Variety (Jan 1949)

Wednesday, Jannaty 19, 1949 LITERATI 53 Literati Hersey Books tor Japan Tw6 wartime books by John Hersey, "Hiroshima" and "A Bell for Adano," are included In a list of books to be published soon in Japan under SCAP license, Gen. MacArthur's headquarters have anhouiiced. The author, in a let- ter to SCAP's Civil Information and Education Section, has already expressed his desire to donate all accruing royalties to charities with- .in the city of Hiroshima. Other publishers who have been licensed to' translate, publish and sell books In Japan include Live- right Publishing Co., which plans to bring out Henrik Willem van Loon's "Story of the Bible"; "Pren- tice-Hall, which will start with E. G. Olsen's "School and Com- munity"; Viking Press, with "One- Two-Three-lnflnity," by George CanOM^; Alfred A. Knopf. Iroquois publishing Co.; Duell, Sloane & .Pierce; United Press; Ziff-Davis publishing Co.; T^orth American Newspaper Alliance; MacMillan COj, and Princeton Univ. Press, Magazine publishing concerns now licensed to sell translation rights in Japan are MacFadden International Publications, the Far East Advertiser and Universal Picr torial Co. ' The licenses are the first granted since the end of the war authorizing U. S. publishers to deal idlFectly with; Japanese pub- lishing concerns. Aiustria Inks 24 U. S.. Scribes U. S. Publication section In Vienna announced that Austrian book publishers signed . 24 con-, tracts for editing German language editions of American authors, with Pearl S. Buck, Dorothy Baker and Theodore Dreiser in the. lead. ' Eight books already on market had average' sale of 3,000 each. 'Reader'^s Encyclopedia*' "The Header's Encyclopedia," edited : by 'William Rose Benet (Crowell; $6; $6.73 thumb- IndexeiDj is an enormously useful volume for writers or anyone in- terested in the literati field. Its 1,242 pages contain 18,499 subjects, including American literature, American' dramai foreign , literal tures, mythology. Biblical litera- ture, art,: music, ancient litera- tures, American history, world history, geography, current affairs, literary terms, slogans and phrases. It. gives capsule plots, themes, characters, myths and legends, dates, place names, critical refer, ences, biographical data, defini- tions, word and phrase origins. Not only in the size and scope . of its contents, but possibly more important in the judgment and clarity of its definitions and e» planations, "The Reader's Encyclo. pedia" is an impressive job. It is BO good.' in fact, that it immedi' : ately suggests future : editions even more Inclusive and brought up to date from time to time. Hobe. ?«ys li. A. Throwaway . ^ James : Parton> prexy of the Los Angeles Independent Publishing Co., announced the purchase of the Los Angeles Down ToWn Shopping News, a giveaway-'with a twice- • weekly circulation of 500,000. Shopping News, founded in 1922, will be merged with Independent and published as the Los Angeles Independent, with 10 to 15 sep- flrate twice-weekly editions cover- ing community news in various .parts of Greater Los Angeles. Purchase price was not disclosed. serialization in April's Collier. Articles will be expanded into a book for Doubleday publication. Eddie Cantor , is also authoring an article on assignment for Cos^' mopolitan, titled "The Jack in Benny." Piece will, stress Benny's generosity, with idea being that for every miserly joke per broadcast that Rochester stresses, Cantor will tell how: much Benny gave away that week. CHATTER Emily Ashe Banks appointed P,"''s^^y ceremonies needs of radio and video. Special stands have been constructed along the.route of the parade for camera- men and commentators. Coupera- ti6n has beeq, afforded television mobile units and various types of aircraft in covering, the seven^mile stretch of parade on the ground and the "air cover'' of 600 bombers, fighters, flying boats and mixed 'Planes. ,■' Complete coverage of the Inau- guaral will also be carried by FM as well as AM. Continental FM network, which is broadcasting the •four events in full, expects to be i joined by additional stations for part of the time and by the rural radio network in New York State SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK ;l ^ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦t»»»»«-» By Frank Scully publicity director at Town Hall, N.. Y. Jjjck Karr in Hollywood to inter- view film, radio and ■ television names for the Toronto Star. Walter Van Tilberg Clark, author of "The Gx-bow Incident," is having his new book, "Track of the ; Gat,'' published by Random House. Col. Fay O. Dice, USAF, named Chief of the Publicity Branch, Mil- itary Personnel Procurement Serv- ice Division, replacing Col. Mason Wright. Irish Women - Writers* Club, Dublin, has given its award' for the best book of the year to Ethel Mannin for her novel "Late Have I Loved