Variety (Sep 1936)

?2 VARIETr LITE 1 WedneadMjf September 9, IQag f Jaf Allen's Accidcqtal Break Jay Allen, whose, piece on the iSpinish war for the N. Y. Daily News-Chicago Tribune syndicate last ■week gat A lot of attention, is on the paper practically by accident. Allen was the syndicate's corre- spondent in Paris for a long time ' and was considered one of its top men. Then, some "montlis ago, Col. McCormack, paper's editor,. getOnfi one of those whims he is known for, suddenly dropped Allen, figuring him not gooi enoughu"; Allen went to Spain to write a book and was just sitting around when the war broke. He wrote the N. Y. Herald Tribune asking for a job.and Outlining his qualifications, but that paper couldn't quite make up its mind. New York Times also thinking it ovef when Allen's old paper sent bim a hurry call to get busy pronto, since he was already on the ^>ot. When that eye-witness yam ap- peared in the SepL 1 papers, the other N. Y, dailies who could have had it if they had been a bit quicker in nabbing Allen, felt just a bit funny and in at least one editorial office in New York (Herald Tribune) . the editorial boax-d took time out to figure it out. '• Westbrook Pegler, In his N. Y. .World-Telegram column on 'Wednes- day (2), commented' on the Allen .piece, calling, it "the best piece of , reporting yet to come out of the Spanish war.*. He had considerable tO: say .on the subject ttoxa the in- ; side,, because he, too, worked for . Col. BfcCOrniack prior to joining the Scripps-Howard sheet. Fhelps'Choices- Margaret MitcheH's 'Gone With ;the > Wind/ was'selected 1936's outstanding tibvel by Ijrilliam I^bn Phelps,-Ysjle's ' pirofessot-emeritus, during his an- ■ riual'lecture at Pointei Aux.Barques, ■ Michigan resort. Book is . Miss ' Mitchell's first vindertaking. H. L, Mencken's /The American Language' was rated, tops in the gen- eral-literature class. Sfcvenly-seven books, largest num- ber he had ever reviewed'at the re- sort, were chos^pL for favorable com- ment by Pheips. Eleven were novels, 33 unddr general literature, 11 book? of poems, 19 thriller? tod ' one' juvenile book. Stephen Benet's . ^Burning City* headed the poetry list. Ju«t a Quicjkie Baftimore. Sept 8, Warner Bros, wanted Heirvey Allen, who resides in Oxford, Md., to come to Balto and Washington .for, openings of 'Anthony Adverse' on respec- tive dates as a ballyhoo for film. Author of the novel declined, saying he was too immersed in penhiitg a new short story of 100,000 words. Howard Shakiior Vp W.-T. Continued earthquake around the N. Y. World-Telegram office for the past couple of weeks has the staff ; ittery. Number of editorial depart- ment workers have been let out, others Iwought in and several fur- ther switches likely. It's all a matter of Roy Howard taking, active charge as the after-, noon daily's editor. Howard, head of the Scripps-Howard chain, a month ago decided to move in on his New York flags^eet and run it himself. He's moved his office, desk and secretary down and is actively in charge of all editorial matters. First result was sudden dropping of Kobert Garland, dramatic critic, and replacement by iJoUBlas G'!*- bcrt, from tht- general neWs staff. Last weefe this was supplemented by the dropping of Da^.Williams, edi- torial writer - on the staff for the past seven years. - Dorothy Hall, from the society department, also was dropped, and replaced by CoAnie Joyce, brought oVer from the i^i Y. Post. Harold Hammill; Federal Court reporter, was dropped froni'the pay- roll and . James Street, of the Ameri- cian, added to'the. rewrite staff. An- -orther Fjed. Coiixt sisdgnment for. an outsider is pending. There , is iipparently no connection between the shakeup.and any News- t»aper Guild activity, but a sidelight on Howard's stand in regard to the Guild'was revealed recently when he issued his 3,000' word reply to the W-T unit, 'wtich was reprinted by the Hearst papers but