Variety (Mar 1936)

Wednesday, TVIarcli 25, 1936 PICT ES VARIETY 19 Pittsburgh Flood Chatter J5y Hal Cohen :, ' ? o*wes amateur troupe ro'oned in the Roosevelt hotel with §0(J .other guests, a good per- cent^e^'CrC .them performers^ put on tin' Impromptu show by candlelight for two days and. two nights while ■the' water hovered'' around the sec- hcrwdoaV author of Delight,' got one of tli'" rst nes out of town after the flood iji-oi; ' h he was' , fbreed tq leave his personal belongings behind when' the elevator service in the ' William Penn hotel was disrupted a few minutes before his departure. Sydney Greenstreet, vet. Theatre Guild actor, was frantic for 24 hours trying to locate, his 15-year- old' son, who was on his way front school in Plttsfleld, Mass,* to Visit, his father for a few days. The boy was finally located in Beaver Falls, Pa., about 40 miles distant, where his train had been detoured.' Lo.e Simonson; of the Guild di- rectorate, lost a $200 speaking en- gagement when the Tuesday night train scheduled to cairy ■ him back to New York couldn't, leave the sta- tioii on account of rising waters and a bridge washout along the main line. Harry Kalmine finally managed to get a plane back to town on Fri- y morning to survey the damage arid ;direct salvage operations for WB. ^..Bepause. .-the power at Carnegie H^all Is. generated by Carnegie Tech's own fpiant, the NBC broad- cast of the Pittsburgh Symphony orehestra went out from here last Thursday night (1ft) as scheduled. ■ May Beegle postponed indefinitely r the last attraction of her concert series, Lawrence Tlbbett, who was to have" given a recital at Syria Mosque Friday (20). Ill; from drinking water, Connie Crowell, one of the chorus girls in . 'iSiot's, Delight,' was* out of the : ehqw' from. Tuesday night on and an> understudy, Una Val, went on in iter'p\ace. C. A.-Ross, booth operator.and an aviator, , was held 'in readiness at the county- airport to fly serum to Johnstown if needed, but word came irom there before he took off that It wasn't necessary. \ Through the two nights of ter- ror, the Nixpn cafe had a floor show since the spot gets light from a plant in the building. Two of its chorus girls, however, were flood- bound in the Roosevelt hotel.. Russel (Buck) Crouse got-back to New York by taking a train first to Buffalo, and then to Manhattan. Stars Dish It Up With food scarce and a majority of the restaurants closed, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne cookedfor most of the 'Idiot's Delight' com- pany in their suite at the Hotel Schehley, which was several miles outside the flood area. ... Mike Cullen.was reported missing for SC hours but the Penn manager got out of - the theatre in a boat, and was.unable to report his safety since .-all phones were down. Water in the Alvin basement ruined Jerry Mayhail's library of music, valued at more than $3,500. Dave Broudy saved most of his at the •Stanley. Allen Converse, 'Post-Gazette' re- porter,- acted as midwife for a col- ored woman he picked up in his sknf .while covering the flooded Bottoms district in McKees Rocks When last seen, the expensive or- gan at the Penn was. floating around lI| V. 1eai ' the house ' s balcony. The Bernle Armstrongs and their paDy son moved out of the heleag- ured Roosevelt hotel Just a few days before the flood hvoke. Bobby Erannigan of the Nis-or. hii-rrt a skiff and rowed two ma- rooned 'Idiot's Delight' musicians th £r * h ' " ot01 in tIme t0 make the Wednesday matinee. on. V n°ru CuSa1; use <V»is Picture in th * capers as his necessary den iflcation to get through the po- l» e lines, in the. stricken area. the T "nu e,lt ° n ancl ° wen Vk&ry ° r ^e I ,i t?n 3 ust. managed to get out berJ^? k d Ce wln <*°w in a boat oj£lLf h !, c?,rrent insldG the ho».se °^r took them. to^'/w 3 Fonta "ne tried in vain out°o t \ t0 take their company ?.l™YV ate Wla *r when l?™i^ der _ of thoir week was nne's ill- aneelled bv Mi** t" * ■ ,a<,c 03 aili 5s. Fontann Honor V ll ' e 'n. days lh * of all 1111,01 *o Pittsburgh, after 6 p.m. was prohibited by the city authori- ties. One woman, caught in the .tor- rents inside the Cambria theatre, Johnstown, berated an usher be- cause there were no lifeboats in- side the. house to transport her to safety." Jimmy 'Banner had a difficult time getting anybody to take him for a. skiff ride.. Everybody was afraid that his 300 pounds might upset the apple cart. Most of'the marooned show folk got out of town as quickly as pos- sible by any means, afraid of a pos- sible quarantine, which did not, however, develop. Dick .Powell from the Coast wired friends asking them to telegraph ■him all the details. Kap Moriahari cracked . . it was the first time he had ever seen such a. rush on the. downtown box- offices. An orchestra pit seat at the Stan- ley was uprooted and 'sent swirling out through the front dbqrs v irito Seventh street and down Penn ave- nue. Three of the hotels patronized chiefly by theatre folk, Roosevelt, Fort Pitt, and Strand; were, serious- ly damaged, jn each of these the marooned guests Were placed on food; rations for two days. Most of the out-of-town papers were trying to learn whether, there was any truth to the report, that the Lunts had played 'Idiot's Delight 5 by candlelight. "there wasn't, of course. 