Variety (Oct 1933)

S6 VARIETY LITERATI Tuesdayt October 3, 1933 Scribe Guitd Shapi N.e>ysmeh in New York are taking things ratlier slowly in the forma- tion ot their Guild. Met Sunday night but failed to adopt a con- stitution pronto or id elect officers. One.thing they're sure about is that ;they. mean to- go alijead, want to. be sure they're going the' right , and don't; want to b'e a union. ■•Special cohimittee. which:had bpen working on a coniStituitlon read tiie i>ropoised chartei: AVhich was ac-. cepted as a report prily,^jvith in- structions to the lads to work 6n it'.some inorfe-jCommittee was Yot«d powers to enlairge on the document, however.' Also thie committee .was asked tp' figure some «lettlon niachlnery^ Another meeting has been called for Sunday (8) to ratify. or amend tliie constitution and pos- sibly elect officers. /rWentyrslx news organizations were represented ' the Sunday meet, which just about covers the entire Ne>v..York district, Cotnnvit.- tee will now; attempt to get one man appointed from each Ne\y York shop to help oii the eledfion thing, idea being to make sure , all shops ate. represented. in desires .oh this matter. Allen Raymond is a new addition to the esxecutive. committee, replac- ing. 13dw?ird ..Angly <?£ tlie Herald-: Tribune, who quit when leaiving tlie paper la3t .:^eek ..to. Join Columbia Broadbislfrig, as a news gatherer. Raymond , also iof the 'Herald-Tril>'.' A hew member will also he picked to replace iDoris Fleespn of .'the_ •News' Who resigned because . as- Slgried to VVashingtoii by ;her'paper. Otherwise the committee continues as i& with Hey wood. Broiin, Jajnes Kleran ('Times'), Joseph Liilly ('World-Telegram'), Morris Waison ('Associated. Press'), ahd Jos. Eiia- erey ('Brooklyn Eagle'). Best Sellers Best Sellers for the week endinff Sept. 30, as reported by the ■ Amerips^n News Co., Irn»« .ictidn 'Anthony Adverse' ($3.00) .v.,...By Hervey Allen 'The Farm' ($2.60) .. .;...>...>., ^. ...... •. • > • • -By Louis Brpmfteld 'NO Second Spring' '(|2;50) .^. ^....... ^.. . .By Janet Beith 'Master of Jalna' ($2^50): .,...>........v,*......By Ma2o de.Ja Roche •l"wo iBlack Sheep' ($2.60) ....^.........^..i..B^^ Warwick Deeping •Vanessa* ($?.50) ":, ..... • •. • "By H.ugh Walpole i-Flcti ♦Life Begins at POrty': ($1.5«)................By Walter B. itkih 'JOft.OOO.dOO Guinea Pigs', ($2.00) Arthur Kallett & F, J. SchUnk ♦Crime of .Cub;a(.'.. ($3.00). ..-..'.....,... ........... .. .Carlton,, Beals. 'Mdrie Antoinette' ($3^50) ■,,. . v. ............ . , Stefan Zweii? •Twenty Yeats a-GrOwing' ($2.50) .......... .By Maurice O'SuUivan •Arches of the Years' ($2.75) . . v. .. .By Halliday Sutherland Home Guard, Attention As if there weren't a sufficient number- of mags published oyer here, various British publications are planning to invade the American field. At least two have appointed American sales representatives with.- ^ In the past few weeks, and others reported as'about to follpw suit •The New Age,' the London weekly edited by Arthur Benton, hEis named Paul E.: Henderson as its American representative. Louis .iiinsky has an appointment in the same capacity for the 'London Jewish' Chronicle' and 'London Jewish World,* British Anglo-Jewish newspapers, as well as the annuals, issued by' the eame _fi,ubli3hers. .Mary AyStin,'the famous author, does, her own house .work. In curl- papef Si The other jnprnlng, a cuh reporter called and asked to' see the well-.known scribe. He caught her on het knees but hot ofiC her poise. She told iiim to return at six o'clock when Miss- Austin would be at home. He came, he met the lady, and he kept on kicking him- self all through the Interview. He was sure he had seen that face somewhere." .He Just couldn't, prod out of his memory where^and when. ina the Writers Artists arid Writers Dinner Club,, organized along, the lines of the Actors. Dinner Club, anholinces a series of luncheon discussions to be given'' every , I'uesday,' at _ ,wbich prominent., speakers WiU afepear. The Club, meeting at the Four Trees down ini the Village, provides one free meal a day to any writer or iartist in heed, and with winter doming on, the H.st of applicants is growing longer." About a hundred of the leading writers and artists are . behind... the" movement to help those, who,- are up against it 'for art's sake.'.. Recently^, one a;i-tlst, wtfirt had Jbeenlillspogsess^d, wa^JC«uinjlJlYinj^ on top pt. a roof, under iiii eave; Edna Ferber ahdi: Fannie, Hurst of- fering their studios fpr benefit teas. Atonement Next Simon & Schuster book to come out, due this week, is •Mpre Ppwer to You' by Professor Walter B. Pitkin, -which is supposed to preach a .doctrihe of less smoking and morning exercise for the con- servation of energies. it's not the first book by tlie Pro- fessor that S. & S. have put out. S. & Si sort of likd Prpfesspr Pit- kin. They like him and respect him. "VTliich Would seem to indi- cate something since.. Professor Pit- kin tried to teach. them something when the two went to ColUmlJia tTniversity hot so many years ago M. Lincoln Schuster feels the only way he can make up for not having been able to absorb-'the Professor's efforts In school, is to make amends by publishing the professor's books today. Smith's Hobs Richard R. Smith .has disposed of his interest in 'The American Sipec- tatpr'. tp Catherine; McNeils and Hugh Weir, botli of the TOwer mags. The two, with the flv/e editors ot the literary neWsprper, including George ilean Nathan, Theodore Dreiser, . et ail.i now form a cpntrplling bdard of seven.. Smith eontihuing with the sheet itt an editorial advisory capa:clty, but his major Activities centering In the bOpic piiblishing house. of Ered- erlck A. StOkes, which he Joined when his firm of IJong & Sniith de- veloped' ihoney tirouble. Sifiitfa- still has pending against him a suit/for an interest in 'The American Spec-. ent operators'of Long & Smith, who topk over the assets of thei concern. Claimed by the present Long & Smith people ths^t 'The American Spectator* .Was at/ least' in: part, a Long & Smith property.. Catherine McNeils succeeds Smith as the ne-w president of "The Ameri can Spectator, Inc., ahd Weir is the new vice-president. Both will con- tinue their association -with the Tower mags, of which Weir is the editorial head. No . Begats /' University of Chicago Press Is readying a new Bible fpir the tired business man. Goltigf to chop the lonjg genealogical sequences, start it off With the Book of Amos, which Was, written 400. years before Genesis and ptherwise bring, the ancient tome down to the under- standing and reading time of the tired'business niian. Each section will be prefaced by comment on the author and the par ticuiar period in which .he Wrote. By no means the first effort to im- prove the scriptures, but certainly the most drastic. To be. bound in red cloth, gold stanaped^ and on sale for two bucks next Week (9). Broun Stuck That raiding thing around town's really getting, seripus, with pffers gplng back, and fprth fpr name writ- ers. Newest is a repprted Hearst pfiEer to Hey wood , roun which would put the porty columniist on the 'Ne^y York American.' Brou n'«^—ans wer"—wasT-a-^ pretty quick piie and showed, ho hesitation 'Come around in a year and a half was tho; Jof Brouh's. remarks •I'-ve got a cohtrict;.With Roy .How ard that runs at least, that long.' J.otlihdsvon Joyce , Herbert Gprman left Thursday for Eiirope to cbmpletie his biography of janles Joyce.,, Gormian was- one of the first of' the more important American literary critics to take up . the fight for the author of ^Ulysses; on this side and has Written several bigr^ks OA tbe subject. He will go to Dublin, oh this pres ent trip for -background atmipsphere on Iil'eland's greatest writer. Report that (Seorge T. Delacorte, Jr., will fevive the weekly, •Mahhat tan,' which had a brief existence last year, partly confirmed by the state ment at the. Dell oflfices that they're hot ready tp talk about it. Hints that the move Is contiemplated, at least. Edited by Anthony In the few weeks In which it lasted, ^Manhat; tan' will likely again come under 'Anthpny's direetipn if revived Baseball By- While the managers, cpaches and many pf the star. players pn the New Yprk arid Washingtph • clubs, rivals in the current Wcrld Series, are experting via the. ghpst rpute for newspapers and syndicates, at least one well-known baseball fig- ure has an 'as told, to tag' attached to his stuff. He is Walter Johnson, for years crack pitcher and later manager of. TVashingtoh a,nd now pilot pf Cleveland, who Is making his obserVationa ■ through William Braucher. Bill Tierry ahd Joe Grp. hin, leaders of. the contending teams^ have by-linei stories, as has Babe Ruth, long ah ace for Christy Walsh. Nick Altrpck, clown-coach of. "Washington, is another by-liner for the-series. Dollar Books Duds A couple of seasons ago, Double-^ day Dpran had. a Big Idea. They called in their authprs^ stpo^ them up against the wall, and shot an ultimatum at themi. The old con- tracts Were off. They must all sign new t5ontracts, cutting the price to a dbllar-^and this order went for H. Q. Wells and Kathleeh Norris^ among otheria. Their argument was that .twice as many books would sell at a buck a book. The pther publishers fdugbt this mpye tooth arid nail, predicting that the dollar bopk wpuld bring abput the dpwnfall bf publishing. For once they were right In their l>re-> diction.. Farrar & Rlnehart. alone fell ln° behind'Doubledhy. . The dollar bpok made Its appear- ance. The public blihkeid. It backed away.. People whp had nidde a habit of buying bPoks,.kept thenl fpr their intrinsic value. They weij;e wlllinff tp pay the asking, price, nd matter what, fpr the book they wanted. As ah illustration^ .they haiye i>een pay- ing without, a murm.ur $3.,50 for the current 'Anthony Adverse/ . But this business ;of a dpllar a bppk made them decide that spnier thing'niust be.-wrpng with the bppk.. It was either the cheap binding pr the poor story inside the bbards. So they waited. And while they -waited they got wise to the fact that if they held out. they could buy. that dollar ; book In reprint form fpr seyehtyr- five cents; The reprints came alpng and still they waited. Publishers; grpwihg Impatient, 'gan sneTvTng^ljeoka jihac : ala not. prove themselves In their first six weeks of li^e. 'Remalnder.s floodied the mai^ket. This was what the pub- lic had been waiting fOr. ' Bootleg^ bopkstpres. came into being. . Drug stores WitbL bargain bopkrrackis, And with the open'.air pushcarts, books were prostituted for. as low as a quarter. The 'came In strong. Sales took a Coney Island roller- coastep- loW. publishers had lost their public. They were now selling on an average of one to five copies to the lending library, and the. lend- ing library was' sending out each book on as niany. trips, as was physi- cally: possible. Thei royalty to the publisher and author being based on the actual salOr made its .final. nose dive into the lending library. The dollar edition lived a brief Ave months' three years ago, and the book busihess has still to recover from the blow that nearly killed father. RiriQ Lardner Gone Ring Lardner; few ever consld.^. ered his middle, Wlhner, is gone. It was a heart attack, induced by a nerVpus breakdown which will be formally ascribed as the cause of hiis death. It was in 1923 that Lardner waa told that he. had a .tubercular con-? dition arid he speni much time in those sections .of the country sup- pbsedly favorable to' those suffering from pulmonic cpmpliairits> but ail . wlthput result.. He came bpme to spend his little remaining time the New Tprk he Ipyed.. .Alriipst to the lai^t he continued, his whimsical w;ritings iEihd these gave no evidence of his suffering nor of his reaiizatlon that the end was so near. Lardner started as a Spprts writeri chiefly pn baseball,, a . spprt made familiar to literature chlefiy thrbugb his own hiagazine. articles. . It -was a natural s.teji) to the hu- mprpus cplumn. on the spprts page. It was In this peripd that Lardner*s flair fpr cpmedy deyelpped,. and his. early stprles about bush leaguers, and .other types he met wheri trav- eling with the Chlcagp Cubs, payed the Way tp a -^ider. field. He had many cppyists but stppd alone. Many coUld imitate his .style, none reaohed his ripe sense, of humor or depth, of feeling. i^ot generally recognized that Lardher was one of America's fore- most short story writers, he beins prdiharlly accepted , as a humcrist. But Stydents pf literature and crit- ics have long assigned him to an iportanl—"berth—a-mong^—"tile it portant American writers alongside bf O. Henry, Sherwood A^nderson and, more recently, Ernest Hem- ingway. He Was the first to take, slahg into. the realms of literature and ' get It iaccepted, because his writing was . essentially honest and true, -While yet of the highest order pf humpr. Lardner helped- write the. stage play frpm his 'Elmer the Great', which has been dene both , as a si- lent and two talkers, and he col- laborated with Geb.rge Kaufman in the writing of 'June Moon', musicaL Solid Facts Sell •A Primer of New Deal,' pub- lished in August, by J. George Frederick, is already in . its third edition. Due to the stimulation of thlriking Wrhlch the hew deal, has produced, publishers are. not a little surprised iat the spurt which Is be ing^^^hown .in the' sale;.bf bpoks on econpmiesv-—5rhe—astQundirig-rrthiri -abpu t ihe situation is that the larger proportion of salei are in the middie, .west- arid places other than 'New-York, significantly poiritirig to the fact that the west- is cutting Its eye teeth at, last. Cai in High Doubleday-D.oran will publish 'Fast One,' a first novel by Paul Cain, next month. Novel is a re- write and. buildup on Paramount?s Garhbling Ship,' which Cain wrote two years ago, and. was published as a short story in a pulp mag. Cain is Peter Ruric, former as-, sistarit to Josef Von Sternberg, who deserted pictures to write. Pub- lishing house has taken an option on his second novel, 'Three in the Dark,' also with a gangster back- ground. He was offered a five-novel cOntract.-if he Would continue to do mystery stories, but tuAed it dovyn: CJain is':: at present'ih HoUywood,' but plans tO: tfeturn to France, this winter. Cheap Stara .. pulps, hard-hit by. the times, ate trying put a'new stunt; They ate buying up the rejected n-ims. pf Well-known aiithers; in.-.oriaer to carry namies that mean something on- their table of ' cbriterits, Thoy are ".desperate for material but short of the do-rermi. The past few weeks have seen a whispered telephone cartipalgh in their effort; to round up rejected material . of third or fourth rate quality sirnply ^^or==thernise=ofT=^the--name;=.^^='=^^ Training Pros New School of Social Research educating In the modern manner, swings into the winter session with a writing course ^for professionals conducted by Gorham Munson, the critic. Studies in the contemporary dance are being given by Doris Humphrey, who directed the dance numbers for 'Run Little Chillun.' Tired of Adultery Hinder the .gay man-o£-the-world air, Michael Arlen wears in public, is the Arleri Who .has Worked In cessantly ever since he was seven teen, and whp knows -what it'meahs to be poor. Now that his labors are prosperous', he wants to write about world problems. He Insists he lias- made enough-out of fash ionable adultery to be able, to: write seriously.., It's only recently that he could afford to write such books as •Man's Mortality.' Arlen is a fasliionrplate. He's the joy of bis tailoi". His ties and his socks are a symphony. His Rolls is at least six inches longer than any Rolls on the market. Yep. DTfTusTve With his 'Night Mali' about to be produced as a film, Aritoine de saint lExupery's 'Southern Mail' is Issued by Harrison Smith,.arid iRpb- ert Haasi. - Odd. cbmibination of a night mail plane route with a roi- riiance running parellel in retro- spect along the familiar lines of the. French journalists who work love interest eyeri into their feature storieSi, AVell written and oiC inter- est, but it won't get. much play fi'orii the rerital libraries. Back to. Pulpit Rev.. William IL Taa.fCe,. assistant editor of 'The Evangelist', Catholic weekly of the Albany Diocese, and well known in. the newspaper ad vertislng field, has- been appointed rector^.of?