not the iScripps-Howard chain. Wisconsin New Strike Setaed American Newspaper Guild has '' setUed it^ strike against Hearst's Wis< consin: News, which began last February. • The fi.ve-day week was . restored .and a minimum of $40 a week for men. with three year's ex- • perience agreed on. When the strike ' bega% one mah'had been working 15 years on the paper and received .only $1 more in.ssdaiy than when he . joined the staff. ■ Strikecs who worked to break , down ihe circulation of the paper ■ and reduced it to one-third its nor . mal figure have now been asked by . the managen>ent to solicit it back. Strike Benefits N. W. Dailies V With potential reading audience of over 500,400 in Tacoma-without an a. m. daily on account of the Seattle P-I suspensioii, local morning sheet, Daily Ledger, and its -Sunday Ledger are making big gains liii cir- culaUon field.* While .Seattle Twines, afternoon sheet gets out SiAiday paper. local daily is getting big gain on it's morning edition. . Local CeiiU-al Labor Council has extended support financially to the Newspaper Guild and has pUiced all Hearst publications on "the 'Xinfair list Portltod Oregonian and Oregon Journal, 'Portland, have also been boosting their circulations in north- west since the P-I suspension. Some Sah Francisco Examiners (Hearst) re also coming in here. The Newspaper Guild's strike against Hearst's Seattle Post-Intd- ligencer remained deadlocked last week. The J^owland Watson report to William. Grec'Ji. president Of the Americab Federation of .Labor, de- claring the strike was not illegal, was made public. The hearing on the charges brought by the Guild to the National Labor Relations Board has been postponed until Sept. 10. Sbinnick Gets LtMc's Column / William Shinnick becomes Conduc- tor of the 'Line <)' Type' «Olumn for the Chicago Tribune, replacing Richard Henry Little, who con- ducted it for 13 yeafs. Little gets another assignment on the Tribune. Shinnick has been on rewrite for the Trib for several years and first tried conducting the column while Little was on-vacation. Dressing; Up New .Masses - ■ New Masses is planning to remake the magazine, add new features and revamp its' makeup. Crockett John son, together Yrtth Rockwell Kent, have, designed the changes, which wni include pictorial covers, more artwork, new features such as a summary and comment on current news, a column titled 'Sights and Sounds' and an index of what's going on.' '. First revamped issiie will be that of Sept 15. Kinnaird Gels Lait's .Old Post Clark Kinnaird is now head of In liemationaL Feature Servicer post formerly held by Jack Lait .before he became editor of the Mirror. Ernest Jerome Hopkins bad beeii officiating there in the interim, with Lait su- pervising. Kinnaird will continue to handle his other work as drama edi; tor and critic of King Features, and being associated with T.A^ Robertson in producing the Saturday Home Magazine. JOseph V. Connolly, president and general manager of International News Service, King Features Syndi- cate and Internati News Photos, is now head of all Hearst Radio inter ests as well. Frank C.. McLearn, former managing editor of Central Press, is executive assistant to Con nolly. , • ■■ Takes Politico's Ed Job £. D. Keilmann^ for 11 years radio editor of the Daily (Capital, Topeka, one of the Capper publications, is now city-editor. ■ He succeeded Joe Nickell, who came through the Augiist primaries as a successful candidate for the state legislature. Keilnlan has discontinued his daily juve broadcasts which he has done for the past nine years as Uncle Dave. Smalley Quits Fawcctts Jack Smalley, managing editor of the six Fawcett motion picture fan mAgs, resigned Sept. 1 in Holly- ■wood. Smalley is a pioneer in the fan mag biz, having started with the Fawcetts in Minneapolis, later be- ing transferred to the Coast. He will take- a lengthy vacash before announcing future plans. Anne Parenteaq to Coast Anne Parenteau, ass't. editor of . McNaught's JSyndicates, leaves for ! Hollywood on Sept 15 to become "an assistant to'Jiinmy Fidler, for columnist and radio chatter. .'