack tells tnat she took over the show on Aug. 18, 1930" — ! it was known is the Adventures of Helen and Mary, a series with adult actors. Nila eliminated the grown-ups, and substituted children.w Now, after seven years, she is becoming known.:Mrs. D. J. H. Kleber, cf Naarden-Bussum, Holland, has requested the scripts of this show so that she can organize a Let’s Pretend for Dutch kids! a Andre Kostelanetz, number-one air traveler, was pleased te learn that Lily Pons held up one of her rehearsals just to hear Andre's 8:30 Tuesday night program. The program was piped exciusively to La Pons by an agency that looks with favorable eyes on their romance. Lily returns to the Kostelanetz show on April 14. * ¢ 8 ! Rx ODDITIES ... Carl Hoff | writes his arrangements in aj sound proof room .... Gogo Delys has a real name (hold on)—it is: Marie-Jeanne Gabrielle Germaine Belzemiere Belanger .... Fred. Allen always bites his lips just before a program is to start, and his wife, Portland, pulls on the end of her nose .... All the members of Hal Kemp’s band are candid camera men... . Jack Benny rode from the Brooklyn Paramount to catch his first broadcast—in a fire truck .... Frank Munn spends his spare time running engines in a Long Island roundhouse .... Kate Smith worries every time she loses weight, but seldom worries .... The only ducks that Joe Penner | ewns are stuffed . ... . Dick Himber knows a: midget, who, when