Variety (Sep 1933)

Tuesday^ September 26, 1933 VAniE¥¥ HOUSE REYIEWS VARIETY 13 PARAMOUNT, N Y, It looked like the U. S. mint was Iiandlos out cia,mples here Saturday. A half hour before noon they were linied up around the corner. Good stage show and an attractive mu- eical feature, 'Too Much Harmony' (Par) both good enough reasona for the biz. , ' Ethel Merman Is; the stiage topper and she has Yi^v own .spot early in the.- running. Arrangement splits the show into two parts, one for Miss Merman, who does II ipinutes, tlie other for the production item in which Borrah Mineyitch'is, gang knocks 'em silly. . The production involves. 6, western plains siBttihg,: cowboy costumes, rhythmically blinking prop bph fires and 'The I^t Round Up' as a title. The song of the same name isn't ii$ed, although lightly suggested by refrain in tl^e Opening and closing theme song. ]L(ef?ter Cole and His Soldiers of. Fortune, male Chorus, try their best to look like cowhands. ■ They sing all right but somewhat long and the show'loses its otherwise swift pace by the time they're half way through. Lucky Boys, Gherry and' June Preisser and the Minevltches are the .bill's speed merchants. £3ach is a .sock on ..its own arid the liet result is an exceptionally enter>- tainlng. stage-show. A waterfall at one side of the set, with real water dripping., down plaster rocks, gurgles throughout the scene. • •Miss Merman's IX minutes are de- Toted to a coupl« of songs and an encore. At the. finish ishe told them she's going to Hollywood for 9, pic- ture with Bing Crosby. Th6y. liked her 'singing tremendously. ' " . Era^ry Deutsch conducts the pit .orchestra-through a gypsy medley, climaxing it with his own fiddle solo, a nd he can fiddle. On applau se it was another-of the bill's several punch Items. Running pretty heavy on trailers this week, future billing getting two diftcrjeht spots On the program. STATE, L. A* LlQs Angeles, Sept. 21. Neat, Unpretentious stage show With a sufficient amount of enter- tairinient is on ttie boards at this house and works In. well with 'Paddy, the Next Best Thing* (Pox), which had .*em ..lined ,up outside, opening day. Don Barclay, In his first appear- ance here for eight y^iars, digs up the mindreading bitv which still col- lects laughs. . He also hsis ian an"- cient D. W. Griffith film to aid him. laiid .solidly with the audience. Ed . LOwry clicks' with , his, war- bling and introductions, leadihe^ the band in. a pair, of hot and noisy numbers. Jimmy Baxter, 13-year- old baritone,, is singing too low to jgLve out the ease and persohality: that he is hiding. Mistake made by Thelma White is to debiit with a German comic song on the Jewish New Year^ Miss Whitei should have barkened to the 'Happy New Tear,' Her'tapping is okay and appreciated... Poster Trip- letis are plenty eye and eair appeal- ing with tl^eir close harmony. Barclay's final bit, an egg-recely- ing gag while imitating David Hut- .ton, is messy but funny. . Closing slide off weakly, Lowry introducing a hoorah football number, very syn: thetic, and the entire company swinging Into a slow moon ditty, Using 46 minutes,- show ean be tightened up. •Three Little Pi ' (Disney) gives howls, Leny, third inning scored high, wide and noisy with this bunch and gave carte blanche to whatever else the act had to otter. Even~without the cart|B blanche thing, the stooge pair, Jerry Greene .and Tiny, would have garnered some specie^ votes . for -themselves. They liked Greene's warbling treble and took added paiiis tQ show it, while the hard*of-hear- ing,hit betweien Leavltt and X,ock- wod draws plenty of guffaws^ .For these' latter passages they pass up all .sense of nicety, but the more fundamental they come, the' easier, it seems, is the reaction' aniong this 14'th street denizenry. ; .Kay Hamilton would have