. Will travel hy car across the con- itinejit with ioe Beckley going along for company. Hearst Scribes Going: Guild Hearstian newspaper labor troubles are being watehed intently by the scribes in Los Angeles, as well as elsewhere, with many of them secretly becoming members of the American Newspaper Guild. Many in L.'A., including some employed by the Hearst sheets, have secretly sent funds to. the striking workers in Seattle and Milwaukee. This deep interest arose when the Guild won out in its strike in Mil- waukee on' terms demanded and when the body caused the shutdown of the Post-InteUigencer in Seattle. Jtt9t Sellers- for ihe Week endlii^ Sepk^r as reported by the AHfierican NeiTB Cfo.» I*c. ♦Gone Willi thB Wind' ($}.00L..V....."...i*.By itargaret MitdieU 'Big Monfey* (^350) : •. • • .By John Dos ftusos 'Drui.is Along the Mohawk' (|2.S0) By W, D. Edmonds 'American Flaggs* (?2.00) -By Kathleen Norris 'I Am the Fox' $250) ....> »..,/,;..By Mrs. Van Ettea 'Eyeless In Gaza'. (♦^^O).:......• ♦ ? •«...> i• »• fV.Byf Aldous Hujdey . Non-Fiction 'Live Alone and Like If ($1.50)..../. ....By Marjorie HiHi, •Wake Up and Live' C$1.7S).. ..,.By Dorotiiea Brande 'Around the World in II Years' ($2.0ft> By Patience, Richard &. John Abbe •My Ten Years in a Quandary ($2J5.0) By Robert Beiichlejr 'Man the Unknown' ($3.50) By Alexis Carrdl 'Listen for a Lonesome Drum' ($3.00) By Carl Canner Vwood AaUwrs Beorr . Author^ Club, reorganization of the Writers, has been formulated in Hollywood with Irvin S. CObb prez. Membership will.'be limited to in-: yitations. Oiher officers are . Lee Shippey, first vice-prexy; tSene Lockhart second v.-p.; Jimmy Swinnerton, third v.-p.; Gerald Burnett secre- tary, and Harry Kohr, treasurer. Fiction and Films CHATTER Time's new picture mag will be called Show-Book. T. S. Eliot due in N. Y. this month from England with* his family. Arthur Guiterman will make a coast-to-coast lecture- tour this win- ter, George M. Kohn now southern rep for Fawcett's Women's Group in At- lanta. Chatto & Windus have bought the TCngiigh xights to Clarence Day's V7ashbarn's Book Se'^. Charles Washburn, B'way p.a., sold his book titled 'Come Into My Parlor' to the National Library Press, Publishers bought the ms., finished a year ago, and widely peddled around after reading a mention of it in Herbert Drake's story on Wash- bum in the Cue magazine. Previously turned down as .being too hot the book jeveals the inside story on the Chicago tenderloin an«l tells all regarding the Everleigh Sisters' famous' club in the windy city and the notables who belonged. J. D. Carey Dies James .D. Carey, 31, city -editor of the .Los Angeles Daily News, died Aug. 31 after a month's illness. Carey started with the, New.s as reporter. Body was sent to Franklin, Ohio. nieHord as Whodunit Ed, Arthur Mefford, from the N. Y. Daily News, has shifted to Real De- tective mag as editor, succeeding Robert Mickham. Latter has aligned with Lawrence Fertig. advertising agency in N. Y. After AIL' Hugh Walpole wiU return here from England in November to go on a lecture tour. Saloman Wenzlafl, forOier South Dakota publisher, died in Santa Monica, Cal., Sept. 1. Horace F. Gardner, of Lippincott Sc Co., penning new book (his 12th) to be called 'How to Become a Writer.' Tom Hanes, former sports editor, becomes managing editor of the Nor- folk Ledger-Dispatch. Charles Reilly is now sports edL Arthur Wild, formerly with the Chicago Daily News, is handling the exploitation for Harvard Vs, Ter- centenary Expo. Jerome Bahr's short stories will be published under the iitle 'All Good Americans,' with a preface by Ernest Hemingway. George Beale, former L. A. bureau manager of the United Press and now in N. Y. office, is recuperating from serious illness on the Coast. Ernest "V, Heyn, editor of Screen Guide, has returned to N. Y. after Coast confabs wjth Carl Schroeder, Hollywood rep of Annenberg pubs. Tailspin Tommy, a magazine de- voted to airplane adventures, is a hew pulp out this month, being put>- lished by the C. J. H. Publishing Co. Charles Rehfeld, in the theatrical department of Chi. American for past 20 years has opened his own agency in the Merchandise Mart as Amusement Advertising Service. Luci Ward, former Coast studio secretary and author of 'Mountain Justice,' being filmed by Warners, has a serial in Cosmo bejginning in October. Title is 'Cargo Deluxe.' Mabel Condon, wife of Ilussell Birdwell, publicity chief at Selznick- Intemational studio, completed a 5 0,0 0 0 - word novel, 'Housewife Abroad,' while touring the Orient Lt. Col. Augustin M. Prentiss has written two volume-, on 'Chemicals in War,' out in the fall. Book con- tains chapters on protection of civilians by Major George B. Fisher. International Mark Twain Society is ofCering a prize of $25 for the best anecdote dealing with a famous au- thor, cither living or dead. Contest in charge of Cyril Clemens of Wetister Groves, .Mo. By EPES W. SARGENT Forced Draft There is strength to the plot of 'Smoking Altars' (Kcudall; ^3), out Gladys St John Loe islls to get the most power because at a hesitant technique. She seems unable to get up a full head of steam; to over- siiadow her narrative with the men- ace she'seeks to create. Iflichael Shahley seeks to hide him- self on an African coffee plantation because he believes that he has in- herited a taint of lunacy which had led his forebears to murderous acts. He inherits an ^iglish estate, returns and marries the girl from whon). he fled in fear of perpetuating the evil strain. Then he learns th^t his half caste rnJstress, bade. o»V the plantation, had been murdered the day he left Circumstances cause him to believe that he killed her, so he' goes back. When his wife fol- lows him, confessing her pregnancy, he administers an overdose' of sleeping portion and also kills him self, never knowing that a native boy, dying, has confessed to deed. There is a smattering of African witchcraft but this adds little to ihe general effect. Not for the screen. TaT»in*it "70111 Since Edgar Rice Burroughs' last was an interplanetary romance, it is Tarzan's turn to strut the Ihne light and "Tarzan's Quest' <Bur roughs; $2) tells of a hunt in Africa for a band of white savages who possess the secret Of eternal youth. The sort of stuff that always clicks with Burroughs readers, and a typi- cal tree-swinger rc:nance. Just in passing it's a nice example of book manufacture from Bvirroughs' own press, and a swell jacket, niustra tions by J. Allen St. John. Money, ttni Not Art ' Du Bose Hf^ward stiU sticlis to the south as location in his n^weA novel, 'Lost Morning' (Farrar 4' Binehart;. $2.50), but this is hot a : southern book. It could just as well hav'-. happened anywhere iii the world. And been just as interesting tod readable.' The formula has been used many times before, that of the artist who ia betrayed by desire for money and comfort into a life antithetical to hia artistic integrity. Thus, instead of going on honestly with this sculpiiig,- he turns to etching and become*, tremendously successful. And, of course, more and more unhappy. Book's climax is just a mite too melodramatic, perhaps, but it Is. logical tod tmdersttodable. Not for films. Five From Phoenix Two of the five volumes issued by Phoenix Press as its September con tribution are a little hard to take because of their implausibility. All five are the usual 250-page $2 books and in the usual proportion of two hot, two tepid tod a western. "The cow yarn, 'Cowpunqhers of Badwater,' by Al P. Nelspn, is not outstanding, but it's not a bad- ver- sion of the master mind who runs a cattle section only to come a cropper at the hands of a stranger. Not in- spired, but a workmanlike job.