Variety (December 1952)

VOL. 189 No. 3 Published Weekly at 154 West 46th Street* New York 36* N. Y.» by Variety* Inc.* Annual subscription $10. Single copies, 25 cents. Entered as second class matter December 22, 1905* at the Post Office at New York, N. Y.. under the act o£ March 3, 1879. COPYRIGHT. 1952, BY VARIETY, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1952 PRICE 25 CENTS minx’s $ 25 mooo schedule Oldtime Yule Platters Also Used Gimmicks to Hit Bestseller Lists SEASE Will NBC’s Jet Outrace CBS With Coronation Pix (or Vice Versa?) By JIM WALSH Ever since screechy wax cylin- ders and raucous disks first began to spin on home phonos, record buying has been a feature of the annual Christmas shopping expedi- tion. , , i.,. Increasingly popular as platters with a special Christinas flavor have become during the past decade or so, there are few gim- micks in connection with them that haven’t been trie£ before. For sev- eral weeks New York papers have been running adguof a firm whose pitch is: “Hear Santa Talk Directly to Your Child On a Record*’' May- be that sounds new, but in the early 1920s, a popular record on Edison, Brunswick and other makes was “Santa Claus Hides In Your Phonograph.” In this specialty, the artist impersonating Santa—who might be Harry E. Humphrey, Ernest Hare or somebody else with a deep voice and a jovial manner, depending on the company doing the waxing, talked out of the phone to the youngsters and ended with a chimes rendition of “Ring the Bells for Christmas.” St. Nick not only talked out of the phono, he also talked down to the kids, for everyone of the psejudo-Santa Clauses seemed in- spired to adopt an insufferably (Continued on page 35) Rule Out Christine-GI Kidding for Philly’s Mummers Parade on TV Philadelphia, Dec. 23. Subject of Christine Jorgenson, the GI who turned GIRL in Den- mark, has been placed on taboo list for Philadelphia’s annual Mummers Parade, New Year’s Day. Instructions from City Hall to the New Year’s Associations which put on parade was that po- lice would have orders to yank any reference to publicized transvesti- tism; Large sections of New Year’s parade are devoted to comedy, sually on topical subjects and u?n?r°t U ^ n . ot Piling punches. lOfcfc clubs in line also feature im- nS? 0 a at ? rs in Saudy femme finery, w«°^ lci£ds * eare d combination on on ?!X n case> and possible effect highw? 1 y o£ P arade both on highway and TV screen. liftiio* l 00 ? 1 Loweries are again New-vl ab t fc ^V telecast of prancing ew Year s Shooters. C. Schmidt WFILtv • n 1 C '’ has si8ned for strait V PlCkup of show for third coun?^ yeaL \, A g e ncy for the ac- