Variety (Jan 1947)

We<Jnc8^ay, janwary 29, 1947 t}imH Ukra B'my Coluams Nefr fiiigh m*rk of interest in BioadwBjr figures by danadi«n news«9er readers is pointed up in the .ifurge ot N. Y. columnists now hit* nf Oantidien sheets. Since the beginning of the year, ^ight newspapers have signed up ^ith The Bell Syndicate to run BiUy Rose's "Pitehing Horseshoes" colVmn, and more are planning to come into the told once fhey see Ihow readers on the other sheets take to it. Rose's column is planted in papers right across the country, Cost ios the bigger sheets using it, like the Montreal Gazette and Toronto Glove and Mail runs to about $39 weekly, lor five columns per week. Former U. i, columnists hitting the Canadian papers were restricted to Washington and political commentators like Marquis Childs, Drew Pearson and "Walter Lippman and Hollywood writers, like Shellah Graham and Ersklne Johnson. Now Canadian interest in U. S. seems to include heavy interest in the N. Y. scene with columnists Earl Wilson 3nd Leonard Lyons also being synicated in Canada. "Porevec" Bub-Bub Hufb judge, hearing censorship case on "Forever Amber," forever banned from the sacred precinct of Boston, took under advisement this week a motion by Attorney General Barnes to bring Kathleen Winsor to Boston for a personal questioning by the court. ' Asst. Attorney General George Bowell, representing Barnes at the hearing, said his purpose was to determine whether the author thought her book had any claims to literary merit, culture' or historical background. The court held that, since Miss Winsor Is not , a party to -the •quity proeeedings/'she couldh'.t be ciOlod, but Bowell wid he thought she could be compelled to testiftr under New York law. . Harold Williams, special couns^ tor Macmlllan, publishers of the ^dok, aiiii it was okay with him, but he couldn't see what &e author eould add to the situation. . He'8 now living in Switzerland, ■fliough there exists no censorship, it was possible to prevent the sale of it In Austria by refusing Importers the. necessary -Swiss franc currency for the purchase of the books. Bitter complaints are being made by various sides, claiming that the purchase ot other books of much less importance has been allowed and that the Import of Schuschnigg's book would not ruin the Austrian schilltog, which is not worth much anyway. ^ AW A Elects Buperl Hughes Rupert Hughes is the new president of the American Writers Assn., replocing Dr. John Erskine who resigned and was elected honorary president by the AWA's board of directors. Outfit was organiiied last July by a committee of authors opposed to the adoption of the American Authors Authority plan proposed by James M. Cain and the Screen Writers Guild in Hollywood. f hilly Strike StaleuM^ted No progress toward a settlement ot ttie Strike ot the Philadelphia Record and the Camderi Courier-I»o3t newspapers was made , at a negotia' tion meeting Friday (84) in the offices of the United States Conciliation Service. However, another meeting was scheduled tor Feb. 8. Publisher 3. David Stent said in B statement, "We are hot going to negotiate a ijew contract on the basis of any contract we have had before." Gilbert J. Krause, general counsel for the Stern papers; told ttie striking members of the American Newspaper Guild, "We are not prepared to give you a better offer." Among ibose at the meeting were GoncIUatbr O. Harjy Young, Arthur neree, the Gullf^s pr^ldent-elect, i David Stem tOi publisher ot the nden papers. ' SSekophobia Fatal Musie critla on a IiOs Angeles daily is now at leisure, following it l>i^st ot voeal eriticlsm aimed at %^ pewMS briiind the Metropolitan ra move to play in C!alifornla. He ssribe protested long ^and snootily agaittst the importation of eastern songbirds, not idiowing that her own publisher was one of the prime movers in the move. During the intervi&w, a N. Y. Times man lent an. interested ear and whred the' tidings to his home paper, Which natorally landed in Los Angeles on the flrst bounce; The publisher is looking for a new opera ^itic, preferably one without Metrophobia. CHATTER Bob Becker, Chicago Tribune's outdoor editor, vacationing in Hollywood. • Felix Jager, Look's promotion manager, in Hollywood for the mag's Rwai'd show, Feb. 4. Art Carter was elected prexy of the Society of Motion Picture Press Photographers in Hollywood. Jack Gossin checked out ot Metro's flackery to write drama tidings tor the Valley Times, in San Fernando Valley. Special motion picture edition of the Nordhoff-Hall novel, "High Barbaree," will be published by Grosset & Dunlapv Jack Burger, former city editor of the Xas Angeles Herald-Express, moved to the Valley Times, ' San Fernando, sis managing editor. Another daily paper hit Tokyo streets when the Shin-Hochi, staffed mainly by former editors of the Hochi Sldmbun, tolled off its first issue. Arthur Reef? former managing editor Parade, resigned to join 17; S. MUitsry Govt in -Korea: He's slated to leave tor the Far East early next month. Ernest Borneman, head of foreign