Variety (Jan 1942)

Januaiy 7, 1942 IfWOOD Anniversary PICTUBE8 DOWN, BUT STILL PROUD By Fred Allen It was three a.m. Bendo, the little contortionist, who had just consum- mated a one-night stand at Stamford, scurried out of the Grand Central Station- carrying his straw suitcase and seven dollars net As Bendo turned west on 42nd street, he heard someone go 'Pssst!' Looking around he saw that, except for an old dilapidated "hoise and a battered hansome cab, the neighborhood was deserted. Bendo turned to go when again he heard 'Pssst!' This time Bendo wheeled about quickly. There was no one in sight. The driver sat slumped over atop his hansom cab in conference with Morpheus. Bendo, thinking that perhaps a friend of Dunnlnger's from the spirit world might be nearby with , bis ectoplasm caught in a transom, said,'Who is it? Who went Pssst?-' . A voice replied, 'I did.' 'Who's that talking?' ..'It's me, the horse. Come here a minute.' ' Bendo walked over to the hansom cab and, sure enough, the horse was imiling. 'You don't remember me, do you?, said the horse. 'Well, your harness looks familiar,' confessed Bendo, 'but you I don't seem to place.' 'I was on the bill with you in Buffalo,' said the horse. 'I was the juv^ nilc with Fink's Stallions. I did all the comedy. Rentember?' That's right,' agreed Bendo. 'You done pantomime all through,the act And for the finish you stood up on your hind legs.' / — 'Holding a big American flag in my mouth,' added the horse. Tou were a riot' .'^ 'Yes, those, were happy times,' mused the horse, 'I atUl keep my scrap- book in my stall.' Noting the horse's tattered harness and rundown shoes, Bendo felt sorry for his brother performer. 'What brought you to this?' he asked,.'doing straight for a gutter gon- dola?' „ 'Well, you know what happened to vaudeville?' said the horse sadly, ■Fink couldn't get any dates. The act split up. I hung around Befmont for a while, but I couldn't get anything. I finally had to grab this' job pounding the streets with this cab.' 'But today vaudeyiire's comin' back,' argued Bendo excitedly. 'A talkln' horse. You'll be a novelty. They're lookin'for flesh. You can get plenty of dates.' 'No,' replied the horse shaking his head, 'I'm through.' Thrpugh nbthin,' argued Bendo. 'Look, I'm going up to the IiOew- office in th^ morning. I'll tell Sidney Piermont you're doln' a great single. Why, M-^OTse with 15 minutes of talk. Youll be all set.' ^ 'Please,' begged the horse, 'promise ma ' 'What?' said Bendo. •Promise me you won't tell Piermont you saw me.' 'Why?' asked Bendo eagerly. 'Because,' bellowed the horse, 'I would rather puU this dirty, battered cab' over the lumpy cobblestones of New York 18 hours a day than play that Loew Circuit again.' ^ 'I understand,' said Bendo. The little contortionist picked up his straw lultcase and scurried away into what was left of the night Moral: You may see columnists on the Loew Circuit todav, but you never fee a horse. Tommy Gray s Tattles (1917) iTommy Gray, a regular 'Variety' contributor and a great natural uiit, was etiidently the creator of many of the current war gags. His columns of the early months of World War I disclose humor that's topical today . and being used with but slight suiitches.) Since the British Government has established a recruiting station in New York many fellows have sud- denly lost their English accent. As it seems to us, things in Russia are as peaceful as the rehearsals of a play with an all-star cast. It's a poor act that can't play three or four benefits a day nowadays. Some managers, am gomg to send shows to play near camps. It should be stopped. The soldiers will have trouble enough. , Jazz bands will not be hurt by the war. Nothing can hurt jazz bands. Can't audiences claim exemption from: 'Gunga Din' 'My next imitation .. .' 'My latest composition . ..' English version of ragtime songs Pictures that will stop the war ' American Flag songs Hauiatian dancers Talking acrobats Jazz bands It must be great to hear the boys ,11 the trenches singing all those .iongs. , A lot of 'School Acts' will be broken up by the draft Broadway musi holler 'lights' at 10:40 every night It wiU not be dark, however, as buck dancers' clothes arc al\ ays in evidence. War will make a big change in me drama. From now on all vil- lains will have to be German, Aus- trian or Turkish. tSwitch to Japs and Italians; stet Germans.—Ed.] " There are not so many acrobats doing talking acts. Maybe the dialects have something to do with it. Let's hope the boy: in the trenches have time to smoke all that tobacco. It took the V7orld Wax to make a man out of the wrist watch. With the college 'boys enlisting, it looks like a tough season for the chorus girls. When you come to think of it, conscription is not so bad. Besides 'the folks you love,' it also takes in authors, song pluggers, hotel clerks, baggage men, . -.t reviewers, agents, chorus men, taxi drivers and female impersonators. The conscription law made a lot of those 'boy wonder' violin and piano players tell their right age. -This is a great chance for the boys who have been writing war songs to volunteer and do some of the things they have been writing about See where the U.S. is going to have 30,000 aeroplanes. Looks like a great chance for acrobats to volun- teer to teach the boys how to take falls. More war songs would be written if the song boys could find a word to rhyme with 'khaki,' NEED EOR NEIIll fAGES URGENT Exhibitors Decry Lack of Courage on the Part of the Producers and Distributors to Build Up Stars—Present Marquee Crop Fast Fading —Few Studios Jlave Dared ,^ M-G MOST SUCCESSFUL By ARTHUR UNGAR Hollywood, Jan. 4. Hollywood has a most serious prob lem' on its hands for 1942 and there after. It must develop talent that will mean something to it with the exhibitdr and the public. Stars who have been in the popular foreground this past decade have been fading or starting to fade as the years went by, and will continue to fade as the next few come along. Both eastern film moguls and rulers