Thee." peorge Landy sold the publica- tions rights to "The-Chosen,'' a story by Father E. J. Edwards, to Longmans-Green, with film rights owned by Metro. . ' Stanley Kramer, is sending out 10,000 reprints of Ring Lardner's "Champion" to exhibitors, film' correspondents and sports writers as a plug for his .picture. ; Herbert Brucker, .editor- of the Hartford Courant, authored ^'Free- dom of Information" which Mac- Millan is publishing: in March. Tome champions the continuance of a free press. The Irish Censorship Appeals Board has nixed the censor board's ban on "Odysseus/* by .Rom Lan-; dau; "The Trials of Oscar Wilde," by H. Montgomery Hyde, and "It's a Battlefield," by Graham Greene. Songwriter Sylvia Dee, who authored the lyrics for several hit tunes including "Chickery Chick," scribed "And Never Been Kissed," a .book about adolescence. Her first tome is being published next month by MacMillan. Raymond Spottiswoode, . non- theatrical film producer for The World Today, Inc., on a month's leave of absence, to complete his forthcoming book, "Film and Its The full Continental coverage will be carried in the New Yoi-k City area by stations W2XMN- W2XEA, owned by Dr. Edwin Arm- strong, FM pioneer. Celebrities' Cookbook "The Celebrities' Cookbook," jwed by Grace Turner (Crowell; ?i.75), contains recipes from 62 names, mostly from show business, home of the contributors may not actually prepare the favorite fljshes they describe, but presum- ■ply someone else does so for them, according to the given directions. the—csHtnBiifiirs" "in- aUt*,'?, Allen, Edward Arnold, Milton Berie, Fanny !5P«|led Fannie in the book) Brice, tddie Cantor, Katharine Corhell, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, i?s<=n.a Heifetz, Sonja Henie, Jose "urbi, Sammy Kaye, Kay Kyser, {^ertrude Lawrence, Guy Lom- ^J^'^ed Lunt, Raymond Sif^sey, Mary Margaret McBride, Burgess Meredith, Robert Mont- gomery, Lily Pons.'^'Comelia Otis ?*J™er. Kate Smith, Ezra Stone. 3" Thomas and Law- All the nieces ap- mag. ""finally in This Week "M.I Cantor Saga in Co!Her*s t*«J^l Eddie." by Ida t;antor in collaboration with New Look For I V.:.-,:-; By K. S. GINIGER (Dwecfof ojf Pitblie RelationSj ■.■'Prentice-H(ilJ>;iric,),..... ' , Ever since Election Day, I have been meeting regularly with a group of earnest and progressive gentlemen who are deep in plans to give the Republican Party a New Look ittrid thus save; it. from utter extinction. And, ever since about this time last year, I have been meeting equally regularly with a group of equally and pro- gressive gentlemen who are deep in plans to give the book publishing industry a New Look apd thus save it from utter extinction, or a rea- sonable facsimile thereof. It becomes increasihgly difficult for me to keep what goes on at the meetings of each group . separate and distinct in my own mind. This is true for the very good reason that \ both ■ Republicans and pub- lishers seem determined to seek extinction, which gives me an op- portunity to discuss dodoes, largely because dodoes are already extinct. The reason dodoes get into this piece (other than the fact that I happen to have that particular volume of my encyclopedia handy) is because the World of many Re- publicans and many book pub- lishers is the limited world of the _ . . -„ . . , .,, . . I dodo, in which life is confined to ^ffl^^'T.'^^^u-^^iS!!-^^ a small island from which no one has the energy or initiative to escape and so never gets anyplace but to extinction. The Republicans have been adequately discussed outside the pages bf Variety and, after this last campaiign, there is some doubt as to whether they even qualify as entertainment. So, let us take the very sad case of the book publishers, rolling merrily for not so) along the road to ex- tinction. It is commonly assumed that a publisher is a man who reads a manuscript, decides that it is de- serving of the immortality of print and hard covers and puts it in that form, and then sells the resultant product to booksellers for resale to the public at large, thus assur- ing himself of a sufficient Income to buy his authors lunches at the respective Oak Rooms of the Ritz, the Algonquin and the Plaza. There may be other considerations involved,. but this concept of the publisher sees him as a man who earns his living by translating manuscrapts into books for the I benefit of posterity, and that too (by film) when four main events of ! f mall section of our present popu- ■■■ - • lation which reads books or just happens not to have a book.' Those'Subsidiary Rig^hts' With some minor exceptions, this assumption is fast becoming entirely false when applied to the publisher, model 1948-9. For to- day's publisher is a man Who is sold a manu.script by an author or- an agent (a manuscript which, quite possibly, has not yet been written or, if written, may have been read by no one