had a better crack at it had. ,they spotted her in deuce and left he:xt to closing to Roy, Lee and :Dunn. ^ut despite the malarrangement, the good-look- ing little warbler has little difficulty warming them lip from the start to. her way of selling a pop tune. With jimmy Brlerly and: Harriet Lee there to. brighten things iip .for him, Harry Reser Of CUqiipt pro- gram (NBC) inote . has a smooth time of it closing. Reser's 14-piece combo holds'them^interested, but it takes the BrlerlyrLee- intelrlude to lift the turri ;up to the: level called surefire. Brierly. arid the girl, whoSe radio' b.ackgrotind- has been wide, but hot of especially i.mpre^sive proportions;, make a crack :.team both in the way of harmony blending and persohality doveta:lllng. .Every- thing the. pair dOes gets a walloping sendoiE here, and with' theni in the act it's okay for. Reser regardless of place and tiriie. ' OSec IMPERIAL, TORONTO Followi imperiki goes back to liames, with FP-Can. deluxer playing;; the .Connie's' Iiin unit. Mills Brotheris,: Daye Appolon and• Thurston iiT that order for .the' coming four-Week'schedule. Marks the avowed' intention of the FP- Can chain under the new Nathan-^ son regime to play up the. stages prez angle.. ' Policy hais the FPr-Gakn-controiled Loew's In Montreal going flesh Sefpt. 30; the FP Halifax: house ditto Sept. 26, and the St John spot in with presentations Sept. 22. Dates are feelers, but It ls und<erstbod the Winnipeg house In the west is nesct in line. Hy Fine IS doing the book- ing for these Eastern houses.out of Boston ahd Is In charge of all tal ent playing. Nothing is yet planned for the Coast, but one bright spot is in the projected opening of. the .Strand, Vancouver, .after an IS month period of darkness. The Jack Arthur house here chalked up a record matinee over, the Jewish holiday and; for the first tltne .ln many moons, saw lobby hold-outs. Bill opens In twO with a back-stage glimpse of the line girls in their dressing room^ describing the various acts on the bill and omitting pannings. Do^en girls are before mirrors and stands for cos tume change, with rhythmic dialog Written by Marjorle Alton. Call has the girls darting off as traveler swings In for iCarl Emmy's dog act, ACADEMY, N. Y. It's about time thlEit the operators of this spot did something to rec tify the house pub^Ic address. sys tern. Way; the thing. Is now set lip, an act working before a mike is at a decided disadvantage... To at least those seated pp Ihe; side, aisles everythingr coming put of it sounds either distorted or blurred. They've eliminated the spealcers. from the apron and replacfed what may have been .a cumbersome . sight with a blatantly defective piece of sound engineering. Picture this half is right Up the Academy regulars' alleyi It's 'Lady for a. Day' (Col). Business at the first matinee. Saturday was solid, hot only On the main arc^ but along the two shelves. Spliced into the film phase of the bijl Is a Mfckey Mouse, some hewsclipa ..and the usual .reel or two of trailers. It was an applause mood.that made Itself consistently evident right ,dpw_n_Jtl irp.ugh Ithe . flve.;__acts. of Vaudeville. The Three'"^wHrte Flashes rPller-skate themselves into a nifty outlay of palms, arid the threesome, Roy, Lee and Dunn, keep up the good spirit with a daffy mix- ture of roughhouse clowning, so£t- shbe shuffling and acrobatics. Neat, confident and agprrespive,. these lads should cut for themselves a high niche In what's left pf the business in quick time. The Mae West characterization . that Ruth Lockwood, of Leavltt and ' l,ockwood, unreels as- part of .the Mutts with some new trTcKs score heavily. Opening to ballet number is novel here, Horace Lapp Is at the organ with words on screen and the tenor, 'Voice of the Imperial/ warbling by the public address, system