of cinema's productive ground are not particularly speculative in the induction of new talent, 'It his been a byword throughout the na- tion, especially among the exhibs, as well as In Hollywood itself, that the producers are determined to feed their customers what they choose and not what is best for them—new faces in abundance. It's the old story here of 'let the other fellow take the chance, not me.' Hollywood has had jiew faces, new names, etc., in the past five years, but they have not been in sufficient num- bers to give any company an edge in finding an easy way for its prod- uct outside of Metro. That company for the past 10 years or more has been the leader in the industry from the standpoint of having a sufficient number of important and talented people on its roster who can ade- quately, as well as potently, fill the cast of a picture. Metro, fortunately for itself, has been in a position to experiment and build up its talent Lots of it has been kept under wraps for long periods, paid salary and never used until the opportune itme. Then the company utilized it to full- est extent and to excellent advan- tage. L. B. Mayer's Enterprise Has Paid Big Dividends Louis B. Mayer can be given credit for that method of operation. He started it about eight years ago. He took people from all parts of the world—theatre, opera, cinema—aiid (Continued on page 46) HEADACHE Show Biz Mobilizing forjyi-Out War Effort; Its RecQrdis Already Bright Deadline Jan. 4 . This edifion of 'Vabiety went to prtfss Jan. 4. /'Early deadline, because of the mechanical pr6blems and the size of this issue, makes it nec- essary to omit certain standard departments this week. Chorines to Stars, They Gve Their All to Britain London, Dec. 15. Total war has come to mean total work'■for., show people in this coun- try. For. more than two years now stars of stage, screen and ^adio have been putting in a seven-day week every week as their contribution to the war effort. With two-a-day the rule for most West End produc- tions to beat the early blackout, practically every^one of the leading players figure on a Sunday> charity bill as well. It Is Impossible even to approximate the gross takings from these thousands of charity shows since September, 1939, but Bud Flanagan's (Flanagan Ic Allen) guess is probably as good as any- body's when ' he says they have raised more tnoney than John Pub- lic would hand over for any cause, bar only buying a wreath for Hitler, The great majority of males of military age are, of course, in some of the fighting forces.' In the numer- ous women's auxiliary organizations the hundreds of performers, from leading ladies to chorus girls. If most of these whole-time war work- ers enlisted because the blitz of the second year of the war knocked show business for a lodp; the fact remains that they have done, and are doing a great job, and are in for the'duration. Naming Individuals in these cir- cumstances is possibly unfair. Scores have made equal self-sacrifices in the common cause. David Nlven Outstanding, if only because he was one of the first of British film stars to quit Hollywood, is the case of David Niven, now a major in the King's Rifle Brigade—an organi- zation of crackshots—and when last (Continued on page 54) Season 1897-98 ^ The show business, in all its fields and phases, in component parts and as a whole, is mobilizing for the common cause of defending America. Long strides have already been taken by the profession to help axe the Axis, but the full picture of what the industry can and will do has not yet been drawn. ' As an industry, it will unques- tionably lead the way in - raising funds to pay for the war effort either by conducting drives to sell Defense Bonds, or soliciting outright contributions for the many war re- lief charities that are bound to spring up. In World War I the show busi- ness got special commendation from the Government for doing more than any other industry to further the various Liberty Loan drives. As a builder of morale, there's no more potent force than entertain- ment. It's also the. most palatable and likely means of spreading and dispensing propaganda, even more so in the current strife than in World War I, because now there's a highly developed radio broadcasting that was non-existent when Kaiser WU- helm led the Huns. Spurred by an urge to do more than just talk about defending the Fifth Freedom—and all the other freedoms, too—many a show busi- ness personality during the past year kicked over his stratospheric Income to get in there and actively do his part to defend the world against Hitlerism. To list those in the profession who during 1941 took some role in aiding in the defeat of the Axis, would con- sume a volume. No other industry has been more generous of its time and labor; none has given a greater percentage of Its personnel. As in past wars, show business Is doing its .full part A great many of its workers are serving by merely doing their daily jol^they are cre- ating the entertainment that helps national morale. Many are taking a more direct part To list relatively few of those who are doing so, there's: Id the Service Robert Montgomery, who gave up a Hollywood career at its peak to accept active service with the Nflvy. He's now in Washington after hav- ing spent a number of months in England as naval attache at the American Embassy. Prior to the fall of France. Montgomery was a volun- teer ambulance driver in the war zone. Robert Riskln, who quit his. highly (Continued on page 48) JEry Trode Mark -Rtrliiered POUNDED BT aiME SILVERMAN rabllKlieii n>eklj by VAHiKrt, lar. „Slil Sllvormnn, Prealdoni 15< Weal ICth Slroet, Now Tork. N. ? sunscniPTiON Slnglo Coploi. 2j c«nli Vol. 145 No. E Happjr N*w Temr INDEX Bills 1S6 Concert-Opera 148-154 Film Reviews 44 House Reviews 185 International 89-107 Legitimate 187-209 Music 155-170 Night Clubs 171-184 Obituary 210 Pictures 4-88 Radio 108-147 Vaudeville 171-184 DAILT VABIETY .(PubllaheA la Hollywood by Dally Varlotr. Ltd,) 110 a v«ar—III toralgn