=the'^Gathe'dral- maculate Conception in Albany. He has left the . newspaper to assume his new duties. They're After ./Man' It's now a nose to ijose^ race be tweeri Crawford, liarlow and Ben nett as to who will play •Man and Wife,' novel of divorce by Both Bit-own, ALrthur Landau negotlat ing. lood and Nell Glyn Two new pulps of Nickel Pub Ucations on the stands Oct. J. estrange. De'tecti.v.e Stories' and 'Chiarm tory Magazine.'-- . First Is supposed;, to. have more blood and thunder. than uSuai ixu detoctiye niags and the key to'the, second is fpund-in-therfact that Eiirior-Glyn (remember her?) has a luv story loJiding off; Both • books 1.60 pages each, monthly, and fifteen cents. Saga of thfi Stocks Arthur Shumway .has 'Rehearsal of Love' going through .the works at Alfred King's. i.t's the story of the last stand of a siriall.town-stock CO.; done to death -by the , lenco of .the talkers; Described 'Grand Hotel' of the i^ep. troupers.' ike Vaudeville Authors iand agents are Iri a huddle, If the hiagazine editors refuse to open* their doors- to the younger school of writers, and give them the encouragement necessary, at the end of ten years there will be no -wrltera to take the place of those gone. The year has seen, the passing of more than a dozen big'names, among them Edgar "Wallace, Galsworthy, James Oliver CUrwood, Ring Lard- ner and Van Dyke. , Young writers have been trying to buck the tide, but with editors cold, arid the writing game struck two years even before the show business* a great many of them PUt their pens into camphor and hit it put Into other fields. Cosmopolitari made ^1^^ candid confessipn that-it has-bpught nothing other than top-notch names in the past, three years. ..Ditto for t^e other slick paper magazines. It is only now that the editors are be* girining to feel slightly alarmed at the prospect of few top-notchera growing fewer. Hollywood is making the maga- zine situatipn serious. The west has reached out and plucked off the plums. Gene Fowler, Samuel Hof- fensteiri, John Colton, Johnnie Weaver. The best of them ha-ve given up passion for potatoes and sonnist virriting for good bid stearii heat.'•' ' Writers Resumes Th Wfi'lters, Inc., announce Oc- tober .10 as the date for the first meeting of the sehsbn, and the rncoting place as. usual, the Stein Room over this Blue Ribhon ircs- =taiirantr==Pxrc?riirig*«=RPHRi'5ri==w^ devoted to a panoramic survey of markets. Heavy Stuff, A new book publisliing concern specializing in toraes- of a scientific nature-has been organized by John A, Dbhdero. Will be issued under tho Imprint of Scientific Publicar tions. First goes on the presses lato this riionth. Traveled Photog; --Jim-Abberitinerant photpgra^jherr" is back In New York to make some pictures. Last stop-off place was Moscpw. so now Jim says he's, going to- photograph the 'Amerlcari Revo- lution'. Abbe, one of the better photogr raphers, is pretty nearly always- on the niove around the world. He has assignments for pictures frpm 'Vu' in Paris and similar papers In Ber^ lin,. Vienna, Moscow and. other spots. His .work is actually itiner- ant journalism, except that he does it with a lens, and he's managed to build himself quite a follpw.ing abroad. " Gailico's Break With Westbrook Pogler going over to Scripps-Howard, Paul GaJ- Uco,=New=Y-ork==^aiiy=^NeWS-^ports- cplumnist, will get the. syndication spot on the 'Tribune' Service pre- viously hold b ' Pegler. That means no changes in New York proper, except that as of riiid-Ncvember Pegler will drop put of the 'Eve- ning Post* and go intp the 'World- Telegram'. On. the , Scrlpps-Howard chain, Pegler will spread frprii sports be- (Continued on page 62)