Variety (Jan 1932)

Tuesday* January 19. 1932 yAUDE HOnSE REVIEWS VARIETY 39 JEAN HARLOW 12 Mine.: On« Talk and Song State in b«r stage appearance this week at Loew's State on Broadway, Jean Harlow's merit Is connned to her value as an advertisement for Metro pictures and any extra money her name attracts at the box olllce. Like so many other picture girls Tenturlner onto the stage, she looks rood. But Inability to do anything else places her In the class of a personality for one or two. weeks •f sponsored stage dates, and then eut. ■ At the first show MlsS Harlow wore a white satin evening gown that matched her hair. In person ■he appears shorter in stature than: •n the screen, next to N.T.Q. (Nils Oranlund), who supports her this week at the State, she looked al- most like an Ingenue. Oranlund read some questions oft a sheet , of pajper, describing them as having been originally asked by Hiss Harlow's fans. All'but one «r two related to Metro pictures. In talking about talkers- Miss Har- low mentioned Metro films and Metro contract players exclusively.. It Metro isn't paying a. share of Miss Harlow's stage salary and charging it oft to advertising, it should. As far as stage talent or the lack vf it Is concerned, Miss Harlow Isn't Udding herself. Along with know- ing'her appearance . Is her for.te, she doesn't l>elieve in giving them .anyr thing but a look. Her dull cross fire talk with N.T.O. la purely for Bight purposes. For a finish Miss Harlow recites the lyrics of a song about hersielf. The vamp and bad girl stuff she plays In pictures, she says, is 'acting—merely acting.' 'With a thanks to the audience for its kindness—'and that's not act-' ing"—the topper. . . In a picture house, a quick on and off: would, be suffldent. Holding . down a regular spot on a vaudeville bin necessitated a full 12 minutes, little of which was warranted. Without the experienced N.'T.O. around to Kelp, it would have been just too bad as a stage turn. State's business was good Satur- day. That it was mostly stag de- noted Miss Harlow was doing some drawing. • Btge. FRANk RADCLIFFE (1) Songs, Comedy, Piano 26 Mina.: One State Since splitting with Bud Harris, SadcUffe has tried other partners, Now he's as close to a. single as of a two-man stage combina- tion can get, with his partner un- billeil and just the pianist and foil for the talk. Needing only some trimming In the running time, the act is a strong entry for the im- gortant - spot on any combination lyout. ~ Badcllfte's versatility Is aston- ishing to an audience that doesn't see the flaws In some of his work. With singing the foundation for the rest of his talents, he plants him- self vocally so well as to enable him to do anything he choses there- after. His dancing by itself would never stop a show, but spotted late it does, for it follows singing, talk- ing land' piano playing by the same person. The partner is a low comedy big boy, who feeds' Radcllfte extremely tvell and gets his own solo chance eventually as a. hot piano whipper. . Prodded into an extra encore by N.T.G., m. c'ing on the State bill, Badclifle and his partnei* consumed 26 minutes in all. About 16 would be better, with the bulk of cutting due in the opening talk. At 16, all superfluous material would be out, with the meat only remaining—and there's plenty of meat Bige, GERTRUDE SAUNDERS (9) Band, Singing, Dancing ap Mips.; Fufi ■ Academy Show folks with memory enough will trace Gertrude Saunders back to the 'Shuttle Along,' If memory ferves the late Florence Mills fol- lowed Miss Saunders in, the latter then retiring to Harlem night clubs, •tc. Here she shows up with a seven- piece band and a man dancer, all Colored, plus a couple, of crlngy, too-close-fltting gowns. She makes ft sort of bluflt at leading the band, f|ngs a couple of numbers and watches the rest of the proceedings "■om the wings. It's a good act, all things taken U\to consideration, although Miss Baunders would do better to drop inat humming business for straight shouting. She's okay In the torches, but a little dubious other wise. .Musicians, all brass, are right on •ine Job and show up nicely In every „ Same also for the male dan- cer. Nice rendition of 'St. Louis Blues closes the act with a snap. Better song selection by Miss £?"™«rs Is all that's needed to put ."