Screenland (Nov 1929-Apr 1930)

for January 1930 7 be applied to the audible movies. The films can absorb all the technical information which radio can offer but unfortunately there is only a small proportion of radio talent which is available for vocalized pictures. When the happy combination of a radio voice and a camera personality is found, the owner is on the way to fast and lucrative fame. Some of the best known radio figures will never manage anything but novelty shorts. For instance there is Ernest Hare, one of the Happiness Boys. For years Hare was Al Jolson's understudy on the stage. He never achieved any material success until the radio waves sent him across the continent as one of the most popular of all broadcast artists. He has an earthy, vibrant voice at its best in stirring sentimental numbers but he doesn't even slightly resemble Jack Gilbert. Vaughn De Leath who was one of the first women ever to manage a broadcast station has a soft, crooning contralto that is flexible and thrilling but she isn't at all the Garbo type. OF all the announcers in America there is one who for five years was deluged with fan mail. He had that something in his voice which gets the listeners-in, particularly the impressionable women. Letters of admiration, notes of frank courting, gifts of pleased appreciation piled on his desk at the big Manhattan studio. He was the 'it' man of radio, the unseen sheik of the air and he counted his followers by the thousands. Then, as many a story goes, he made a short. It might have been a noisy advertisement for his dentist or a moving signboard for the hair restorers or one of those 'before' pictures which the physical culture exponents might use. He made only one short and he has had no offers to hero through a seven-reel feature. He's a radio personality and his place is behind the unphotographed microphone as he has sadly learned. VOICES often give false impressions of persons. Many a captivating voice has been attributed to an Adonis figure when really it belonged to a middleaged man of no romantic dimensions. HOWEVER, there is one person who doubled in both fields and manages to keep up with his rapidly growing hordes of admirers. Rudy Vallee is the outstanding example of what radio and properly applied gifts can do for an ambitious young man. He was an unknown saxophone player who had quite a nice voice when he became the leader of his orchestra in Don Dickerman's Heigh-Ho Club, N. Y. It is true he had been quite engaging as a musician in Yale and far back in Gilda Gray's shimmy days at the Rendezvous he had been a clever manipulator of the musical tooting iron. But when he put a megaphone to his lips and crooned Deep Night, the swooning females filled the living rooms of the nation. In Broadway language he 'wowed' them with music and held them with romantic memories. For months he was the reigning Prince of Wales in his own air domain. Impressions of this singing Romeo varied. There were those who thought he must look like Ronald Colman. Others who thought of him as an illusive Ramon Novarro. And this interested listener who was quite sure he could pass for Richard Barthelmess. In appearance he is none of these movie celebrities. He is a new type of sheik as his RKO picture, "The Vagabond Lover" will prove to his widely scattered public. AUDIENCES seeing B. A. Rolfe and his well-known orchestra doing their jazz stuff on celluloid may not know they are gazing upon one of the real film veterans who years ago sought a career in an entirely new field only to have it lead back to the cameras. Rolfe was associated with Jesse L. Lasky in the pioneering days of the flickers but he sold his interest in the early producing company and drifted into the musical field. He played with Vincent Lopez for several seasons, gaining a reputation as one of America's best cornetists and gained a lucrative popularity in Broadway hotels and restaurants. He became quite a fixture on the radio and when the talkies came into vogue was asked to record some numbers on Vitaphone. Even though he An outstanding radio success, Rudy Vallee has come into pictures, where his magnetic voice and personality will first be starred in "The Vagabond Lover." This picture shows Rudy in one of his characteristic poses directing his orchestra. thought he was through forever with pictures, the galloping tintypes were not through with him. WHEN Jack Smith whispered his captivating baritone love songs over Manhattan microphones a few seasons back he didn't realize the trail would lead to Hollywood and a starring contract with Fox. For months he was a volunteer artist on the lesser stations of New York but when he went to England he was a sensation, following up his broadcast work with a tour of the concert halls. So wide was his popularity there that one of the executives of the Fox organization brought him back to do a feature length talkie which has been completed at the west coast studios. CHICK" Bullock, one of the regular feature artists on WJZ in New York, was an assistant director in Hollywood until the studio lights affected his eyes and so impaired his sight he had to give up his movie career. Just when he was rather despondent about his future, radio officials discovered he had an excellent voice for broadcasting and he has been on the Manhattan station several times a week for the past few months. LEO FEIST CO., one of the most important song publishers has added Tiffany pictures to the theme song list it is printing. Mae Murray's song numbers in "Peacock Alley" are among the American releases which this company has on its present schedule. THIRTY years ago Congressman Sol Bloom was an ambitious young song writer. But then his thoughts turned to politics and he had for remembrance only a song Sun Dance, the folly of his musical youth. Not long ago he visited a theater in Washington and there on the program in a Fanchon and Marco unit was included his own brain child. When a capitol station heard it was a Congressman's composition the selection was broadcast. IN the Broadway era of Harry Cohn's life he, too, was in the song publishing business. Not only did he plug hits but he even wrote them and it looked like Tin Pan Alley would hold him for its own when he went movie and now is vice-president in charge of production at the Columbia Pictures Hollywood Studio. SO, even in the early days before radio and movies had any apparent kinship there were the ties that bind. And now with television experimentally achieved and commercially on its way, with the talkies dependent upon microphones and sound equipment for its recording and with an involved interchange of ownership and management and an exchange of talent the two industries are closely allied. And really there are "Movies in the Air." IN THE early days before radio and the films had gotten together there was a feeling of antagonism on the part of the older industry. Picture producers feared that radio would keep people at home when otherwise they might be spending their money at box offices. The Capitol Theater in New York City was the first to recognize the value of a tie-up. While other movie houses were looking with fear and distress at the broadcasters, Major Edward Bowes and S. L. Rothafel made a connection with WEAF. The Capitol was the first theater in the world to send entertainment into the air by remote control direct from the theater. Roxy, as Mr. Rothafel is better known, made his international reputation through his radio activities. Seven years ago the Capitol inaugurated the initial experiment and the returns were so satisfying the radio program became a regular weekly feature. On every Sunday night since the premier broadcast, entertainment has been carried by the ether waves from the big Capitol building. Artists who are now well-known in the films and on the stage got their first fan following from their broadcast under the guidance of Roxy. As far away as the South Seas, in remote villages of Scotland, in Africa, in fact, all over the world, people first heard about Broadway movies during the Capitol family hour.