Variety (May 1946)

St BEEN MUSIC niETY Pllhllifhrd Wtokly «l 164 W«Ht 4CtU Slriyit. Ni*»- Yurie 19, N. Y.. by Xiiricly. Inc Alinii.il tuihHorip.l ion, $10. KIiikIk vopioH. 25 cimiIn. KnUTrett j»« sct-onrt-uluMU jYuilier JJet:oinl>er 2-\ I90S, nl the Po»L Office At New Ytnl<, N. y„ uihIlm- the ;ia ut March WTJ. COl-VKHiHT, IMS', ItY VAK11STV. INC. AM, HIUIITK KKSKK VMK VOL. 162 No. 9 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1946 PRICE 25 CENTS Grown-Up Nursery Rhyme and Jive Harlemania Newest Song Cycle Bv ABEL GREEN Tin Pan Alley has gone through its Longhair Hit Parade cycle, although the pop versions of Tschaikowsky and Chopin, Rachmaninoff, De- bussy and Strauss are by no means ended, but right now the music business is riding high In a grown- up nursery-rhyme vogue. "Maitv.y Doals" started it with a 900,000-copy seller, and belore that "Little Sir Echo" (out of the Campfire Girl idiom).: clicked. Today we have "Ono-zy Two-zy" and a flock of others. As part of this nursery-rhyme cycle is the screwball novelty song vogue, much of it borrowed from the jive school of Harlemania. A reprise of some of the titles indi- cates that the public is avid for .some sort of postwar escapology in its pop song manifeslations.as witness "Chickery Chick." "Ashby de la Zooch." "Shoe-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy," and "Loop-de-Loo" along with past and present novelty or nut songs of the calibre of Play- (Continued on page 44) Finders Keepers? Mt. Kisco. N. Y. ; May 7. H. Allen Smith claims to have found two. old Major Bowes' units in his woods some days back. Fred Allen fears it may be an old Ackerman & Harris road- show somebody had forgotten and cautions Squire Smith that he 'had better check on the group before giving out any false reports." Pete Jaeger Lifts Veil: It Will Pay to Fluff Under His Record Deal Something new in the way of recordings, involving albums of fluffs and the little extemporaneous re- marks on radio shows that often cause enough laughter among the studio audience and the actors to break up the show, wilt hit the market about June 1 under the aegis of CP. ("Pete") Jaeger, former veepec over creative sales of the ABC web. Announcement by Jaeger of the formation of the Souvenair Co.. which will produce and distribute the albums.' cleared up the mystery about his future plans following his resignation April 18 from ABC. Jacjjcr. who will serve as managing director of the new company, de- clared thai he had made a deal with the web more than three months (Continued on page 20) WCAU, Philly, In $6,(1,000 Sale Philadelphia, May 7. WCAU. 50.000-walt CBS outlet here, was sold today to the Philadel- phia Record for $6,000,000. Deal, supposedly the largest ever con- cluded between a newspaper and a radio station, is subject to final ap- proval of the FCC. Under the terms of sale, Dr. Leon Levy. WCAU prexy, and his brother, Isaac D.. station veepec, will become members of the board of the Record, while continuing to direct opera- tions of the station. Record has already lined up am- (Continued on page 18) RENTAL ON 'BELLS' $1,500 1ST AT $7,500,000 Among pictures currently in re- lease, a check shows that the golden dozen out front at the boxoffiees represent an expectancy in gross rental returns nationally of ap- proximately S63.000.000. an average for each-of the probable'first 12 of over 55.200,000. These figures are wholly unprecedented in the history of the industry, not only for any current releasing period, but for any entire year or longer. Most golden of the dozen now in* circulation throughout the country but which already has played a large number of engagements is RKO's ' Bells of St. Mary's" which is c\- pectcd ' to hit $7,500,000 or over in gross revenue for its distributor. Runner-up in the terrific money- winning postwar derby is "Saratoga Trunk" on which Warner Bros, ex- (Conlinued on page 4) Mrs. Rathvon, Armando To Produce Pix In Mex Mrs. N. Pelor (Helen) Rathvon. *'fe of the RKO proxy and studio head, is going into film production on her own in Mexico City. Asso- ciated with her, in what is planned as a good will hypo as well as a commercial venture, will be Ar- mando, Mexican artist, w.k. in the P>x biz, now tied up with Ihe Grant Advertising Agency. N. Y. Pair will turn.out a scries of pic- p1 r , made in bot)l Spanish and English by bilingual casts. Top wayer win ue Jol . ge Ne gi- C te. whom v.i . 0pc 10 bL,ild in t° » Mexican vaiontmo. I» each picture he will ?!