•r into class houses. Eauf. BLANCHE SWEET (2) Songs, Talk 17 Mine.; Two Loew's Orpheum Miss Sweet has improved her act vastly over her previous turn caught at the Palace. The Improve- ment Is obvious, but not 100%. MlsS Sweet looks inlfty.. Her other turn was .a sketch and not a good one. Presently, she does two' songs and the confession bit. from 'Anna Christie' which she made as a silent picture. • Actress .has a small singing voice. Her last tune, partly dueted with Al Drinker, pianist, gets over stronger than her Initial try. It looks as though this is due to Drinker's help and some good light Ing, wherein an orange spot shows her from the waist up only and a dark spot just shows Drinker. Turn closes pretty well with that item. Drinker introduces the 'Ghrjstie' sketch and a comparison with Greta Garbo's handling of the same lines in the recent talker can't help but come up. A couple of Neville Flee- son's ex-partners are doing . the Qarbo version on their own. Thiis, there's still room for help hig Miss Sweet in vaude. It might be a turn with a sketch only, of worthwhile calibre, : to finish oft with a song as herein done. Appeal in the present turn mostly for women. Miss Sweet closed five acts fairly at this house. PALACE It's field day for singers at the Palace, with only 'o;ie act, Bobby May, completely sidestepping it He sticks mostly to his Juggling, with, ah encore dance bit by an unbilled partner. And that's about the only dancing to be. found on the show outside of ah adagio opener. The vocal calisthenics fall into groups. Tlirough that more than anything el^e, show. is. better tha:n it looks on paper and builds into a very entertaining session. It has just enough contrast between all WHITESIDE, ANITA and BROW- BR (6) Specialties 17 Mins.; Full (Speeial) State Five people in. a series of spe claltle's, enhanced by . two scenic effects and good routining of solo- ists by the stager. The members all work IndlvidutUly. As the act under such a system becomes en tirely dependent on Individual ef forts, It manages through the peo pie to rate well -above the average song and dance flash. The three girls are a toe dancer, acrobatic dancer and soprano. One of the two men hoofs while the other paces the turn at the piano. . Soprano goes operatic In her lone solo chance and probably will draw divided opinions from the younger and older members of her audiences. Next-to-closlng position Is reserved for the acrobatic girl's second of two numbers, a fan dance. Her first is a high kick routine and technically better, but the fan danpe Is executed with exceptional show manship and Its difflciencies are overcome. Despite the daiicer's awkwardness at that type of work, she covers up in such a way as to make her specialty the standout of the act. Boy dancer does an Ice skating number under the blue spot and returns in the company round-up finish for some knee-drbps. On real merit the toe dancer's first specialty leads the act. Stager's best effort builds up a helpful entrance for the fan dance, The girl is sprawled under a shawl. A .flatplece representing a hand is lowered to pick the shawl, Bige. OLYN LANDiCK Female Impersonator 12 Mins.; On( Loew's Orpheum Landick has changed his last caught routine, which Involved im- itations principally, into one com- bining chatter and songs. It's a strong act, but needs imprdvlng to reach the big time. 'Landick should get a better wig. His present one doesn't, look real. It's a sort' of red and blond mix- ture, but too flat and brittle looking to fully <lecelve. The other give away Is Landick's rather metallic voice in Imltash. Nevertheless, he should please in the family houses. - The Impersonator gets his laughs mainly from blue lines. There, aire many such and one or two that would. If closely watched, get the mustn't say veto. The two songs are handled well, but not sung. First one, about a girl defending.'herself while on an auto ride is the better of the two, the other a little cabin on the hill, deal' old mother affair. Chance for Improvement in selec- tion of the final vocal bit Landick de-wIgs himself for an encore and after so doing wisely refrains from further work other than a thanks. SIBYLLA BOWAN Songs, Charactepizatioris, 16 Mina.; One (Special) 86th St Sibylla Bowan last reason worked with Neville Fleeson. and also ap- peared in a showi 'Who Cores.' As' a single, with a piano that isn't touched, she does a topnotch rou- tine of songs and characterizations, in addition to a dance number. Ideal vaudeville material, equal to demands, of the best