'Jmnbo'^-'Follies' 'PROMOTIONS' WARNING ON FLOOD BENEFITS Theatr Authority, which sanc- tions benefit performances around New York, requests actors, asked to appear in performances designed to aid flood sufferers, to contact the TA before appearing in such per-, formances. Same goes for mana- gers approached to sponsor flood benefits. Affair proposed for Mad- ison Square . Garden, N. Y., next week was found to have promoters behind it. TA states it will riot sanction flood benefits unless okayed by the Red Cross. Pointed out that so much money is. required to aid vic- tims that benefit show proceeds would be of small aid. Pneumonia Hits Duo ittsburgh, March 24. At least two possible theatrical casualties as result of the flood. Robert Newkirk, treasurer of the Penn; is in Homeopathic hospital from double pneumonia. Suffered exposure when he labored 'far.into the night with others at the Loew house trying to ..save some of the expensive furnishings. Physicians over the weekend pronounced his condition 'dangerous.' In the Mercy hospital Is Ken Coffman, artist at the Alvin, also fighting against pneumonia. Coff- man was rescued from the swirling water when a skiff carrying him to safety from the Alvin upset. There were several other ex- posures among emergency working crews in the theatres, none of them serious, however. Glucksman Freed Hollywood, March 24. Forgery charges against Man 6 Glucksman were dismissed for lack of prosecution. Former theatre operator was ac- cused 6C forging Bela Lugosi's name to a $000 check drawn on a Lon- don bank. Ay res' Sea Pic Hollywood, March 24. Lew Ayres' first directorial job under his two-way ticket at Re- public, has him assigned to 'The Gloity Parade.' . Yarn concerns < between Monitor and Merirmae during the Civil war. ROXY'S $2,039 FOR FLOOD The Roxy, N. Y., did its bit for flood sufferers. House passed the hat among pa- trons on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (21-22-23), collecting $2,- 089.50. which was'turned over to the Red Cross. (Continued from page 1) producers are now of the opinion that radio has not only failed to live up to its promise, put that the broadcasts have done irreparable box office damage to both shows. Both the 'Follies' (CBS)" and 'Jumbo' (NBC) programs in their early broadcasts were judged below standard radio entertainment- It was this fact that did the damage in both instances, producers who closely followed the radio reaction from the theatre box, office view- point, now are of the opinion that, an inferlo," radio program can hurt the best stage show in the world; Since there is no way of ascertain- ing whether a radio program, will click until it . is actually broadcast,- the Broadway impresarios are how hesitant about entering "into any radio deals for proposed next season musicals. 'Jumbo's* radio counterpart pre- ceded the show on the air by a couple of weeks, due to production delays-in the legit version. Observ- ers contend that lukewarm ether reaction had thus set in before the show itself even opened, and that the reaction was bad father than good was illustrated by the fact that •Jumbo,' at the New York Hippodrome box office, never came close to the $90,000 weekly gross for which the show's producer, Billy Rose, had hoped. $63,000 Down to 30G 'Jumbo's' best week was its second Which, on word-of-mouth as to the stage performance's excellence, drew $68,000. With the weekly broadcasts from the Hippodrome continuing meanwhile, the business slipped off to its . current average of $30,000 or thereabouts^ For its first 13 radio weeks, with Texaco sponsoring, the 'Jumbo' pro- gram contained Jimmy Durante, Arthur Sinclair, Donald Novis, Gloria Grafton, a male chorus and a large orchestra conducted by Emery Deutsch. Total cost to the sponsor was $12,500 a week, of which $4,000 went to the Billy Rose cor- poration for the use of the Hippo- drome for free admission broadcasts oh Tuesday nights (show eliminates .its regular paid performance that night), and the rest for. the talent. Charles MacArthur arid Ben Hecht, who wrote the 'Jumbo' book, got $1,500 a week in royalties from the air show, which was" based