distribution for the National Film Board of Canada, has a series of articles in Harper's magazine under the title "The Jazz Gu3.t." Series starts in the February issue. June Truesdell's new book, "Be Still, My Love," purchased for filming by Hal Wallis, will be placed on. the stands in September, with a condenser version In the June issue of Today's Woman mag. Michael Blankfort, now with Walter Wanger studios working on a new Ingrid Bergman scenario from a story by Ernest Htemingway, has written a biography of Gen. Evans Carlson, "The Big Yankee," to be published by Little, Brown, March 3. Jessyca EugBell, former N. Y. editor of Magazine Digest, has resigned to form a new outfit, Promotion dimmix Unlimited, promotion idea service for industrial firms. Miss Hussell Is also publishing a four, page semi-monthly intormatioh bul letin for authors. Writteia News letter, which' will come out March 1. Ind., by the Daily Pantagraph, and an out-of-town owner sold a local station in Escanaba, Mich., to the publishers of the Iscanaba newspaper. To satisf.' PCC's concern over concentration of control in information media there, the majority stockholder In the Escanaba station agreed to resign from the newspaper and run the station independently. These cases were distinguished from an earlier FCC approval of tVj purchase ot WSBR, the only station ih Stamford, Conn., by the local publisher, to which Durr dissented. The Stamford sale did not go through AVCO, and Durr argued that other parties were denied right to bid on the stt.tion. Other newspaper pe:-raittees who went through FCC's mills with flying colors are Martin Andersen, publisher of the Orlando Daily News, who won out over a nonnewspaper bidder in Orlando, which, FCC was happy to point out, has several other stations on the air. More recently, Jonathan Daniels' Raleigh News and Observer won a permit ove a non-publisher. FCC's ■ policy In. these cases is geared to the language of its opinion dismissing the newspaper-radio investigation in J944. At that time, the commission said it "does not feel it should deny a license merely, because the appilcant is engaged or interested in a particular type of business." However, it does not intend, in grantinj licenses in the public interest, to permit concentration of control in the hands of the few to the exclusion of the many who may be equally qualified, to rencier such public ' service." It is the last sentence which Commissioner Durr believes obligates FCC from time to time to take stock of its licensing policies. • . House Reviews i Continued Itom pafe 4» { *f >iiie»ee»«»e»i'tei»'*'4<"»*'»i't«t'« »***riiA*.*.^f I f ttmiH SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK ♦■Mf»V«nM«fM:'By Frimk Scully ^'m^m mm : Adams, Newark sound. His jokes come almost too fast, but are boffi for results. Other standard turn is Martez and Delita, boy-and-girl team who go through a handstand routine to Cuban jump tunes. "Search for Talent," engineered by Ben Griefer; manager of the Adams, includes as stage turns 200 acts (six per performance) chosen from 3,000 applicants. Those caught at opening seemed to be fairly low-grade— an accordion band from a high school, a coloratura, a rural lad doing Spike Jones to offstage recording and the like. Bran. Sslnte'it ex-OI S»late In preparation for its first anniversary Issue, to be dated April, (Salute mag has circularized 230 people to help picfc the ex-GI "who has best upheld the principles tor tirhich the war was fought." Winner tvas to be picked from among seven named by the mag, these being: franklin D, Roosevelt, Jr., Rep, Melvln Price, Harold Hussell,, Melyyn Douglas, Robert S. Allen, James Stewart, and John Kennedy. Prophet Without Ronor Kurt von Sohnschnigg's book on the last days of the first Republic of Austria, "Austrian Requiem," is technically banned in Austria. Schus•^{inlgg. who was iiii :|^st chancellor .of Austria, Wfote ttiig book in exile. Durr Continuecl from page 27 WPAH, Parkersburg, and WBLK, OlarJtsburg, ^f. Va., to the News Publishing Co., which publishes 13 o: the to dailies in West Virginia. To avert a situation where the town's only, paper would control the only radio station, FCC' .the very same day okayed a second station hi Parkersburg to the Parkersburg Broadcasthig Corp. (12a6kc, 250 watts). In Clarksburg, the Ogden chain has no nevspaper, and there are several other radio outlets. Durr did not dissent to the Parkersburg sale, but went on record in favor of an omnibus study of the elfects ot chain newspapers spreading their wings in radio. In recent grants, FCC has shown growing disposition to be friendly to newspaper applicant and, in the absence of any ruling against it, has had to sward newspapers in several southern towns the only radio station being asked for. In only two cases has FCC approved a sale which would give a newspaper control over the only radio facility, and both transfers were subject to the AVCO rules of competitive bidding. In one case FCC okayed purchase Philadelphia, Jan. 24. Kotheritie Dunham tt Co. (10), Artie Dann, Jay Jostyn, the Del Martins; "That Brennan Girl" (Kep). More interest&ig than entertaining is the current bill at the Earle. Layout headlines Jay jostyn, radio's "Mr. District Attorney," and Katherine Dunham's dance troupe. Jostyn does his brief turn against a backdrop symbolizing a big city and the scarlet characters who inhabit same. His offstage announcement over the mike is effective — ^the same patter buildup used on his air show. His personal appearance; however, satiisfies customers cwious to see what the radio D.A. looks like, but leaves a. lot to be desired from an entertainment standpoint. Jostyn's tour de force is a monolog. He holds a revolver in one hand and gives a high-sounding sermon to the effect that unless GI Joe gets a break in the postwar world, he'll take to crime, and "the fingerprints of all of us will be on the gun." Miss Dunham likewise misses the entertainment bus, although her pro duction numbers please the eye, be ing colorful and Interesting. But her dancers contrlb too much highfalutin' business for vaude audiences. After all, the Earle isn't the Academy' Of Music. Her ensemble presents four num bers. These are ^'Raratonga," which might be South Seas or West Indies stuff; "Rhumba Jlve,"~featuring two men and a gal dancer; Miss Dunham and a male partner in "The Blue," and the windup number, "The Lady With a Cigar." A bright spot is Artie Dann, comic with a nose like Dm-ante, and who, naturally, does an Imitation *of the Big Beak. Dann is a clever story, teller, particularly when he poke) fun at his proboscis. , The Del Martins, two men and a dark-haired gal looker in ballroom attire, please with balancing feats. Shal. Dough Re Me,. Cal., Jan. 26. When saloon reporters begin holding press conferences I suppose you could say the atomic era is well "under way. Earl Wilson just held such a conference at the Marquis (nee Falalse) in Hollywood. The barroom Boswell sent out embossed Invitations with "R,S.V,P." as a sign-off. It stood for "Resident Soaks Vacating Premises." Some old geezer, who was selling hair tonic instead of soutiens gorges, grabbed I'addition from M. Wilson. Everybody was there, and considering the snugness of the brasserie, even the town's nobodies' would have made the party seem SRO, Sid Sltolsky was reporting in for Louis Sobol, who. had neglected to wear a toupee and didn't want to show up merely in his horn-rimmed glasses, As for M. Wilson, I had never met the gent, as distinguished from his journalism, until he cut himself,, in a businesslikeway (and a businesslike blue serge suit) into the picture version of "Copacabana," after a New York nightclub of the same name. Wilson was standing in front of a dressing room at the Goldwyn .studios, where "Copacabana" is being shot. On a step to the dressing room stood little Louis Sobol and below him (but still above him, it you get What 1. mean) stood six beautiful feet of Chili Williams. On the door of the dressing room the names of Abel Green and , Earl Wilson stood out in bold relief, Sobol's in very small type. On the other hand. Miss Williams' attentions were expected to raise his crushed ego. Sobol was directed to rest his inferiority complex against her lacquered blonde coiffeur. Wilson looked on all this with a stony grimace" (Stein Makeup. No, 5, Juvenile) and Greefn opined the whole fantasy would set pictures back to Daguerre, No one remembered avant da Guerre, although Sobol once thought he saw him at the end of Memory Lane, in the company of Lola^ After more of this stunting in still photography, the group of beauty and some beasts wept off arm-in-arm to Stage 2 to share in a rolling shot of Carmen Miranda singing a French oo-la-la number, She encircled the table at which Messrs. Green, Sobol and Wilson and their girl friends sat sipping. ♦ . , / Pulaski and the Beast Up to this moment it' looked as if the whole thing would have to be reshot, with Jack Pulaski .dubbing for Messrs. Green, Sobol and Wilson in order, to give some degree of pulchritude to the proceedings^ but then Directoi: Al Green (no relation) remembered what he had done in matching Larry Parks and Jolie in "The Jolson Story," so he matched Miranda's cabana with a song. Her figger was stuffed into a form-fitting fleshcolored piece of crepe de chine. Over this was hung a huge wreath of huge paper flowers that-made her look.like a filly which had just won the Santa Anita Handicap from three galloping geldings. It was quite an . effective play at injecting s.a. into an otherwise restful scene, but the anonymous mugg who voted against hip-weavmg on page 34 of the aimiversary number of Variety may not like it, because Miss Miranda's staging-was accon^anied by beaucoup de bumps. I thought Sobol fared; best in makeup, but people 'who knew Wilson in the flesh tell me that Wilson got by far the best ot a flattermg deal. The men had Stand-ins, and because _ib is so hard' to find males in California under El ft. 10 in., schoolgirls in slacks were used. There's a scientific explanation tor this. The