concerned) lished by the University of' Cali- fornia Press. Metro homeoffice publicity staffer.Blll Ornstein, whose "Ma and Mrs. Robinson" was cited as "A\&f tinctive" by Martha Foley in her "Best American Short Stories for 1948" compilation, has another short titled "Danny" coming up in "Decade of Short Stories," publi- cation in which "Ma" originally ap^ peared. English authoress Mary Mit- ford's new book, "Love in a Cold Climate," is being brought out by Random House. Novel's title in England was "Diversion" but switch was made for U* S. con- sumption. Miss Mitford, inci- dentally, is the sister of Unity Mit- ford, one of Hitler's supporters in England. Another sister, how- ever, was a partisan of Republican Spain during the civil war. Mary Mitford is a middle-of-the-roader politically. Newsreel Coverage Continued from, page 2 the record-breaking Inaugural ceremonies are telecast Tomorrow (19) and Thursday (20). 8S0 From Radio, Tele Never before have so many radio and' television men descended on the capital. Kenneth Fry, radio di- rector-of the Inaugural.committee, estimated the number at 550,r which includes technical, editorial and program personnel. In addition to live radio and video coverage, three television newsreel companies— i for the purpose of putting it into NBC, Telenews and Telepix—are ' a form which will facilitate the sale on hand to provide film takes to be I of what are known as "subsidiary delivered to waiting planes for . rights" to magazines, motion pic- shipment to stations not served by i tures, newspaper syndicates, radio, the east-midwest coaxial. ] television, comic strips, toy manu- The major events—'the pre- In- facturers and an ever-increasing augural gala show, the parade, the J galaxy of book clubs and reprint swearing-in ceremonies, and the In-^ ;,distributors. As an incidental part augural ball—will be fed live un- {of this process, he does produce a der a pooled arrangement between book which he "sells" (bookstores Tucson, Jan. 15. Let everybody else get primed for the big drive through the center of the line by television. I am .keeping my eye on that frontier frolic called the square dance. I recently saw it turn an old Tucson hotel from a museumpiece into a place as lively as ducks dancing on a hotplate. And surveying the scene was Nick Hall, the manager, looking like a merger of Wild Bill Hickok, Wallace Beery^ Harry Carey, Howard da Silva and Big Boy Williams. Seems Nick moved in from Missouri by way of the LaSalle hotel in Chicago 15 years ago, picking up en route a 10-gallon hat, some cowboy boots, saddles, shirts, ranch-pants and a few extra sombreros, not to forget a 10-foot muleskinner's buUwhip. He draped all these props over his breezy, jovial personality and showered Arizona with a-hos* pitality that was as authentic to an older Tucson as its giant cactii. • 'The Name.is Drachman. Roy Drachman' The hotel I knew 25 years ago was as refined as powdered sugar. In those days dowagers and stuffed shirts walled themselves in and spent the winter looking over the parapets at Papago Indians, gringoes, greas- ers and tourists like us. The place was suffering, in Santayana'S immortal phrase, "from a corrupt desire to appear refined." The name that spelled hospitality in those days was not Santa Rita but Drachman, and the Drachmans were not a hotel but a family. Aside from changing from a sleepy old pueblo of 20,000 to a town of 140,000 since I last lived there as the only guy operating a sports page from a chaise lounguei the greatest change has been in the operation of that same Santa Rita hotel. Nick Hall came in there in 1934 and gave It a shot of vitamin yipee that changed the old-bat roost into the gayest hashienda west of the Panhandle. Sponsored by the current generation of Draclimans, I found my tired and dusty person pulled into the hotel lobby by the greatest force that has come to Tucson since Rosemary Taylor wrote "Chicken Every Sun- day" and Westbrook Pegler stayed aroUnd to eat it. The force was the hand of Nick Hall. The Hand That Held Once I had touched the hand of Nick Hall there seemed to be no let- ting go. All hired hands were assured by the ranch foreman that the town was lousy with counterfeit $10 and $20 bills, and all were, warned to take no money from me^ Hall's hospitality kept everything coming our way like an old ma* gician's wand. My Skipper, aged 17; who accompanied me on this return of the native, was absolutely dumbfounded to think- that one gone so long could grow so tall in the estimation' of frontier townsmen. The Nick Hall language which accompanied these benefactions could never be cleaned up for radio. Not even for the warmup sessions, I • learned that the change had come over the old Santa Rita hotel years ago when an .old. dowager demanded that ;Nick move some film char- . acters out of a wing because they were carrying a