as lights cpm^e.up slowly to rev^ the line girls behind the scrim in a full-stage garden.set for toe. work. The 'Voice,' who is slowly being built up for 'the unmasking, is Jiramie Swarbrick, a pleasing tenor. With Lorry Day in the pit going piano solo, the classical nurinber on toes fades irito the organ obbllgato with scrim dowtt. . St.eUa Powers, billed as the Australian; Nightingale, is out before, the. traveler In Colonial costume fbr high-pitch work . that registers In the closing half. Slate Brothers next,' face-slap- ping and kicking trio scoring on mayhem and building up to comedy adagio work. With a dummy fiemme for laughable sprawling and antic ipated kick^^flnlsh as one. of' the line girls doubles In duplicate coS tume for: the duririmy. Production number ;has a- full-Stage Mexican patio set, stunningly-lighted, with girls easing oh for. rhythmK^ in Mex custome as warmer; to LaMae and Alice Louise. Pair th.roUghout the summer. has been featured in the king Edward hotel floor Show here. Starting out with a tango that pleases,. they finish with a rhumba that's in bad taste.- Only eleririent that ..kept the finale, .from thudding after this, reaction was the clever work of the girls. Stage bill riihs 40 minutes,-Oyer turo is 'Sones from Italy,' with Arthur condiLC tlng. .. Band shuffle TTasnRTuf^riewcomerRrTFreddy" neer, Red Ginler. Toriimy Bpland, and Bert Veery. Feature is "Torch Singer' (Par). MCStay. BUDD EdGEES JOINS LlBEETl^ Budd Rbsers .joins M. H. 'Hoff- man's Liberty. Pictures as' general sales mianager, with headquarters In New'"jTorlc. ' Rogers was last asaociatea with .First Division. STATE, N, Y, There's a clever boy at the State, this week. Thd management isn't quite fair to him, or the customers, but probably nolwdy will worry much about that.. Such Is the way of booking offices. The ^.boy hap-, peris to be a draw: quite naturally, the house is packed; business is and will continue to be good fbr the; week, .so whiat matter the custom- ers? ' y' . Milton Berle's gone up in the world. He remained in a Chicago vaude bouse for five weeks arid, got himself talked about. He cOmes back to New Tfork. irito the State, and repeats. So for his second week at the State the management gives him the stage, some sceneryi a half dozen Incapable girls; and leaves the kid stranded. Berle will draw them in. Not realizing that 86 min- utes of Berle. is an awful, lot to sit throUgh-^ven at the State, Where the .customers are . the most easy- going mob anywhere^ Berle opiens the show and closes it. He w^orks 26 minutes • solid on the apron at the beginning and 10^ more minutes at the . end to finish.' in between he jiist sort 0f lingers, clowns, kids,- gags arid tells jokesi That^s in between. He doesn't leave the stage more than three or four minutes at a time throughout. After Berle's working 20 xplnutes as a single, which includes some chatter with Madelyn Killeen and a few blacHout3» he gives the stage over to I»ops and Louie, thaVB two colored bOys who sing and dance. Pretty gopd. Then the N.T.G, act, and there's the show. Three acts nd matter how It's figured- N.T.G. means a nite-club scene In full, with a dozeri undraped gals sitting around. Granlind never was funny on his own; arid his girls have never been capable. They're pretty. They're beautiful. They Going Places By Cecelia Ager . . , devil's movements. And but a-mo-. „ have-lovel3r-bodles-arid-^ey-don|t- -emnt-before-T<re-Sistei*-did her-aet^ -st*y-in-one-plaee-Ttoo ^ongr-Kitty mind who knows. It. But it it ^^^y ^^^.