- Anne B. Fisher produced one of the improbables .in 'A Career for Constance,' in which a Frisco so cialite goes interior decorator. ' No part of the story brings the slightest conviction, though it may get by with the rental libraries. 'One Ro- mantic Summer,' dished out by Evelyn McNenna, is even harder to take. It's a Zenda theme, but set in America with Prince Michalet,' of a mythical kingdom, playing around at a shore resort. Mystery is solved when it's explained that the boy the heroine has fallen for is not the Prince but his double, hired by royalty to pose in his place when he wants a day off. Shopgirls and stenogs may go for this, but few others. •Unfaithful,' by Carlotta Baker, is a yarn of an unloved wife and her •cheater husband. Plenty of steam and plenty of action, but just Some- thing to read when there's nothing else around. 'Careless "Virgin,' done by Glen Watlcins, is the southern girl who comes to New York, en- joys a hectic career and then goes back to the dear old south and the anns of her first love. Not very well handled, but few hot books are well written. By WdLFE KAUFMAN Oiay Prixe-Winner It is one of those curious truths that books which "win novel contests are seldom much good. This is al<, most proven to: be' false by John T. Mc&i^e with - his 'Steps GdUig Down' (Farrar & Rinehart; $2.50), Book won the American contender prize in a big international affair run by F & R, Warner Brothers Literary Guild, and publishers Of books in 11 other countries. After the 12 winners are chosen,, there will be an ultimate winner picked. 'Steps Going Down' is not at all a bad book. 'Neither is it a'good .book, but it has what most prize-winners lack—has integrity tod honesty in approach. It is also, and this is dis- tinctly in its' favor, a distinctly Americto book, in jargon, outlook, characterization and approach. Mclntyre has written half a dozen other books in the past but never this seriously or well. However, his ex- perience shows. Book's only real faults are that it is a bit too rambly and that Mclntyre does not write American dialog as well as he imagines. Not likely for films, despite the WB sponsorship. Omnibus of Crime Wallace Jackson is one of the few English writers of whodunits who can manage to get up a lot of steam and action in his yarns. He does.this successfully in 'The Extraordinary Case of Mr. Bell' (Hopkins; $2), despite the fact that it is not a suc- cessful bookl Trouble, is the yarn ifl too improbable and too wild-eyed. But if one throws credibility to the winds, it's fine. Not for films. Hugh Austin spins another good tale in 'Murder of a Matriarch (Crime Club; $2). He can always be counted on to pick unusual settings tod colorful charactiers for his stories. This one takes a good deal too iorig to get started, unusual for Austin books, but once P. D. Quint gets on the case and starts hunting out a trail it's.good. Okay for films. Mary Fitt tries an experiment in •Three Sisters Flew Home' (double- day-Doran; $2). She tells her story straight the murder winding "P book and the police not yet called in. It's a story which is out of the usual run, too, but there isn't enough suspense or good enough writing to make the thing a success. Written backwards, in the manner of other mystery yarns, it would have been a great deal better. Not for Alms. Carl M. Chapin should.be aol«L,w write good Chillers some day. «•» 'Three t)ied Beside the Marble Pool (Crime Club; $2) is not a good 300j but it has all the makings. characters are good, all but the ccn- Hugh Baillie, president of the United Press, is visiting in Los Angeles. Balllie formerly was a re- porter on the old L. A. Record. ttal one, who tells the story, the background is oke. The moti- vation is a bit muddled and the dis- entanglement none too cagily i»e' ured out Even so, it would be a good book If that central characier were acceptable. He Isn't.