smog, fog, sun and Shlphwic acid kill off all weak males in chilcQiOod. Th«-t^ i^^ Ordinarily the knowledge of a .thing like this (having teenagers as stand-ins) could blight a man for life, and, before Freud, actually did. Naturally these happily married wolves in and out of their Uptown Forties think of themselves as mighty manly fellows, but when flatchested schoolghls in dungarees are used as their stand-ins, it's not good. Whether this was the work of Al Green, the director, who went around with a carnation (a flower, not a can of milk) in his buttonhole, a cigar in his mouth and a hat on his head, I can't say. I don't know why he wears a hat, He doesn't croon, and he has a bale of hair which looks suspiciously like his own. But after "The Jolson Story" you can't be sure that anything is real. Indeed, Leonard L. Levinson, Variety Mugg Emeritus, a member of the cognoscenti (now growing a beard to proVe it), told me that the set didn't look like anything he'd ever seen around the Copacabana, Another gent said it represented one of the rooms upstairs. Cognoscenti LXXi. admitted he had never been to the powder room. George Jessel, Sfcolsky and some others who wear junior sizes, looked in to see how the muggs in makeup were taking it, but I don't think they caught the columnists and their stand-ins together. Groueho Takes a Powder Groucho Marx, acknowledged star of "Copacabana," wasn't around at all during the filming of the press. Grouch has a pretty sharp tongue, and he knew these boys had pretty sharp pencils. He was not giving them a piece of his mtad, only to discover later tiiaf they had rewritten the scene appropriating unto themselves his dialog and even his gestures. At any rate, Groucho felt that the boys should go to Canada until the whole thing blew over. • ' Being partisans of a free press, they certainly would not stop at quoting Grouch— insofar, of jpurse, as he is quotable. Only the day before, Wilson referred to J, Atwater Kent as "an old geezer," and everyboijy taio-ws how pointed his prose has become in matters concerning certain mammalary glands. In fact, his candor in this regard is sure to win him the Anatomy Award of 1948. Just what these three threshold thesplans expect to get out of playing their character; parts ih character, beyond so much per day and expenses, I don't know. Their notices, good or bad, can hardly be Used to mfeke cartridge cartons any longer, since there is a marked decline in scrap paper drives recently. That they can ever square themselves with their -wives by handing all the money over, I doubt. These are Women of character, not the sort to take lightly the sight of good, or-even bad, lookhig numbers hecklng their "Notebook Nathans, merely because the show must go on. Even I, a husband with a will of iron and a macaroni constitution, can't explain away photographs from down memory lane of some dame kissing me. ^ My usual savoir faire simply won't do, so I know these poor wights are m for it when those stills marked "For Immediate Release" actually begin going the rounds. By then the money will have been spent by their wives and forgotten by same, and all the boys will have will be memories, and Sobol has an exclusive on those. Apollo, K. Y. Sy Oliver Orch (16) with Billy Kyles, Prince Nyolza, Lamar Ragan; Jackie Mabley, RaDe7is (4), ,Spider Bnice & Hannah Taylor, Bob & All "Jealousu" (Bep), Apollo took a gamble on a couple of "one-to-fiU" acts for this week's Sy Oliver bill and. for a change, of the oMfv atatinn in iti««».i««;X„" 1 S?""? Winner. Booked into the or ine oniy station in Blooiwngtpn, l Harlem vaude house were two virtu ally unknown stanzas, the Ravens vocal quartet and Bob and Al, a dance team. Former proved one of the surprise hits in recent months, while latter were less than sensational. Both reviewed in New Acts. Oliver's new aggregalon shows more finesse than this house usually sees in Its band bookings, Results showed that it's not necessary to blow the roof off the Apollo' to get over, since the well-arranged and relatively light tunes brought great returns. Band opens with a tricky "Deep River," Spotting a tenOr solo in the ride slot. Next Is. called "Four to Go," with the rhythm section of guitar, piano, bass and drums. Bob and Al bridge between another band number, latter being a medley of oldies. Tram section does a chorus of "All Alone" over reed backing segueing Into "See You m My Dl-eams^' with a quintet from the various sections chirping. Sock closer has entire band in glee cluo arrangement of "My Buddy" for plenty of mitting. This outfit is good anywhere, Blackout follows witn Spider Bruce and Hannah Taylor. Band does a fair boogie piece. Ravens are next to closing, preceedlng Jackie Mabley. Latter is well beyond middle age and her act isn't new, but has the subtle humor of voice intonation that hits .tn* funnybone in this house. Her lazy chatter and special ditties, plus the old rag costume get hefty la"gnA' and the tap closer in a pair of ow bedroom slippers fill out the -oi" plenty satisfactory. Tomm.