^ sWeet, those. Chester Hale Girls, skipping about inno- cently in .whlte ballet skirts, their toe dancing, a. model of spiritual, virtuous grace. Well, orie , man's meat. ,,, •■ weren't for Berle k;lddlrtg Grarilund throughout and playing a bit With the geils it would be a pretty dull half hour. For a finish, after sweeplifgthe igirls up and off, Berie comes back to the apron arid chats a bit moire arid sings some. .'Mairy Stevens, M.D.' (WB) is the screen accdmpaniment, there's a swell short on the NRA with Dick Powelli a newsreel, and a nice as- sortment of trailers. Kauf. STATE-LAKE, CHI Chicago, Sept 24. Business continues at a gratifying paee here^ opening shows each Sun day delivering a ; sidewalk .hoWbuti Bargain prices for plenty of enter- tahiment that's right up the alley for thiese customers. Flickers (still remain of the slough quality but apparently oke here. Currently 'Tomorrow at Seven'' (RKO). Vaude half of the show Is fast arid Ipaded with, sock entertainment. A:lbee Sisters open oh their songs and closing tap number, leaving the acrobatics for the Michon Brothers, spotted trey. Between Joe and Pete Mlchbri and* Medley and Duprey there Is hardly a laugh left in the audience. More than 20 minutes of -conttnuous-^rumbling^hat-^Is. cuB»- tomer-satisfactlon plus. Medley and Duprey are now a. three- act, a stooge having been added. He serves for laugh fillers in between the phdnograph bit which remains a sock piece of business. Michons are slowly getting away from the acrobatic side and building the comedy. A clean-cut variety turn. Baby aping has come to be the sure-fire bit for ventriloquists, Frank Rogers makes almost an en- tire act from the infant ventriloquiz- ing, and so well he Is Interrupted continually by spontaneous ap piause. Rogers Is in the deuce, ^Ith the Medley arid Dupree turn closing the vaude portion. : After the girls, Bert Nagel com- pany starts ofL the stage show por- tion nicely Witn the cat novelty. Bad hole is then torn In .'the show by Faber and Grfeyj which belon'&s in burleSqjio as it's presently routined The gags are old and riot for. a family/audience; This could have been perceived from the. howls for the Nagei. turn and. the deathlike silencei for; Father's.. The girl is wearing a peek^a-boo dress at the finish, that is strictly Star & Garter, It takes Joe (irlffin to dig the show out of the trap; Griffin over With, his Irish pipes. Seemed a bit strange to. see Griffin on this stage after years across the street In the B. & K. Chicago.. But he drew a neat:, reception . ijt this Jones spot arid proceeded to warble himself home. PALACE, CHICAGO Lou Hpltz oughtn't, do. things. like that. And, besides; somebody Should have tippesd him off that the Skit he's using was used drijy three weeks ago 6y GSedrge Jessel. JHfiltz is m.c'ing the show and . In "and out all the way through, he deuces and closes. Closingr bit is the weakest ever. As if It were ai carnival sideshow—?that^s all, folks; hope yoii enjoyed the show', Bryant, RAins ..and Youixg . open iriiee Among Hussies "Fhough they say thousands of people are better men and woriien for having he.'ird Aimee . ScnipJe MacPherson, she just can't do a thing with .the Chester. Hale Girls in the Gapitol.: stage show this week. Cbhtrary maidens, sdriiething about the association ■ on the samp ill With Sister seems to make, th^m naughtier than There stands ister, chic blonde head with its sniartly set large Waves framed by a painteid stained-glass window drop; her .white satin robe shrewdly molded arid seamed to make her a fine .figr. Ure of a. woman, her eloquent arms outstretched towaria the proscenium arch, her . hypnOtic voice rising arid falling Int^'a carefully tuned mi .. There she staridS, exhorting, ex- halirig, but not extemporizing, wav- ing the Good Booki humble then Proud, full of elocution like, the Shooting of Pan McGreW-r-and what does it ncean to the Chester Hale Girls, but that they come right out on. that, .hallowed stage the. very moment^ •'She leaves—jdelng what, those imipish Chesteir Hale Girls? A snak^-hips. A shake hips in Wicked black transparent dresses, their bdsiiy undulating, bodies boldly peeririg thrbugh, sUnkirig, sidling, prpvocatiyely flicking the black cel- Ippharie riiffles On their' trains about their ankles,, their ried wigs flaming beacons of worldltness, their White cellophane^ fans eailirig with the pQpendable Lilyan Really there is so mucii scatter- brained, goings-on ' Muph Harmony,' somehodj-'s got. to keep her head and remember there are young girls out front; young girls simply yearning id pick up a few items arient fashion, 1933.