Variety (Apr 1939)

RADIO SCREEN STAGE PRICE UPS, DOWNS OF RADIO YEAR Plully Intends to Share in N. Y. Far Coin Throi^h Lures to Stopovers PhUadelphia, AprU 11. Aiming to. gi^'ab.ofl fair Philadelphia Mtne of tbe tourist trade expected through on Its way to the New York World's .Fair, hotels, jJestaurant^" bBn)cs'«nd otiier' organizations here last week set 'up a hospitality com- mittee. In charge Is B. • Hubert Cooper, secretary of the Bondhold- ers'- Protective Committee, which controls practically every hotel here. N. W. Aye'r & Sop ad agency is con- tributing its services.. . Principal plugging is to be done through billboards. Each board will have a picture of a different tourist attraction in Pbilly. Along the road? leading into Philly there will also be booths shaped like Liberty Bells.' In these, gals dressed In Quaker, costtune will provide info concerning the town and hand out 82-page bo6klets attractively illus- trated and outlinhig 'all of Philly's advantages.' Included in the sales story will be the fact that the Penn- sylvania Railroad will take passen- gers directly from Broad Street Sta- tion here into the Fair grounds in one hotir and 60 minutes. It wiU be pointed out, tooi that the fare for this rid^ can be more than made up by the difference in hotel rates here, none-of which will be jacked. Hotels in N. Y. plan boosts during the expo. One million booklets and as many maps of the city are now being print- ed. Two million small red, white and blue stickers are also being printed and wiU be distributed to aU Philly firms, to be attached to their outgoing mail. Historical spots, such as Independ- ence Hall, will be spruced up. War- ner Bros., controlling all first-runs here, has promised releases prior to other parts of the country during the summer. Effort will also be made to get some N. Y. producer to Ught at least one legit house, the air-condi- tioned Forrest, at.-$l top, which re- cently succeeded so well here. Chicago, too, recently laid plans for ' ' similar undertaking. Slow Going as Maestro, So Sodafite Van Levis Now a Radio Spieler PhUadelphia, April 11. Van Levis, socialite band maestro, bas joined the gab staff of 100-watt, part-time WHAT here. Bitten by. the radio bug while announcing his OTvn programs over various stations. When Ijevis, three years ago, de- . elded he wanted to lead a band, he tossed a $5(000 party at the swanky Wacwick.hese to introduce his crew. ~P«*«ty, press and managers of all the city's hotels and niteries were tavlted. Stunt resulted in a flock of publicity and resultant Jobs, but picUngs recently have been lean. Levis is listed in the Social Regis- ter a« Norman Van Pelt Levis, Jr. He is a minister's son. First Fair .Buy WUle .show bushier Is won- dering, whether and to wbat .^xr tent New York .World's Fair will .benefit Broadway, -flrs't -material ticket purchase was noted last week, Goodyear Tire Co. -or- dered 60 tickets for every eve- ning performance of -Hellzapop- pin,' Winter Garden, during a six-week period starting Aug. 1. .Order was given an agency. Actual strength of the advance sale for most of the hits is not yet definite, because most shows do not sell more than four weeks in advance, though most of the mall orders are dated beyond May L MOSCOW REARS SKYSCRAPER RADIO CTTY Schenectady, April 11. Clark H. Minor, president of Inter- national General-Electric, is recently back. from his second '^ip in two years to Soviet Russia. He reports seeing the place where.-men were working on the great building that is to be the Radio City of Moscow.' It is to be "higher than the Empire State building, will have one audi- torium with a greater seating capac- ity than Madisoji Square Garden, as well as a theatre to seat 6,000 per- sons, and will be topped by an image of Lenin, about 375'feet in height.' Minor cited this, over WGY, as one phase of the 'elephantiasis' from which Russia suffers. Their streets must be wider, their public squares larger, their buildings higher than those in any other country.' Said that the great Red Sqiiare which faces ticnin's Tomb and the Kremlin is to be doubled in size to permit larger military parades and pageants. Minor related his arrival in Mos- (Contlnued on page 55) CHAMPIONS MRS. F.D.R. Ohio SheriO Nlxcs 'l/brespectfnl' Pnppet - Characterization Steubenville, O., AprU 11. The sheriff won't allow the First Lady to be treated 'disrespectfully' in stage shows here. Sheriff Robert D. Bates attended a vaude show where a marionet, in the likeness of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, was manipulated in a dance that he de- cided was on the 'jitterbug' side. The puppet of the First Lady was taken out of the show after Bates warned the manager to delete it or face arrest Relative . Standing in Roagh Per(;«ntag^|rpm Last S«a- ^n Indicate)* Several-Much Improved-nSome Lose Mo* mentum: of "Public 'Faivor QUIZ RASH Network radio programs, entering the spring 13-week cycle that pre- cedes the summer hiatus, are pretty weU charted by now in populari^ terms of up-or-down (from last year), and Uttle change is likely among the leaders by the end of the season. The season of 1938-39 was marked by a number of problem shows. At least one, the Tommy Riggs entertainment for Quaker Oats, seems to have been straightened out. KeUogg's mi'.ch-discussed $20,000 'Circle' remains bu ipy, with the trade inclined to rate it a faUure. Season has developed very little production novelty. There are nearly 30 audience quiz prO;v-'ams. Radio production's sheep-like nature Is weU exemplified both for the regular sea- son aild the summer substitutions by the widespread devotion to this now fraying formula. In rough relation to the industry's staudard popularity barometer, the Cooperative Analysis of broadcast- ing, the following changes, have taken place this season among lead- ing programs. Offered as sympto- matic rather than conclusive or all- inclusive, this suggests what has been happening or not happening: Today against Pro-am year ago. Amos 'n' Andy 5% down Fred AUen Even Phil Baker 50% down Jack Benny Even Ben Bemie 10% up Major Bowes. ..