„ y opposite an important Holly- wood player who can speak Span- such as Paulette Goddard or Jll "t Falkenburg COAL STRIKE ANCHORS ALL TRAVELING SHOWS Washington. May 7. Circuses, carnivals and rodeos, whose schedules call Tor them to travel on railroads powered by coal, are at the end of the trail unti'' the coal strike lets up. Office of Defense Transportation i yesterday (Monday) ordered the I movement of such shows slopped, I effective Friday (10) morning. If ■they are in large cities, t'ey will have to remain there. If they are stuck in lank town locations, the ODT will authorize I hem to proceed to the nearest city large enough to house and provision the i.'crsonnel and livestock. Paulette Serious About That Talsies' Rumor Paulette Goddard and hubby Bur- gess Meredith .weren't kidding about thai libel suit which they threatened Time mag because of its references to Miss Goddard as requiring "falsies" to enhance her charms. They're really binned up—lo the extent of gathering 1(1 affidavits froni wardrobe workers testifying that that is all Miss Goddard you see on the screen. The'Mercdiths vehemently denied in New York last week that the libel threat was a publicity plant, as had been generally thought in the indus- try. They indicated lawyers are now talking an outrof-court .settlement. ),000 Burned Up in Tryout Flops Cues Query of Coin in Sight for %'W Inevitable For double-quick lime exploi- tation of the recent Alcatraz battle, the Anco, a 42d . street <N. Y.) grindhouse gets the palm. While the attempted jailbreak was still on. the theatre booked for immediate showing "Seven Miles from Alcatraz" and 'The Last Mile." Perfected Color Tele Will Never Displace Black-White-Samoff Majority of television programs will continue to be in black and while, even when a osa(i"faciory system of color video is available, according to Brig. Gen. David Sar- nofi" RCA prexy. Speaking- yesterday (Tuesday) at a meeting of RCA stockholders. Sar- noff pointed out that although color processes have' been available lo the motion picture industry for many years, still only 6^ of the feature films shown today are in color. Same situation will probably prevail in television. SarnolV said. Outlining video's .prospects for the 'coming year. Sarnoff predicted that Ihe NBC telecast of the Louis-Conn : fight would be as significant lo video as (ho fust broadcast of the Demp- • scy-Carpenlicr fight 25 years ago I was to radio. Research and engin- j cering tarried out during the war ' will provide a greatly improved .video system, he said. ; Winchell's 1st Book Due, An Anthology of Humor Walter Winchell's firsl book is bc- : ing skedded by Simon & Schuster for Sept. 15 publication. Titled Wal- ler Winchell's "Gift of Laughter," it will be a culled ion of the columnist's • best humorous stories over the past j 15 lo 25 years, plus excerpts from ' some of Ihe standard features of his i syndicated column like "Manhattan ' Murals." "Quotation Marksmanship." i "Sounds in the Night'.'' "Memos of a ] Midnighlcr." etc. Winchcll has sug- ! gcsled Abner Dean to illustrate the book, which wilt sell for $3. While working on the old N. Y. Graphic. Winchcll had contracted j with S&S to do a book for them, but he never got around to writing it. and returned air advance to the pub- lishers.;- U.S. Asks Comics To Plug UN Idea Columbus, May 7. The State Dept. has put in a bid. via the Ohio Stale Institute- Tor Edu- cation by Radio, for the lop air co- medians with their mass audience pull, to create a greater awareness on the part of the American public lo the tremendous implications of UN through ..integrated comedy scripting. Appeal was sounded by Francis Russell, director. Office of Public Affairs, U. S. Slate Dept., who ar- gued l+iat a Jack Benny or a Bob Hope can shape popular attitudes as (Continued on page 6t) 4- Because of the amount of money ' burned tip in flops this season, the question has arisen whether as much coin will be available in 1946-47 Tor legit production. Indications are lhal there should be approximately as much money to be had. but inves- ■ tors may be inclined ?o be more cautious. Known that some of the new man- agers who marked up their plays totally on the red side of the ledger are determined to try further, but a variable percentage of others may not be heard of in show business again. It's a guess as lo how much money supposedly emanating from ■ black market sources was represented, but that type of backing could explain why so many weaklings happened to be done and explain the record number of flops at tryout. Fact that there is a shortage of theatres on Broadway was but one reason why a percentage of tryouts did not en- (Continued on page GD) Trend's Click Inspires Wave of Nitery Imports Success of Charles Trcnet. Fiench singer al the Embassy, N. Y.. is cueing a scries of singing importa- tions. Bill Miller, Embassy op. is planning a permanent policy of shows topped by foreign chanleurs and is currently dickering for a South American. Lai Martinique opens tomorrow (Thurs.) with Roger Dannes, Parisian musicomedy star, and Monte Proser is dickering Jean Sablon for the Copacabana. Embassy's gross during first week ^Continued on page 25) Argentina's Good-Will Pitch Via Pic Actress, Polo, Football Teams Miami. May 7-. Argentina is attempting to build good-will in' the United States through personalities. The Pcron regime, -to offset the bad press in .this country, has already exported one of its leading film actresses and is planning a further invasion with' polo and football learns. When in Miami last week. Tilda Thamar was careful lo explain Unit hers was not an official visit. How- ever, she admitted Col. Pcron. Ar- gentine, president, is aware of her (rip here and had been asked by im- portant Argentinians to make her visit here "an artistic interchange of ideas." Miss Thamar, accompanied by a George PjangarofT, will make a' (Continued on page 18)