Variety (Dec 1942)

RADIO MUSIC STAGE v. niETY Publlahtil Wa«kl7 >t lEI Wert 4«tli Btnat, Ntw Terk, N. by Variety, Inc. Annual aubicrlptlon, |10. Bln(I« coplea 21 canta. Bnlerad u Bacond-olaa* matUr Decembar 12, ItOS, at tb« Foat Oftlc* at New Tork, N. X„ under the act at MaTob I. lITa. COPTBIGHT, IMZ, BY VABIETX, INC. ALL BIGHTS RESEBVED VOL. 146 No. 13 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1942 PRICE 25 CENTS Showfoik's Heroism in Boston ¥m RecaUs Sinular Deeds in the Past The holocaust Saturday night (28) In Boston, when panic-stricken pa- trons at the Cocoanut Grove nitery trampled and clawed each other to death as smoke and flame choked and seared them, will rank as the third greatest Are tragedy in world show business history. With a toll up until yesterday (Tuesday) of 449 dead, the Boston catastrophe com- pares to Chicago's Iroquois theatre fire of Dec. 30, 1903, when 602, chiefly women and children, were killed, and the all-time theatre ca- tastrophe on Dec. 8, 1881, when the Ring, Vienna, went up in flames and cost 850 lives. Stories of heroism likewise mark the story of the Boston blaze, and the nitery's performers and musi- cians have been amqpg those espe- cially cited for bravery. They were living up to a tradition that was per-, haps highlighted by Eddie Foy's heroic effort that 1903 Xmas Week matinee of 'Mr. Bluebeard' when he held In check the kids, and their mothers who were horrified by flames licking out from the wings. Foy took the centre stage and as- sured the audience that there was nothing to worry about. He told the orchestra to continue playing and then he called to the. stage- hands to lower the asbestos curtain. It appeared as though a tragedy would be averted—the audience sat quietly. The asbestos was halfway down when somebody opened the backstage door, causing a draft that billowed out the curtain. It stuck. The flames burst out over Foy's head and into the audience as though running through a natural flue. Pandemonium broke loose as the audience rushed for the doors. The Iroquois, open only one month and still playing its flrst production, was the newest and considered the (Continued on page 20) In Good Practice Thus far the Broadway sea- son has disclosed three wedded couples appearing in casts to- gether as man and wife. Jose Ferrer and Uta Hagen were the married pair in 'Vickie' (closed), as are Fredric March and Florence Eldridge In 'The Skin of Our Teeth' (Plymouth). Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are romantic about each other in "The Pirate' (Beck). Move t» Bar Smokiiig In Theatres Resnlt Of Boston Holocaust Boston nightclub holocaust is al- ready making New York authorities •uperotrict in night clubs and thea- tres here, with especial attention to fireproof drapes, ample exits, wh- etc. Theatre managers hope for a ruling that will bar smoking in theatres, which Is an undeniable hazard, as well as offensive to most patrons. Some theatre managers are asking fire department inspec- tors to urge their chiefs to sponsor such regulation. Military authorities, aware that the Boston disaster was a military ■etback on account of great loss of lives of trained men in uniform, ■re also expected to send inspectors to examine places where crowds of service men congregate, despite fact that most army and navy bar- rficks, made of wood, couldn't pass underwriters tests. Ban on All Hub Entertainment Hits 1161 Spots Boston, Dec. 1. Aftermath of Cocoanut Grove dis- aster, the Boston License Commission today (1) imposed a complete ban on all entertainment in Boston night clubs, hotels, restaurants, cafes and taverns, some 1,161 establishments. Those which dispense liquor, as well a those which do not, are affected, including 35 hotels, 682 restaurants (which includes nite clubs) and 293 taverns. Catastrophe clause covers contractual deferments. Ban will stand until inspections by Building and Fire Departments give assiu'ance that no dangerous con- ditions exist, the board said. The emergency edict is that there will be no dancing by the public in places where liquor and food are served as well as no floor shows or other similar entertainment, including jukeboxes. Th^' order by the board came a short time after the members had been called into conference by Governor Saltonstall. PEELERS RESURGE Franco on Ope Side and Hays Tabus IN CINEMA CYCLE Strip Down to Gold Leaf in H'wood Versions of Tin- seled Teasers—Slim, Trim G-Stringers Romp in Re- vival of Skin Game STUDIOS TEMPTED Clayton-Jacksott-Durante May Reunite for Frisco Vaudery Next Febmary The reunion as a stage act of (Lou) Clayton, (Eddie) Jackson and Jimmy Durante, often talked about the past few years, may become an actuality mid-February, when Paul Small opens his own straight-vaude show at the Curran, San Francisco. Small, who returned from the.Coast Monday (30) has already closed a deal for Durante to headline the show. No other acts .re definitely set as yet for show, whipb Small is tagging 'Big Time.' Hollywood, Dec. 1. Major film lots are beginning to take on all the trappings of a high class hurley wheM, only burley in Chi's Star & Garter, the Haymarket, and other famed flesheries never was like this. Hollywood goes for burlesque like it does for all other aspects of enter- tainment, only in the biggest, brash- est and most colossal fashion. Show biz knew the burley queens and chorines as a bevy of the hardest working, most earnest entertainers in all the gamut. Three shows a day and up, no backstage maid help in most cases, plenty of -costume changes and hence plenty of laundry work, 10-20-30 admish nnd a pay scale that measured up to the box- office intake. Hollywood burley is exactly what you would expect it to be. A film major setting out to throw a flesh show flrst hires two or