ion the stage script in theme and charac- ters, and Dick Rodgers and Larry Hart, composers of the 'Jumbo* score, drew $500 a week. In-addi- tion Texaco paid David Freedman $660 a week for additional, gags and continuity. Rose did not share in the $12,500 beyond the. $4,000 rental for the theatre, but felt he was compensated at that figure for loss of the Tuesday night receipts. From Rose's viewpoint the deal was advantageous chiefly from an advertising and exploitation view- point, with the title plugged weekly on a national network and reaching millions of. listeners all over the country. His intention was to get to out-of-towncrs, who are estimated to make up anywhere from 50% to 70% of the attendance at all Broad- way legit shows, musical and other- wise. But other producers now feel that the radio advertising discour- aged, rather than encouraged, tran- sient trade. Failure of the 'Jumbo' program to land with a sock was attributed to the impossibility oC projecting the show's circus atmosv'. ere, sight un- seen, over the ether. Free Show Menace • Average out-oC-town listener seems to accept a legit show's radio counterpart at-face value. The- fact that the 'Jumbo' air program was inferior to the legit version was not known to most listeners who thought that in hearing the pro- gram they were hearing the actual i show. When they reached New York the transients, if sufficiently interested, preferred to patronize the free broadcasts rather than Spend $2.20 or $3.JlO to witness a regular performance of the show. A similar impression of inaccurate representation of the show for which it is named has been created by the 'Follies' broadcasts, although they contain practically nothing from thft stage revue, except Fannie! Brice and the 'Ziegfeld Follies' title. 'Follies' sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive - ! Peet, pays around $9,000 a week ' for Miss Brlce and the title, plus authors' royalties and the rest of the cast, which includes Benny Fields, Pattl Chapin and Al Good- man's orchestra. Blllie Burke Zieg- feld shares in the royalties, along Adventurous Newsreelers Braved Plenty in Covering Floods Stuff Pitt's Dailies Carried On ittsburgh, March .. Even if the shows didn't go on, the newspapers did, in the greatest city-wide emergency Pittsburgh has ever faced. None of the three dailies missed ah issue although all of them were forced to go out of town to publish. The morning Post-Gazette was' put out first in New Castle, Pa., and later in Youngstown, O., while the 1 Press moved to Washington, Pa.. and the Sun-Telegraph to Greens- burg, Pa'. Staffs were kept going 24 hours a day in relays as wire serv- ices temporarily went Into the dis* card: Only the. Sun-Telegraph escaped the flood's, wrath and it is set to go just as soon as power has been re- stored. The Press was the worst hit of ail, with the water completely submerging the presses . at the Scripps^Howard publishing, plant. At the Post-Gazette, some- of the machinery was under water but it was figured this could be repaired within a week at the most.' , The critics and columnists were all pressed into s'ervice.as reporters, covering hospitals, fires and flood beats the same as the regular leg- men. 'Reviews* Prior to Films'Screenings May Bring Action Minneapolis, March 24. Whether a particularly adverse newspaper 'review' of a motion pic- ture constitutes the basis for a damage suit alleging the biased defamation injures the film's com- mercial possibilities, may be tested by the Minneapolis 20th-FOx ex- change. ' The adverse review ap- peared in the Minneapolis Shopping News & Guide, weekly with - a 150,- 000 gratis circulation. Grounds for the threatened action are the alle- gation that it appeared before the picture - opened at the Minnesota theatre here and that it Was writ- ten by the publication's 'critic' be- fore he •witnessed the .film. Shopping News has been pan- ning practically all pictures .playing local Publix housta, its reviews by Bob Scott appearing before the at- tractions' opening. PublijJ theatres are the only local loop sho.whouses that do not advertise in Shopping News. Despite -the pans at the Publix theatres the circuit declines to advertise. 'There is no question regarding the right of a newspaper to state its opinion of a picture,' explained Moe Levy, local 20th-Fox exchange manager, but a 'sight unseen' re- view is something else again. We are studying the matter to deter- mine if grounds exist for a dam- age suit.. Certainly the notice may affect the picture's percentage en- gagements in nearby towns and lessen the revenue which we other- wise mighi receive from the attrac- tion.' with the show's producers, the Shu- be rts. 