Variety (Jul 1946)

Wednesday, July 31, 1946 Literati Earl Wilson, H. Allen Smith Books Earl WileoJ), N, Y. Post columnist, whose "I Am Gazing Into My 8- Ball" sold 85,000 copies under Dou- bleday imprint, is having another of truth-or-felsiea books published by the same firm in mid-September, titled "Pikes Peek or Bust," John Groth did the illustrations. Another N. Y. newspaperman (ex), H. "Allen Smith, is following up his current new baseball novel, "Rhubarb," with an anthology titled "3 Smiths in the Wind," combining his . bestsellers, "Low Man on a Totem Pole" (over 163,000 copies), "Life in a Putty Knife Factory" 1165,000 copies) and; "Lost in the Horse Latitudes" (190,000 copies to date). The three-in-one Smithsonian collection is due for Doubleday pub- lication Oct. 3. Elie Back From Bikini Rudolph Elie, Boston Herald col- umnist, music and drama critic, and Variety mugg in Boston, is back from two months'" coverage on first Bikini bomb test. Junket included column series on cities in hinter- land as well as series on Hollywood. Intended to stay for both tests but mugg reports he found Navy com- munications so snafued, his copy was runrling 24 to 36 hours behind the Navy's wire service boys. Same situation plagued all the special writers, he said, many of whom also . planned to stay for both tests. Navy, however, has always favored wire services at expense of those repre- senting merely one newspaper. Wire service men are limited to reporting facts, while special writers can (and do) editorialize, frequently to the Army or Navy's embarrassment. Monti. Tab's Trigger Scoop Canada's Fourth Estate was buzz- ing Friday (26) after the Montreal Herald (tab) pulled one of the best scoops in Canadian newspaper his- tory as result of the Harry Davis slaying in the heart of Montreal's nitery district. Short time after the murder of the gambling czar, Louis Bercowitz (alias Joe Miller) phoned Ted McCormick (who writes a gos- sip column under the name of Sean Edwin) and volunteered to give him- self up.. So, in true flicker fashion, while police and gangland put out the dragnet for the killer after the dar- ing daytime slaying, McCormick had the confessed slayer up the Herald office. After getting the confession, the Herald turned him over to the cops in the morning! McCormick, who is also the sheet's managing editor, claimed the scoop in copy- right stories splashed all over the paper. Tide to Menck to Variety Copyreader on Tide, advertising trad? weekly, recently wrote a head on a. story which other staffers claimed they didn't understand. One got bright idea of sending story and head to language authori- ty H. L. Mencken for an explana- tion, expecting to get a reply worth printing as another story. Mag instead got a brief wire, col- lect, which read: "Ask Variety." Quent Scotches Garsson Tie Two New York newspapers, the Journal-American and the weekly Enquirer, have'been attempting to drag Quentin Reynolds into the current Garsson-May inquiry, ap- parently on the basis of his New Deal leanings. Enquirer Sunday (28) named Reynolds as witness-to-be in its page one streamer, while the J-A ran his picture (at the Garsson Army-Navy E award dinner) Satur- day t27). Author-commentator and his agent, Mark Hanna, have scotched the P^RjEff LITERATI rumor, stating that they were "booked' 1 into the Garsson plant's "E" ceremony as a regular. speaking date, for which the usual fee was asked and received. Enquirer played up the fee, implying that it was a part of the allegedly tainted Garsson monies. Jessel's 'Hello Mama' Originally announced for August publication, George Jessel's new book, "Hello Mama," will now be brought out in October according to World Publishing Co. of Cleve- land. Tome is priced at $1 and contains over. 100 drawings by cartoonist Carl Rose. Bernard Shaw ; Continued from pace 2 ; lions, of the playwright by such as Brown, Howard Lewis, of Dodd, Mead; Deems ' Taylor, Lawrence Langner, Lebnard Bacon, Henry Seidel Canby and Maxwell Ander- son, among others. Harrison Smith, president of the SRL, chairmanned the event. Irish Radio Railed Dublin, July 30. Radio Eireann, Ireland's state- controlled station, drew itself a raz- zing from the press for ignoring the birthday of Dublin's most famous native son, George Bernard Shaw. BBC celebrated event with read- ings from Shaw plays and a radio- cast of "The Man -ot Destiny." In previous years, his birthday has been celebrated here with a special program. No official expla- nation was forthcoming but it was commented that any celebration would probably mean a repeat of previous material; also talent is lacking. A last-minute change of front by Radio Eireann cut 15 minutes from a music recital to slip in a talk on GBS by Irish Press Literary Editor M. J. MacManus,. one of the con- tributors to the birthday book G.B.S.90." . .x<lu,iv.ly In THE NEW REPUBLIC starring in the issue dated August 5 Don't miss this important series of articles REPORT ON RUSSIA Today... and her hopes for Tomorrow Attach a $1.00 bill and mail this coupon ! THE NEW REPUBLIC, 40 East 49th St., Now York 17 I *********** II III I MMtMH I HHU II IIMM I SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK . ,_ . . f I enclose $1.00, NOWI for a 10 week subscript ■ tlon to TH( NIW REPUBLIC which 1 Includes the complete fori Brewder series. \ Street.. " City ... Please enter my subscription for 10 weeks. I I I Name. Zone. State. ■ ,J **************** By Frank Scully *************** ■ Osteopath, Md., July 30. Having some time ago received a crate of Shaviana which survived 0) the fuscist sneak on Nice, (2) the Vichy collaboration with the late super- men and (3) the American liberation of the French Riviera, I'd love to use the occasion of the Master's 90th birthday—July 26—to unload some of it. He hates birthdays, but when a nonagenerian closes his 1946 books with two shows and a picture on Broadway you have to celebrate something about him. There's something called nostology, the gerontic science of old age to you post-glacial juveniles. Let's celebrate that. In this crated material were 50,000 words I never found any use for in writing the Master's biography 15 years ago. It doesn't seem much better now on re-reading but if we .cut to the chase and make it one reel it might go. This then is the essence of what has been passing for 73 years as Shavian wit: Let me celebrate my birthday by setting you free. Farewell: we shall not meet again, for remember when you read a biography the truth is never such as to be published. * The Unsocial Socialist For the moment there is only one superman arriving at his full strength and he is called Shaw.. .Socialism would be excellent if there were no Socialists.. .Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get. Where there is no ventilation, fresh air is declared unwholesome. When there is no knowledge, ignorance calls itself science. . .The most anxious man is a prison director. . My mother cut a wisdom tooth when she was eight ..When a man has anything to tell in this world, the difficulty is not to make him tell It, but to prevent him from telling it tod often.. As regards the best of the clergy, whether English or foreign, I feel that they and we. mean in sub- stance the same-thing.. .Voltaire and I were the only two 'truly religious people who ever lived!;..God made mistakes.. .1 am an expert picker of other men's brains, and I have been exceptionally fortunate in friends. The Friendly Credit Dentist Happiness and beauty are by-products..-The .man. with a toothache, thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound . .The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man. ..The man who listens to reason is lost; reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to. master her.. .It is always hard for superior wits to understand the fury roused by their exposures of the stupidities of comparative dullards. Brieux attacked the most unmentionable subject of all: the subject of the diseases that are supposed to be the punishment of profligate men and worthless women. Here the taboo acquires double force. Not only must not that improper thing be mentioned; but the evil must not be remedied, because it is a just retribution and a wholesome deterrent. The last point may be. dismissed by simply inquiring how a disease can possibly act as a deterrent when people are kept in ignorance of its existence... I did not take in'all that he said because I only understand French when it is spoken, by an Englishman.. .No woman looks her best after sitting up all night. Why Shaw Is Unhung' Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability...If a great man could make us understand him, we should hang him...II the lesser mind could measure the greater as a footrule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved... Democracy substitutes, election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. The manufacture of well made play is not an art: It is an industry... I half suspect that those managers who have had most to do with me, if asked to name the main obstacle to the performance of my plays, would unhesitatingly and unanimously reply, "The author!"...Centuries, like men, begin to find themselves out in middle age...To suppose that the French acclaimed Brieux because he is a great man is to imply that they know a great Frenchman when they see him, which is contrary to all experience. They never know until the English tell them. . .The instinctive regard to consequences was once impressed painfully on a pious French- man who, in Westminster Abbey, knelt down to pray. The verger, who ' had never seen such a thing happen before, promptly handed him over to the police and charged him with "brawling." Fortunately, the magistrate had compassion on the foreigner's ignorance; and even went the length of asking why he should not be allowed to pray in church. The reply of the verger was simple and obvious. "If we aljowed that," he said, "we , should have the people praying all over the place." And to this day the rule in Westminster Abbey is that you may stroll about and look at the monuments; but you must not on any account pray. The Perfect Shill Someone has announced a book by me entitled "The Complete Wag- nerite." This is an error; they are thinking of an author named 1 . Isaak Walton. The book, which is a work of great merit, even to me, is called "The Perfect Wagonerite." It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild ones ..There is danger, destruction, torment. What more do we want to make us happy? ...I declare that according to my experience moral passion is the only real passion ..He who has nothing to assert will go as far in power of style as his momentousness and his conviction will carry him...If I lived on a desert island I would perhaps be writing silly and sentimental ro- mances, which are of no use to anybody. But I am working hard. I argue and debate and weigh every phrase, and work on it and reconstruct it; it is quite simple. It is absolutely, true that easy writing Is hard reading and hard writing is easy reading.. .For art's sake I would not face the toil of writing a single writing sentence. I know the true joy of life, the one being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn but before you are thrown on the scrap heap. The Wrong One* Like Him Germany-, Sweden, Austria—these are the countries that stand by me. France, the most backward country, and Paris, which is a hundred years behind other capitals of Europe, may soon see one of my plays produced there. A French manager has made a contract with me for the production of my play, but I shall not believe that they will produce it until I see it. My favorite recreation is showing off...Mark Twain and I are very much the same position. We have a way as to make people who would otherwise hang us believe that we are joking. . .The artist himself has no other way of making himself conscious of the ray; it is by a blind instinct that he keeps on building up his masterpieces...Really, the English don't deserve to have great people.. .When the University of Liverpool invited me to occupy a chair of Drama, I had to reply that I was a practitioner, not a professor. . .No man can be like me. I have spent my life trying to play the piano accurately and never succeeded for a single bar...Democ- racy, as we practice it, is ruinous nonsense. All the republics are whited sepulchres. What you need, as I have often pointed out, is an anthropo- metric method by which'you can grade men according'to their political capacity., I have the old grievance of the author: People,will admire him for the feats that any fool can achievc.'-and bear the malice against him for boring them with better work ..I am no believer in the worth of any "taste" for art that cannot produce what'it .professes to appreciate. That's a dateless fragment of 90 years of Shawmanship. He thought youth was so wonderful it was a shame to waste it on children. How he would know, escapes me, for he never was a child and never had children. But he did some grand writing in his day. Omar the Irish-Iianiah tent- maker must have had Shaw in mind when he wrote: "Yet, ah, that spring should vanish with the rose, That youth's sweet manuscript should close."