Variety (Jun 1945)

Studios Continue to Hop on Latin-Am. Band (Wagon) for Added Conga to B.O. By WHITNEY WILLIAMS Hollywood, June 5. T;a tin-A rrter) ca n, markets shortly will be flooded not alone with American-localod product but with pictures patterned, against countries of the home teams as well. Ever since Walt Disney's "Saludbs Ami- gos" made such inroads on coin be- low the border. Hollywood produc- ers have been preparing scripts with backgrounds of Spanish-speaking nations until today the trend is very Latin-American. Few studios are passing up 'this golden opportunity to cultivate: friends and open lip new .outlet; iii: the republics to the south. Republic, which jtlsf now is cele- brating its 10th anniversary., appears to have got. the jump on other com- panies; apart from -Disney, who, be- sides "Sa'ludos.". has his high-gross- ing "Three Caballeros." Nearly a year ago. this studio recognized the popular appeal of Ary . Barroso's song ''Brazil." arid made a picture around the song title.,: bringing the songwriter from that country to "" Holly'wobctTto .-; cler. additional liutn-'" bers for the production. ' ttardl,'..were the cameras cold than' James FitzPatrick, who for years has turned out travel shorts for Metro, made a deal with Repub- lic to produce a bilingual film, "Song of Mexico," in Mexico. Ho traveled up and down the corridors of Mana- naland to film this: Acapulco, Cu- ernavaca, Mazatlaii. Guadalajara, and a dozen other picturesque ports of cr 11. Herbert J. Yates, company head, is reported to have been so . enthusiastic about this picture that ' he immediately signed FitzPatrick to make another, this one probably to be about Cuba, jfler producer re- turns in the fall from England. Maraca Musicals Republic currently is producing "Mexicana," m usical. co-starring Constance Moore and Tito Guizar, with Estelita and other Latin Ameri- can artists, and in July "or August "Rio de Janeiro'' is slated to roll, also with Guizar in lop male role. Studio probably will utilize musical services of Ary Barro-o aiain for this one. Herman Millakowsky's dra- ma, "Strange Obsession," soon to start, will unfold' for most part in Mexican setting. RICO is very Latin America- minded also, with "Pan-Americana," a musical,, already released, and "Magnificent Tramp," to star. Can- tinflas, Mexico's leading comedian, coming up. John H. Aucr. who pro- duced - directed "Pan - Americana," will, repeat with Cantinflas film, wh'ch very likely will be filmed in part in Mexico City. Present plan • is to niaVrc this in English and Span- ish. "" "Ahothcr 'proTtiTetTofr Til this cycle is "Cornered," which will star Dick Powell in an Argentine setup, di- rected by Edward Dmytryk. Direc- tor : has just returned from three weeks in Buenos Aires, where he had several thousand feet of back- ground footage lcn,sed' for picture, slated as one of RKO's most ambi- tious fm-coming season. Metro's Contribution Metro is about to start two. "Holi- daytin Mexico" and "Fiesta Brava." First, probably to be filmed in Tech- nicolor, is a .Joe Pasternak produc- tion, and will return" Ilona Massey to the screen, as.: well -as present Jane Powell and Jose Iturbi. Esther .Williams has been tentatively set for "Fiesta..'.', also a musical. ' ] "Masquerade in Mexico," pairing Dorothy.Laniour and Arturo de Cor- dova, i.s already in the can at Para- mount, this company some time 'ago having turned:. out "Eombalero," • Technicolor musical short which was up lor an Academy award. Columbia ■ also has completed "Gay Sehorita," starring Jinx FaJkenburg. and while this musical has Olvera Street, in Los Angeles' Mexican quarter,'-for background, it definitely can be in- cluded- in any Lalin-Anicrieaii trend. Laurcl aud Hardy's 'The Bullfight- ers" was released several weeks ago by 2*0th-Fox. as f-'irerunner to its lineup of bolow-the-Border films. Company has several, shaping up in script form, with "Mexico City" probably rolling first.With Carmen Miranda starred, There is also "Chi- ca Chicb," Damon Runyon produc- tion, and "Captain of Castile," from Samuel Schellabargcr best-seller, which unfolds in part in the Mexico of Cortcz period. William LcBaron was scheduled to produce "Rio Ca- bana" before lie left lot's roster of producers. Upon his departure, he announced he would return to make this as soon as the war permitted traveling to South America. United Artists producer, Andrew Stone, some time ago reported he planned to""produce "Pan-American 'Sensations 'T)T—1946" whenever he could trek to South' America with a troupe. PRC is represented in line- up with "Club Havana," musical with Carlos Molina and his orches- tra, and Isabel ita, the dancer, prom- inently featured. Jack Schwarz also starts "Bombshell From Brazil" about June $ for PRC release, and representative of Capra-Briskin unit announces that this new organiza- tion Will turn out suitable produc- tion for Latin-American inarket. MCA TRYING TO LURE JOSEPHINE BAKER HERE Attempts are being made to im- port Josephine Baker into this Coun- try by Sidney Piermont, of Music Corp. of America. Piermont .has been in correspondence with Miss Baker, foremost Negro entertainer On-.the^Gohtiii&it.