three high class writers at $1,500 a week each and up. These scribs are turned loose on the entire field of burlesque as it was built up and developed in the half century or so when our grampas were squirts and a leg show was a place filled with the bouquet of stale beer and stogie fumes. After the first battalion of writers has cribbed Joe Miller and Al Reeves and digested all the funny things Lew Dockstader ever thought of, in gallop the polisher-uppers to hop up dialog. A top studio will not feel that it has done its duty by an 'A' production until the script repre- sents $500,000 or more. By that time it may be a hot script and it may be a piece of writing in which the writers have polished each other right off the page and canceled out all the freshness. Which has been known to happen, and not infre- quently, especially when the budget is tall enough to bear up under mauling. Of course, all that may ruin the picture, any picture, but next the casting department has its way and a casting director who knows his trade and has an unlimited bankroll to draw on can pull the most mal- treated film enterprise out of the fire. He works with names, and names drag in the customers. In- stead of a struggling beldame of 47 summers, thick in the wrong places, with a voice a Mt like an asthmatic tuba, a tailored grin, a pair of gams like Cleopatra's Needle, and the gift of dancing something like a trained (Continued on page 47) Oh the Other Beset Par s M W From a Loving Nephew London, Nov. 6. Memo to Uncle Sam: Will the United States posUl authorities In N;w York please refrain from packing butter in the same bundles as the copies of 'Variety' destined for England? It may make no diffe^nce to the butter, but it is rather diffi- cult to read the publication after such an association. Soldiers Vote Grable, Lamour Its Top Stars Washington, Dae. 1. Hollywood producers will get a surprise when Army Motion Picture Service releases the 10 Best Pictures of 1942 as determined by boxoffice receipts in the camp theatres. Unless some feature runs like Whirlaway in the stretch, the No. 1 picture will be 'Song of the Islands,' a Betty Grable film, with Thomas Mitchell, Jack Oakie and Harry Owens' orchestra. Runner-up, as the tabulations look at the moment, will be To the Shores of Tripoli,'.-which was a story of the U. S. Marines with Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Nancy Kelly and Randolph Scott. Twentieth Century-Fox has long contended that Betty Grable Is the favorite ,pin-up-ln-the-barracks star, but she may have to contest for that honor with Dorothy Lamour. I.at- ter's 'Beyond the Blue Horizon' was the July favorite and 'Road to Mor- occo' may win the sarong girl the championship. Analysis of the receipts shows that (Continued on page 54) If You're Draftless And 60, You Can Get A Job As Chorus Boy Washington, Dec. 1. The young chorus boy in musicals has gone with the war breezes. Gilbert & Sullivan, as presented in Washington last week, had a male chorus line whose average ag^ was 40. One member of the merry-mer- ry was 60, but he still has his voice and can shake a foot. Producers say It is safer to sign up the veterans who are beyond the draft age, or married, rather than experiment with war potentials who are tapped for the U. S. Army after they have learned the dancing rou- tines. Washington, Dec. 1. U. S. State Department will even- tually decide whether "For Whom the Bell Tolls,' Paramount produc- tion, will follow Hemingway's book or be released in the version ap- proved by Franco of Fascist Spain. At the suggestion of the State De- partment, the producers permitted a representative of the Franco govern- ment to have a say-so on controver- sial angles of the script. Since Hem- ingway's book is definitely and pos- itively antl-Fasclst, Franco's man had considerable to say. However, director Sam Wood, besides shooting the scenes to appease the Spaniard, played safe and shot the same scenes according to Heniingway. Nothing was known of the North African military campaign in Holly- wood nor of the necessity of appeas- ing the Spanish dictator. Tor Whom the Bell Tolls' had 80 shooting days, longest since 'Gone With the Wind' and more than $2,000,000 is tied up in the production. Paramount would now like to cut the, picture with fealty to the author's 'writing, feeling the necessity of pleasing Franco has passed. Another two-way shooting was the sleeping bag scene of the book. Di- rector Wood shot it both ways. The Hays office refused to okay scenes with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Berg- man in the bag together, as in the book. Whether both will be in or out of the bag must be determined, with the belief that the Hays office will not yield on this point. Hepburn Uncertainty' About Long B'way Stay Endangers Snuish B.O. 'Without Love,' which drew a di- versified press when it opened at the St. James, N. Y., has been playing to audiences of standee proportions sii.ce the debut, with indications that the play could easily score a long r- n. Players supporting Katharine Hepburn, however, are rather tm- certain whether the star will be disposed to appear In 'Love' for an e^'.tended period. Before the play reached Broad- way, Miss Hepburn is reported to have said that the St. James en- gagement would be limited. More recently she's said to have indicated that 'Love' probably will not play through winter and that she planned to go to Hollywood about the middle of February. Known that some of the actors are angling for other jobs because of that. Expectations are that Miss Hep- burn will revise her plans in view of the excellent business. 'Love,' one of the biggest money shows among straight plays, has the aid of the St. James' execeptional capa- city In topping the other new hits s'ichlly.