'Follies' program had script and other trouble right from the start and still hasn't clicked in the way that a $9,000 Outlay- requires. Box office results from the radio adver- tising have been .negative as far as the show at the Winter Garden i.« concerned. 'Follies* ppenc-d up to a brisk $35,000 a week pace, but now has declined to $25,000 or there- abouts, which is off business, and in its eighth week the stage cast has already found It necessary to take a salary cut. s a rc-.s.iilt of the rndl<» experi- ence of Billy Rose and the Shuberts, with 'Jumbo' and the 'Follies.' re- spectively, other producers are no longer so anxious to seek or accept ether angeling for expt-nsive mu- sical productions. unless some means of insuring the quality of the radio programs Is found. 'Folles Bergere of the Air' Is an- other experiment aiong similar lines that's due on NBC in April. Its effect on French Casino trade will be watched. Last year another inu- Hcal. The O'Flyn ,' found a radio version no help. Rising flood waters that swept seven or more states last week kept newsreel camera crews jumping from one district to another In an effort to give full coverage. Each of the five news weeklies had crews of 15 to 24 men shooting various phases of the flood. Companies kept tabs on activities of their pho- tographers via maps, with newsreel executives directing their operations by 'jihorte, wire and radio. Office staffs worked without interruption for 36 to 48 hours in order to keep crews movin into new flooded teN ritbries. So much ground had to be cov- ered by camera grinders that the news executives re-routed, crews from, one district, as soon as flood hit crest and waters began to re- cede,, to nether area where floods, continued; Most newsreel weeklies withdrew crack camera grinder from Pittsburgh and Johnstown area by the end of the week and rushed them by plane to Hartford and the Springfield areas. Others were withdrawn from New York cities and transported to Ohio, Indi- ana and other middle-west spots where rising, waters threatened to duplicate scenes in the eastern tier of states. In many instances the- newsreel executives were forced to depend on- radio messages sent out from company operated planes to keep track of their crews, since the four to six-hour delays on phone mes- sages were impractical. Cameramen converged oh Johns- town and other.Maryland, and West. Virginia "cities earlier in the week. Next outbreak was in Pittsburgh and at New York points; Crew fnom Universal, headed for Johns- town by plane, was forced to use automobile. Dashed over last bridge giving admittance to that town only a few minutes before eight-foot rise swept out bridge structure; Unable to get into Johnstown^ Paramount started early enough in a plane to grab shots of flooded Pittsburgh and Johnstown districts. Crew was able to get excellent: coverage before fog ciosed in and blotted out ground. While most of the newsreelers got to vantage spots by row boats, best scenes were photographed from windows ift nearby buildings. Ma- jority of cameramen using automo- biles ' wore life preservers. One company employed rubber,"boats' at Hartford because of ea6e in trans- porting them. After strenuous task of getting scenes and developing negatives, the news weekly staffs encountered further di Iculty In getting pictures to exhibitors because of irregular and uncertain plane and rail serv- ice. Airplane schedule;-) were aiterexl on short notice with news- reel executives re-charting ship- ments- of film hourly in or to reach theatre operators on- tii Portland Par Reorg 'Portland, Ore., March 24. Financial adventures of the Port- land Paramount Corp. entered a new chapter with plan for reorgan- ization. The company, composed largely of local stockholders, built the big Paramount for Publix In boom days. Theatre rental was then set at $110,000' annually; Theatre is now leased to Ever- green for $55,000 annually. Properl. is said to be worth $1,350,000, against which a building bond issue of §,1,100,000 is outstanding. Fed- eral couvt is asked to approve re- financing of the entire concern, so that stvcklioldrrs will not be left holding the sack. Evergreen theatre's lease of the Paramount in recent times has been fairly successful with the house getting a nominal share of biz. B&K's 39-Year Chi. Lease Chicago, March 21. Balaban & Katz, through the Oriental Theatre Corp. subsidiary, has taken a lease on the downtown Oriental, for the next «9 years to Dec. 31, 1975. Lease calls for an- nual rental of $200,000 to Dec. 31, 1973, payable monthly; rental of $58,000 for year of 1974 and $20,0.00 for the final year. During -the peak E. & 1C. pal ?312.000 annual rent for the house In a bidding buttle with RKO.