time. ' ^ There's, a good deal to Miss Bow- an'B act . Opening: with a Helen Wills impersonation in song, topped by a comic slow motion bit, the personable actress establishes her self nicely with the audience. A brief Swanson touch and 'the eX' presslonlstic dance thing, while reading a book and appearing to be on the makoi follow. Impressions of Marlene Dietrich, legs and all and Greta Qarbo are both exceUcnt with the Dietrich bit having the edge. It's a very saucy couple minutes and Miss Bowan's gams aren't bad. In the Garbo de llneation, neither the accent nor the dramatic outburst are so good.' Miss Bowan la strictly at home with the lighter weight stuff, but if the changes, did not interfere, it would Still be better to close with the Dletrlch-Garbo bits, reversing the two. Instead of the Beatrice Lil lie satire. ' . Miss Bowan carried herself to a fine hand up. here, spotted second. A strong act for. that posltlos. Char. DARE & YATES (2) Comedy Acrobats 9 Mine,; One Loew's Orpheum Mild opener. Two men, shabbily dressed, in hand-to-moutii strong arm stuff. Cutting the time a bit might speed the turn up to get it oft to better results. Act is typical of Its kind, falls, feet In the face and an occasional kick from one to the-other. A straight finish, ft turn around on the stage lift of the smaller man by his mate- from prone to upright gets them off nicely. Collette LYONS and George SNYDER Comedy, Singing, Dancing 12 Mins.; One (Special) Seth St. A new combination. Miss Lyons was formerly half of the Weston and Lyons twain, while Snyder was 60% of Cole and ' Snyder, both standard. New team-up. looks like a next to closing surety for. the better grade of houses where some thing. stronger Isn't on the same bill. Miss Lyons goes through about the same motions as when in her former partnership, clowning through' about half of the routine. She does two song numbers in that resonant, far-reaching voice of hers, both of surefire certainty. These are topped by a'dCMice while George Snyder strums' and croons a lilting melody. To Miss Lyons falls most of the work. She pulls oft the gags, Sny- der in main feeding. While throat- ing the two pops, Bnyder just star.ds by. Act Is -otherwise rou- tined effectively, holding together well throughout. Char, ALEXANDER and SANTOS (3) , Dances 17 Mine.; One and Full Hippodrome Alexander and Santos formerly were a threesome with DelFray, and did straight adagio and ballet work. In til is turn Alexander and Santos have shifted to a burlesque ballet and adagio, which Is a smart move aftbr the epldemio of straight adagio turns. Act opens with two girls who go Into a song and follow with a dance. A straight adagio by a couple, evi- dently Alexander and Santos, fol- low. From there on the turn takes to burlesque, with two boys, one who previously worked in the .strolght adagio, doing a parody ballet In this nuniber a tall boy shows , ballet training In his work on his toes. A good turn and novel, although the girls give It a slow start with their opening song and dance num- ber. WILLIAMS & ROGERS REVUE (7) Flash 13 Mint.; Three (Special) Fyll Loew's Orpheum An average hoofing-flash aided by a strong rag doll dance finish. In the deuce on a five act layout at this house. Four boys, three working together a mixed team, and two girls. Team supplies the sock finish, . wherein during the rag dance the boy throws his partner off stage, takes a dummy out and after a few spins throws the dummy speedily off stage. It gets a gasp, until the girl walks out again. The three boys do two tap rou- tines, spilt up by the two girls in fair aero legmania. One- of tiie boys' numbers could be omitted or spotted differently to better advan- tage. After the doll bit, the seven finish up speedily. Routine flash saved by the girl's tossing around. the singing, either by other acts, the afterpiece with Beatrice Lillie, or in the m. c. work of Milton Berle, to* diversify proceedings despite the vocal work. Show, with standees Saturday afternoon, .and all key acts over strong, is costing around tl4,000. It's in tor two weeks, with possibility of holdover, further. Main draw is Beatrice Llllie. The other two are Flfl D'Orsay and Mills Bros, They're all singing attactions but none parallel In. type. At the box. office, D'Orsay, with her film backing and the Mills with their air following, are probably about equal on percentage of lure. Addi- tionally, there's George