^-whOi-is-.-currently- attached to the French ■ army as a lieutenant in the entertainment corps, ■'-, .. Piermont met Miss Baker while at Casablanca, where he .served with Army Special Services. , 155th WEEK! KEN MURRAY'S "BLACKOUTS OF 1945" El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood, Cal. "IJest evoniiiK's entvi'tainmont in America. Ken Murray is gt'ertt." FRED ALLEN Hope, Benny,'Info' Alerted for U80 +♦ + ■♦♦♦♦♦+♦+4 SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK ♦ By Frank Scully This Songplugger Has Real Ups and Downs Chicago. June 5. I A lotta songpluggers have their ups and downs, but Billy Moss, who's been at it off and on for 30 years, is having more than his share right now. Moss, who carries his office in his. hat, is currently plugging a ditty en- titled "Serenade of an Old Guitar" while ascending and descending in a Woods Bldg. elevator, his extra-cur- ricular avocation being that of operator. Cooks Tour, June 3. Robert Benchley, who used to be a newspaperman himself tN. Y. Tribune-Lipton's bar; circa 1915) and Who can still toss a baby up to the ceiling and catch the darling 20 times (on 12 whiskey sours), author of "For .God's Sake, .tot Jfe_ChitJjf. TJw^ tini!" has reduced the writing of books to character parts. He's down to 800-word intros. His latest, which took four years to write, used a turkey as cooked by Morton Thompson, to further confuse readers who might otherwise never be able to make head or tail of Thompson's, "Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player" alone. But they're not confusing us. They figured they had a turk on .their hands and were going to beat the critics to the storehouse. But we, the people, crossed them up! We seem to like these wounded tennis players, 8-ball gazers and termites at the feet of totem poles, not to stress publish- ers like Bennett Cerf who compete with their own authors as gag-corn- pilers. Even Hollywood is buying the products of screwball scriveners, but they won't buy Thompspn for a while because he's a GT. without so much as a wound stripe, and currently far short of points. If and when they do get him back, Metro might thank Jim Tully and me who worked like dogs five years ago to place this Thompson as a writer at Culver City, so that he could get fired for not working hard enough and thus get spare lime to write a. book. '..:--'/ (A coliiiiiriist is a reporter who got a lucky bi'ciijc that later (unreel OKI to be a fracture, — From Joe's diary.) v..';'".'■..' Author-Actor Benchley says he consulted an analyst who told him . the reason he couldn't get around to writing the intro to Thompson's cookbook (which was to-be called "The Naked Countess," a title supplied by J. B. Priestly, who couldn't use it either) was because he was secretly jealous of Thompson's cooking and in his subconscious, a downtown local station •j.Bowling Gnepn, really), Benchley, was trying to hold back publication of' j Thompson's turk; It made sense, except that Benchley didn't write any- i thing else in those four years. Little did anybody think that the intro of j "The Naked Countess" would turn up later as the intro to "Joe, the With their air shows going off for j Wounded-Tennis Player." All agreed that Joe was so good he needed the summer, seve'ral toppers are no high class introduction, which is exactly what hegot. • ' , ,, cri ! (Ever notice how happy a man is when asleep? That's because lie's headed overseas lot USO-Camp | ..