- Heaven knows , what- they'd dp without con- scientious Lilyan Tashman, There she Is a^ai .bearing .On her smart but .oh Willing .shPulders the whole, burden pf instructing tlie eager li ttle . dears^ill'ustrating . j ust where in . one's coiffure to spot rhlnestbne stars,. just how to mass . one's blonde" ringlets, at the topside of the head to a.ttain height, saucl- ness and-tlLit precious but so rarely achieved mo.od: of engaging cock- eyedhQss.. It's up to. her, it seehis, and in a cast full of ..healthy yoilng women , who ought to help her but dbn*t| to ..teach'the flaps that eyen-r ing epsembles must be arresting,' •riot practical; that th<^ush there's no earthly good'in ai white fox muff with a net sequiried. costume, it at- tracts awfully good business, that next tiriie they save, up eripugh to get a ne^v dinner costume, it should be dark brown'.Satin with its coat, collar tied high'round the neck .with sables,-.that, .there's nothing Ilkei large, black picture hats with shal- low crowns and safely tilted brims to. make one's presence felt In .a speak. ' Shirley Grey can only, .suggest to the girls that it . is still possible to be tight and tolerable if you don't Kelly that you caji be a good palif you don't work at it too consist- eritiy, and Judith Aliens by horrible exariiple,- that stiff marcel waves diminish s,a. in direct ratio to their (Continued On -page. 49), ballroom and a trio adagio finale. Mitzl MayfaIr, strangely in the closing spot, has ;n6 trouble.. over- coming; the dance' bit here,' haltirig the prpoeedlngs.with her. two selec- tions. Gordon's Dogs, locally spotted, mop up In the trey spot, 'With Hbltz stooging for the dogs and getting, sonie laughs for himself, too. More clownirig than acrobatics for these dogjr, but it's pie for any audience. Lillian Shade Is an easy, winner on her. three songs. Business' big at. the' secorid show Friday. Holdouts on. the sidewalk and jammed to . the balcony roofs Inside.. •Lady for a Day' (Col) flicker and must be figured. with two dance number3,'a single gagonicnt. ROXY, N. Y. Good show current. Saturday (23) night biz 'Went into the balcony. Roxy i s a '6,000 seia.ter. ahd when the customers .Will sit -in. the baicony It denotes biz. Vercell and Sinrioth, Rodney and Gould, Fred Zimbalist, Alex Grey and Sid Page are the variety bunch that's, current; Mildred Hamlin, blonde soprano aids Zimbalist. Two girls help Page, plus a slim comical youth. Rodney and Gould don't seem to be listed, so maybe they're new. They, recall Shaw and Lee duo, only the R and G pair work with their feet more than with their hands as Shaw and Lee. Wear soriie klnd^f brownTgray,suits with derbies and one .of the l>Oys looked white faced from the 'mezzariihe. Zinibalisf Is the harmonica bpy. Miss Hamlin-Is a soprano and a lookeir besides. '". Before everything gets started^ the voice of Dave Schboler Is heard from behlrid stage through a mike. The usual Rbxy Intro. Then the line In a dOU dance that looks okay. After that Dave and the band, v Acts fol- lO'w In front of the band, as usual. Page closes arid had them' laugh- ing when caught, so did Rodney and Gould. Vercelle and Sirinoth, also probably a new "team, are blondes who wear .White gown and do a fan dance for their first number. Later, they spiel a