Olsen for some meaning at the ticket windows. Miss D'Orsay went on ahead of Olsen, :wlth the French stage star who made an added name with Fbx, spotted third. She did 19 minutes, going over big and selling herself well. The Olsen band closed Inter- mission, with another singing act, Al Slegel and Lillian Shade directly ahead. Originally both the Mills Bros, and Beatrice Llllie were set in that order, to lead to intermission, but later switched to the second half, with Olsen brought to fifth. All that separates Miss D'Orsay and Lillian Shade, who come the nearest of the singing units to be- ing similar. Is ' a staged bit with Miss Lillle. It's an eight-minute comedy scene In a theatre, with the British stage comedienne trying to make herself as troublesome ob pos- sible to patrons .nearby. On opening intermission. Miss Lillle walked away with things in a routine of thi-ee numbers, 'Snoop, the Lawyer,' 'I Killed Him' and a swell burlesque on a torch singer. That last number, tieing up the show, is one of the cleverest ever done by Miss Lillle. She puts some clever touches to blues singing with the plat wig, flaming, red handker- chief, and other incidentals. Miss Lillie, though urged to do an en- core, declined Saturday afternoon. In Miss Shade, the Palace found another woman singing act that's tops. In songs especially written for her by Al Slegel, who seems a modest sort, she took the high hurdles here gracefully. Miss Shade is a sparkling brunet with a load of personality and a voice that can't fall to click. At first working in a black gown that becomes her brunet coloring,'she later works in a rose- colored gown for a love song and a couple others. She shows to best advantage in the black and in that green spot doing 'Minnie the Moocher,' is at her outstandlngest. Reversal of the changes, with 'Min- nie' to close might send the act over even stronger. Miss D'Qrsay is the big. flash on appearance. And with it she dis- seminates a lot of personality. The colored quartet of Mills freres are on the end tailing Milton Berle's next to closing spot. They and their tricky crooning, with its nondescript'mutterlngs and gibber- ish, seemed to go nicely with the folks Saturday afternoon, but there was an awful lot of It. Because of Its sameness,' It gets a little tire- some. The Mills boys are grouped around a mike, strung up to an amplifier downstage right, and stay around It in precisely the 'same manner for six numbers. The five, without the encore further down- stage in one, would have been enough. Berle, who as m. c, worked hard and effectively throughout the bill, putting in an appearance between every act and doing gags with nu- merous people on .the bill, kept him- self down to eight minutes in pen- ultimate position. With his open- ing talk striking home quickly, same as when he makes his first appearance as m. c, he follows it up with a song and scrams, a nice hit Berle digs up a few old gags, in- cluding the one about selling the big car, but they all found laughs. In one spot, Berle admitted 'It's good, even If It's old.' . The coniedlan has a free and. easy manner and was around so much It seemed as though It was his show, but with a nice distribution of gagrs he always made himself welcome. Olsen, with a' clever trick, pulled the biggest hand of the afternoon. He called on a spectator in the audience, supposedly Lindbergh, to get up, and finally got him, despite traditional bashfulness, to mount the rostrum. House went wild, aiid then came the surprise with the dead-rlnger for the flying Colonel going to his cello. Olsen has a 17- plece outfit with prooners, burles- ?ulng singers, etc. doubling. In addi^ Ion to Ethel Shiitto, who does a bit from one of the boxes 'Rigoletto' quartet version very tunny and novel. It should have closed instead of the skeleton-thriller bit. Having much more- singing than anything else, the Olsen act nearly came into the vocal category, also. There's no dancing to offset. It's probably the first Palace show to have so little dancing in It. With a team of some kind, possibly a comedy combination Instead of one of the Ringing acts, the balance would ' have seemed better, even though, as Is, It's an A-1 Palace show. Char, EMPIRE, PARIS Paris, Jan. T. Empire bill for the fortnight ii Jack Hyltoh, with Jack Hylton, and Jack Hylton. Rest is merely a filler and management -would have made more money with a strictly Jack Hylton bill four times