rehearsal right through her afternoon siesta. Tucson's Diamond Lit "I have a lot of influence," she said to Nick, as he sat in the wildest private office this side of Buffalo Bill's Lookout Mountain hacienda, ."so you'd better listen to me," "Lady," said Nick, "I don't care if you've got diamonds in your britches; .1 am' not- changing this hotel^s policy no- matter how much influence you have." ■ • - Flabbergasted, she got up, looked around' his office and walked out saying: "Well, I haven't!" The office she looked around was really worth a second take. To the , right of where Nick sat were a row of telephones, hanging on the wall, I and over to his left were several saddles, one a hand-engraved job with mounted horn, collar, spurs and bridle that must have cost him $5,000 if it cost him a buck. Next to it was a silver mounted saddle which once belonged to Tom Mix, and next to that one of the oldest sidesaddles in Arizona, which I suspect Nick rides when suffering from hangovers.' Suffering as I:' am these days from astigmatism, I can't say for sure if telephones or canteens were hanging from the saddles, but they looked like tele-; phones. On the walls above this floorshow of the old west Nick^has added photographs from Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Brian Donlevy, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Nino Martini, Guy Kibbee, Charles Ruggl.es, Kate Smith, Skeets Gallagher, Claude Binyon, Gene Autry, Jennifer Jones, Harry Sherman, Wesley Ruggles, Clarence Budington Kelland and even Hedda Hopper—all signed with glowing tributes to Hall's ever-flowing hospitality. I Nick owns a golden palomino named Champ and has 30 pairs of ; hand-tooled boots to keep him from getting corns in any one place. In land out of his office, around the hotel's lobby, eateries and endless I bars, he moves like a law unto himself, a ghost from the days when men were men and. women glad of it. I In one comer of his office is a blownup postcard from Old Tucson,. 1 a collection of adobe houses that Nick needled the community into re- storing a few years ago. Old Tucson is about nine miles southwest of I town. Nick is officially the mayor and has his seal of office from the governor to prove it. I Nine Miles to 1870 - The population'of Old Tucson iS'two. Holly wood producers ■ have I already .used it for .pictures—the most notable being "Arizona," starring I Jean Arthur and Bill Holden, and "Incendiary Blonde," with Betty Hulton and Bob Hope. "Red River" was made nearby. I It was being whispered to me that Annerican Tel and Tel was al- ! ready laying its transcontinental coaxial cable for television under the I city, but short of giving Nick Hall 2*000 volts, or running him out of : town on a burro, I don't see television sup>planting square dances at the Santa Rita. . ' , i "Lodies to the center—itp to the bar, Gents to the center —ond ^Orm a star, I Meet your honey, and pass her by, I And grab the next girl on the sly." - I- After a few of those the TV engineers will forget about coaxial cables • and find themselves square-dancing with the hottest wenches the west has _se.en_ since Baby Doe_Tabor,_ Calamity Jane and the-Unsinkable ; Mrs. Brown shelved their seven layers of petticoats for short tiuekskin ! skirts. I know they will because I came to Tucson on a secret mission but after a few of Nick's martinis I've forgotten both the secret and the : mLssion.- . ■ the networks- as a "television in- dustry" preseiftation. Approxi- mately 10 hours will be devoted to the coverage. ■ The Inaugural committee has Cameron Shipp^ starts a flve-pait' So»c all-out to accommodate the have almost unlimited return priv- ileges) to booksellers who hide it somewhere where no customer can find it for a few weeks and then promptly return it to the publisher for resale to the drugstores and ft! ri ..< J , I < 1 11 4)11 'li ' t„. the remainder- shops ■ in Times ' Square. He makes little or no ! money from this operation and 1 often takes a sizable loss on it. The upkeep of his private wine bin i in the cellar at 21 and his country i estate is met by the income from I subsidiary rights (and whatever ■ additional means he can scrape to- ' gelher by collecting funny stories, I breeding cattle, running railroads, , sitting on boards of directors and saving money by publishmg fewer I books). ] So far, this does not presient too horrid an outlook for the publisher himself, whatever it may mean for the future of books. But, just as the day after Election Day dawned for the Republicans and the day came when a lonely dodo on Mauritius could find no mate, so has the day arrived for the pub- lisher when he is approaching the discovery that many (and pub- lishers) cannot live on subsidiary rights alone. My spies report that the only immediate result of this discovery is a vast increase in the prqductioii of crying towela^ .