waltz together with the line. The line iS fine In this number, or maybe It's the trarisparcnt gowns they wear. Lighting on all the acts Is simple, and effective, Alex Grey pulls a smart one by singing a Hebrew chant, 'Rachcm' currently. Performs It okay with Schooler at the pianoi Jewish holi- day season being on currently, that number rates a hand and gets. it. Jklways ■where_po,s sible an d after TfieTr""riumFef3 the line tlraiies the stage for backgrounds. Gno big set, as usual, after the first line number, with hanging and affecting a kind Of rotunda effect that's' efficiently lighted for the. effect received. Customers here get- plenty for thoir money. In addition to'all thi.s a Mickey Mouse short, a travf-lfiw •a:nd one of the Tarzari .serial slun-l.s are' included on the scroon end. NVixt week 'Throe_-J-.,itno Pi«.s' Uif Disnoy cartoon does' a retin.n '-n- pRPHEUM, S. F. San Franelsco, Sept. 22. With , the Orph finally opening, Fanchoh & Marco is In the unprer cedented position of booking and producing its oyrn shows in Its own , house, while at the same time book- ing and. producing fbr the opposi- tion.^ Down the. street a few. blocks, A M. have its presentations. In Fox- West doast's Warfleld, alsb'.bookr' ing. for the riaborhood El Capitan. But the F'W^C shows .have got to be good,. or out they go. Oirph has another unique angle. It's the first nbn-chain house to get major product In Frisco In a long, time. F-WG has Metro, WB, Fox and Par tied. United Artists ht^ tJA, Golden Gate has RKO arid choice of Columbia, Fven while the Fox and other theatres were bend- Ihg every effort to get some major product, Orph picked off some Radio, a bunch of 'Universal,' arid every- t-Mng-else-that—Iboked-goodr tihiih. .But it's the price soale that's ex- pected to shove the Orph over the top, along, with F. & M. shows. It's 25c and 40c, °the> lowest In town for stage shows and first run major films. Other theatres get up to 65c. In addition to this, the Orph Is giv- ing 'em free auto parking, which means a saving of two blts^to cus- tomers. House was originally Built by Pan and operated by him for a time. It's been an in-ai)d-outer under the RKO banner,, finally folding up a year ago until the Marshall Square Properties and William B. Wagnon set the dieai,! with Marco whereby Wagnon & Marco operate with latter staging the shows. . If F' & M. keeps up the calibre of the first show house will have little trouble, provided the plx keep com- ing, because Frisco's a town, that likes gbod stage entertainment. Rube Wolf , as m. c is a good bet, always big here; Presides over a 10- plece band which is on stage all the tlme-^no pit work at all. About 40 girls, Mitchell. and Diirant . and Marty '.May are i-he acts. Flash of the show IS the 'Baiilet in Blue' which P. & M, did at the Hollywood Bowl few months ago with Rube, conducting. It's a nicely sta,ged ballet with Ada Broadbent doing the solo work, 'Rhapsody in Blue', closing the 60 minute prbduc- tion Is similarly done; packing a whale of a wallop. Hou.se's augmented lighting, ef- ^ fects add greatly to. thesSe numbers, while, the newly in.stalled public ad^ dress sy.stPTTi all along the foots brings oiit all (ha chatter of the acts. No !\o\on for Wolf or the band ex- :jjcp t^=a=,plario==l nlftr-1 u de=-^b •Katz in 'Ithap.snd.V and a pair of tunps tenorcd .by Max Tjwner. MftchPll and iMirant's knockabout afrohatif., ajid Marty May's chatter Xv-ith. Joan CVtrroIl arc sock.s. .Show slow.M .up ;cnn.<»idpral)ly with the Introduction of Radio l»icturo8 ulayf'p.s at this matinee. Including llosco .Atn«4. T);«rt Wheeler, Port K"lldn .;vMd Kch-n ]Vt.irk, ;!AVyi.aL..:i 1 P.'i n I i lift .Sliooter.s' ( Radto) '111 .'•'frPMi, ITou.,!o off to t\. flying ■t.ii't.. n-TC'Iifd i,v on(N p., .m., a'-d.'vvlth liiiMbutM, Scat.'; 2,800. " Hock.