>..< 5% down Good-wiU hour 10% iip Good News 10-15% up Hit Parade Even Hobby Lobby 15% up Lum and Abner 10% down Magic Key 15% up Prof. Quiz 15% up Al Pearce 15% down Rinso Party 30% down Edw. G. Hobinson-CIaire Trevor 30 % up Silver Theatre 40% up Kate Smith 45% up Rudy VaUee 25% down Vox Pop 25% down We, the People. 60% up A BABBYMOBE CANCELLED Ethel Barrymore 'Colt, dramatic actress, is too inexperienced as a vaude singer, with result' she was puUed after the first day (8) of a week's engagement at the Earle, Washington. Washington dailies printed that the daughter of Ethel Barrymore was suffering from ptomaine poison- ing. AD Pkture Cos. Set to BankroD Biray Legit; Wharton-Wis Plan TuneleM HVood Hollywood's fiharp swerve fEont,-iBlin.uslca]s during the past r sevcffal months Is reflected in a - big wiy in .Variety's compilation- of the l>est song seUers. For the first time in seven years the Ust of 15 best seUers as shown in the Music" Dept of this issue doesn't contain a. single picture song. - The same week a year ago 10 out of the IS best- seUers were flhnusical excerpts. PHONES A SONG TO LONDON, irSSOLD Simon Van Ller, general manager of Keith-Prowse's music publishing interests, last week closed with Forster Music, Inc., for the foreign rights to 'Night Mist on the Canyon' after phoning a recording of the ttme to his London office. The call was made by Van Lier from Chicago to get his associates' reaction to' the number. Van Ller saUed for home Saturday (8). ' During his stay in the States Van Lier also obtained the rights to 'Shadrack' from Carl Fischer, Inc., and 'I'm Building a Sailboat of Dreams' from Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., and renewed his firm's agency contract with Forster. Van Ller likewise opened negotiations with WurUtzer Co. for the introduction of the coin-operated phonograph ma- ciiine in Britain. BOOK BANDS INTO 1940 New York Contracts Being Set Well Ahead lor Names Scramble for the big name bands for location dates in New York City during next fall and winter is al- ready tmder way with two of the biggest already in the bag and a third due to be brought down. Sit- uation looks to be as good or better than last season when 15 or 20 of the top outfits were aU bucking each other at the same time. , Benny Goodman returns to the Empire Room of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, N. Y., Oct. 1. Artie Shaw is..optioned to go into the Pennsyl- vania's Cafe Rouge Oct. 15, and a deal is currently on to restore Tommy Dorsey to the Hotel New Yorker's Terrace Room, foUowlng his exit from the Pennsylvania's Roof, where he stays imtil Sept. 17. He opens there latter part of May. Sammy Kaye has been offered a re- turn shot at the Commodore open- ing, if accepted, about Oct. 1. Although negotiations looking- to^ ward the resumption of Hollywood financing of Broadway pr6^uctlon have been at k virtual standstUl for the last couple of weeks, aU tha major picture companies are active, ly readying to reenter legit produ- chig next faU at the latest Mean- whUe, film executives have predicted that an agreement Is in the bag and inthnated that aU but one or two minor, details are set Dramatists Guild councU Is ex- pected to consider the latest draft of the so-called John D. Wharton-Jacob Wilk plan early next week before Robert R Sherwood, GuUd pres., sails for London. If the council okays the pact it wUI then be submitted to the League of New York Theatres. After that it would presumably b« approved by the picture companies (or they would sign a supplementary letter agreeing to abide by Its terms). Hitch in the conferences over tba newest draft of the plan were caused by the iUness of Sidney R. Fleischer, Guild attorney and negotiator. Then, with Fleischer fully recovered and back on the job, Luise SUlcox, GuUd executive secretary, was injured In a faU from a bus and was confined to her honte'for several dajrs.. Buddies between Fleischer, Mlss '£tilicox, Jake Wllk of Warners, and J. Rohert Rubin of Metro are being resimied this week. With Warners planning to back (Continued on page B4) C6iinecticnt hcome Tax Pends; Cognoscenti See End to Nntmeg Charm Bridgeport, AprU II. Celebrities of show biz, arts and letters who have in recent years been settling in southwestern Con- necticut attractively near Manhat> tap and, away from the New York state income tax, are aroused by a Connecticut state incoi -> tax bill advocated by the farmers' bloc in leftlslature in Hartford. Big-name commuters, many of whom have become important fac- tors in Connecticut politics, predict a speedy end of property buying by famous New Yorkers if tax goes througli. London Subway Shunps, Hollywood Gets Blame London, AprU 4. Hollyw.ood is made the goat, be- cause this town's subway system has registered a slump in its traffic re- ceipts! Lord Ashfield, head of Lon- don Passenger Transport Board, says one reason is the relatively unattrac- tive quality of films shown recently in West End theatres. Exhibition of pictures with strong appeal makes a clear difference to the take.