a day than with the current bill and Jack Hylton only three times a day. Even this is a new departure here lia vaude, and very successful even If second matinee is not as big as first one, due ,to the French disliking a show that ends at 8 p. m. and In- terfers-Wlth the dinner hour. ■ First part comprises Bowell, wire artist who climbs to the top of the house on a tight' wire over the heads of the audience and slips back hanging by the toes of one foot' Performance is practically killed by gendarmes compelling him to carry k belt and safety ropes, which take off the kick of a possible accident Trio Newton,'two men and a girl, have one or two good' knockabout gags. Also when doing a slow mo- tion picture flicker Imitation, firing a revolver shot, anC having the bul- let travel at slow motion on' a thread. Elsie Carew and Florlta, two Spanish dancers, work In shaded lights, and ' end with a double dapce, using a white screen In 'three'. Three lights—red, . blue and yellow—arfe where the prompt* er's box would be, and thro'w. their huge shadows on the screen with color effect which'pleases local au- diences. The local clown Bouilcot appears once more, as a filler, followed by Rollln and Charblay, one big, one stnall. Impersonating pre-war hussars In a patter and songs uh-. worthy of the house. Next is Frank Eders, Austrian, who has never played America. Man weighs 22S pounds and does sensational heavy- weight juggling. The best act la the first part which ends after tiM well-kno'wn Luganos, high trapese couple, with the Walton's marion- ettes, already aeen often at tliQ Empire. Atter intermission comes RoM Amy, who to-, a long time has bem,. known as a 'diseuse,' and whom opening song is a kind of a French replica of Raquel Meller's 'Vlo- letersL,' done with roses. This she does' in a blue crinoline dressy which she drops, revealing- under-. neath a white satin, gown for an Immediate, change. . Then conies the real show, Jack Hylton and His Boys, on a praia stage similar to the one the Empire introduced for Jeanette MacDonald. Best specialties are a whistler, a dancer; a trumpet an xylophonlst .using three sticks in each hand, and a drum.mer who iises the Jack Pow- ell Idea. Act goes very big, and much better than during hfs last appearance in Paris. During tb^ performance a huge Decca record sign Is on the stage. Also one of bla performances has been broadcast^ resulting in considerable publicity. Hylton plays on percentage cash- ing in both on his performance and the holiday period. Uaxt, PALACE, CHICAGO Chldaeo, Jan. 1(. Solid names that reach far back into the old.days of show business are marching across the stage and the screen here this week, and the first show offered evidence that these real personalities are weighty both at . the front gate and in the seats. As to the gate, there was a full lobby hold-out at the conclusion ,of the Initial round, a sight that happens rarely at this house where first shows being early in the after- noon. And once in their seats, this audience were happier than they've been In many weeks here. Audi- ence was unusual In carrying a heavy number of. older folks and youngsters; the so-called younger generation was not so much In evl«. dence.. Both ages were attracted by .the' old and real names the Palace ads are listing currently. Those names would.. make a eentimantallst go soppy over the traditions of show business. On the celluloid a. strini; of meaningful monikers are count- ing plenty tor 'Her Majesty, Love' (WB). This, the first Warner flicker to play a local RKO theatre, la get- ting applause at the opening tor the featured Marilyn Miller, W. C. Fields, Leon Errol, Ford Sterling and Chester Conklln. And on the stage the Nelson Fam- ily, the Rooneys, Dorothy Stone, be- sides such well-knownera as Harry Rose and Carl Freed, are making an old-time, variety bill that had this audience cooing. There was something electric about the open- ing audience, a spark that vibrated from the overture. In the opening spot were th^ seven Nelsons, billed as the NelsOn Fam- ily, a family that has meant things In stage acrobatics tor a couple of generations. Working like a circus turn they proved a nifty beginning. The newer generation takes the bulk of the la1)or a,t pr&ent, the two older folk sitting back for the most part. Three girls and their brother run through a series of tumbling, flip-flaps and risley bite, each dls- (Continued on page M)