^ ( , of)i , w _ f>om Joe ,/ dW ... ■ . , .';; Shows in probably the largest aggre-| And vou re not getting "How to Cook a Turkey" by Thompson out, of gation of talent abroad at pile time, i "Variety" either. I've eaten those Thompson treated turkeys both, with Bob Hope and a unit that includes | Benchley and at home, and judged by Cain's storehouse or, current black market standards, they're tough birds to mess around with. Read Thomp- son on anything but turkeys. Read him everywhere and anywhere, especially in "Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player," but turn a deef ear to him when he tries to cackle his way into your kitchen disguised as a turkey. Henry W. Hanneman, Who somehow got in that famous class of Columbia '17 along with M. Lincoln Schuster. Howard Dietz, Morris Mankiewicz, will testify that Thompson Jerry Colonna is off this month to Europe (ETO) for eight weeks. An- other unit consisting of Jack Benny, Paulette Goddard, Larry Adler. and Martha Tilton, is also set for ETO for eight weeks, starting in June. , , ... . Also set for ETO i.s the "Informa- ^lund, S, Seadler and H J. Mankiewicz. w,ll tion Please" program, unit to con- W ^ SU P' ,0S ^ l ^,™^^ S : rao ^ bo ^^ 1 !? 8 ° sist of Dan Golenpaul, owner-origi Loop Landmark, Saratoga Hotel Folds After 72 Yrs. Chicago, June 5. Saratoga hotel, oldtime Loop land- mark and stopping place years ago of many of the greats of showbiz, closed the last, of its stack of reg- isters Friday (1) tor good. Learned the Chi board of. education, which owns the site, plans to wreck the eight-story. 72-year-old building as unsafe, .So the last of the hotel's 35 guests, .'.ome of whom have lived there for 30 years, moved out—amotig them "Doc" Mills, also somewhat, .of a landmark; "Mills, "who - cTaims"~to be' the Saratoga's official greetcr, re- called, last week when it used to be the gayest spot in Chi and a strong- hold of free lunch where the sand- wiches were piled so high the bar- tenders had to use hooks, like gro- cers use to haul packages-down from the. top shelf. Gathering spot for theatrical and racing crowds, Some of the guests included Gaby Deslys, Kitty Gor- don, Lillian Russell, Richard Mans- field, Anna Held,' George Adc, De- Wolf Hopper. Fay Templcton, Weber & Fields. John.' Barry more. Opie Read. Finley Peter Dunne. Snapper Garrison, the Re iff brothers (jock- eys). P. D. Armour, wHo. always I drove a charabanc with six. white I horses (nit to Washington Park race- track? packing the carriage . with pretty girls. And many other- w. k. old timers. v Located on South Dearborn street, property opened as a hotel under the management of ..lames K. Sebree in 1885. passing through a great many- other managements after Sebree died. . In 1919 it was described as "the rottenest place i n the world" by Police Captain Morgan Collins, who was referring to the many mur- ders, suicides and other crimes that occurred there when it was • no longer a fashionable place to stay. But that isn't the way Mills and the other hangers-on feel about the Saratoga. After 30 years, their mot- to is. "It's small, but it's home, and we like it." Besides it's hard finding softie -place else to live. nator: Clifton Fadiman, John -Kier- nan, and Franklin P. Adams (FPA), and to include Gregory Ratoff, Regi- nald Gardiner and Joseph Freeman. Bette Davis, announced to go over- seas as Hollywood Victory Commit- tee choice, will appear in a legiter, "Holiday." Play will be cast and produced on the Coast, with the Pacific as likely destination. Minerva Pious is going overseas in a'vaude unit, "Big Time Follies." Her routine, will include a number, "I'm Just a 4-F WAG," written for her by Fred Allen. -. People who don't know how crazy Hollywod can be, think Thompson is crazy. He is not. Like most people above the rank of ragpicker he is a collector. They collect old coins, stamps, paintings. Thompson collects old gags, nude stories, morbid tales, old trusses, rejection slips and so on. But he really isn't nuts, except in this matter of writing very convincingly about his cooking, when the fact is he can't cook for huts; Thompson is better when telling how Englishmen handle Hollywood. James Hilton wrote "Goodbye Mr. Chips" for 10 pounds for a London mag, only to have Ellery Sedgwick violate all. laws of the "Atlantic Monthly" and republish it, thereby sweeping all before it until in the end Hilton was called to Hollywood to write the script for R. C. Sherriff's "Journey's End," while Shcrriff got the job of scripting "Chips." Sinatra Overseas Frank Sinatra finally got off on his first overseas trip for the USO last week. Singer, with a unit in- cluding film comic Phil Silvers, did a show in Newfoundland the night after his takeoff: from N. Y. and is now in England preparing for shows for 'occupational forces on the con- tinent. Sinatra returns to the air around Aug. 15 for Max Factor. Hollywood. PETTY GIG RACKET ALERTS CHI COPS Chicago, June 5. Manpower shortage is a source of ! acute headaches for Chi* cops and j house dicks-Tvho—are—currently cas- ing hotel lobbies and cocktail :lounges here harder than they have since pre-war days for slick char- | acters, a la the gigolo types who | operated during the N. Y., Chi, San i Francisco' and other World Fairs of '33. '39, '40. etc. '- -'.';-' ;'- . I It's all petty stuff: guy picks up ; gal, takes her to a nitery, has him- : self anywhere from $10 to $50 or ! more worth of a good time, depend- ; ing on the femme's roll, then excuses | himself, leaving her stuck with the j check. But there"ye been enough ! complaints from women, many of | whom are afraid to give- theirftemes j because they fear publicity, to cue a manhunt of no mean proportions I which "no self-respecting Mexican Cantinflas Repudiates RKO Pact;'Too H'wood' •'•'.. Mexico City, June 5. Cantinflas has nixed his RKO con- tract to play the "Beloved Vaga- bond" in English in Hollywood. Both he and his sci iptcr, Jaimes Salvador, took umbrage at the changes made in the script which they aver is now unrecognizable and calls for a "llollywoodcsquc" production in by; private and city police forces, Loop branches of which have been increased for this purpose.. . GI Jukebox Jive to Jump Thousands of jukeboxes for our farllung fighting and occupation armies are oh the agenda as a morale-booster. All of which is a further boom to Yankee music all over the globe. Dolores Del Rio Nixes Film Bids From H'wood ■ l . . Mexico City. June- 5. , Dolores Del Rio, recently returned from N. Y., claims she has turned down many offers from Hollywood and will continue to work in Mexico, where the profits on her percentage- basis pictures are -much more than any salary offered north of the border. . \ Star returns to work here this week, playing in "Chiclero," a Mau- rice de la Serna production. Dave Rose Discharged Hollywood, June 5, Sgt, David Rose received his mcdi- j cal discharge from the Army Sat- urday (2) after seven months in the DeWitt General Hospital at Auburn, Calif. Rose, who was musical director for the Army Air Force show, "Winged Victory," will return to 'studio work. or Latin-American actor would take a part." ."';'• The Mexican comic also an- nounced he would no make no: pix here this year because of the row caused by the union which he was instrumental in forming and which lie heads. He denied ''Variety's" recent re- port that he was. planning .to go to Spain, declaring that he was going to Argentina before August. Cantin- llas re fused to reveal the purpose of his Argentine trip.. . - . : SHOW BIZ POLITICOS' 2-DAY CONVENSfl IN NX The Independent Citizens Commit- tee of Arts, Sciences' aiid Professions will hold a two-day conference at the Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y., June 22-23 to discuss employment prob- lems in entertainment industries and postwar expansion. Margaret Webster and Lillian Hodman"'will "be among'the speakers in the theatre panel; Gilbert Sekles and Peter Lyon, in-'radio; William Feinberg. and Roy Harris, in music. A film panel, with Hollywood speakers, is also planned. Dr. Har* low Shapley will be conference chairman. - : : .. Turhan Bey Into Army Hollywood, June .5. Turhan Bey was inducted yester- day i4) into the Army at Ft. Mae- Arthur. He's a Universal contractce. Turkish actou was ineligible for the draft until Turkey declared war on Germany several months ago. Oberon-Korda Divorced Hollywood, June 5. :■'■ Merle Obcrbn obtained "a divorce from Sir Alexander Korda today '5) in Juarez. Mexico, on charges of in-; compatability, ' Suit uncontested by the British' producer. , Mex Comic Impatient . Hollywood, June 5. RKO pacted Cantinflas for "The Magnificent Tramp" to be made here in both English and Spanish ver-: sions, with John H. Auer producing under executive producer Sid Rogell. Cantinflas, in a statement from Mexico City, reportedly said he broke contract because "Spanish Fantasy" did not portray Mexico correctly. He said Jaime S&lvadors script was "changed beyond recog- nition by the Hollywood producing company." Lawrence Kimball wrote screenplay here. Production will now be shelved. ' B'way Fears C iiHiniicd from p ut ) the length: of time required for sol- dier entertainment. For high-salaried people the USO assignment will probably mean a big financial loss,- but rank and file's should benefit, it being figured that they welcome the guaranteed en- gagement terms. Some revision of. USO pay has been worked out, all in legit casts getting $100 weekly, and, as the Army pays all expenses, the moderate-salaried people get a chance to save a tidy sum. Previous- ly some of the smaller-part perform- ers, received less than $100, which permiVted' ^rfyment of more money to leading players:. ..'.:-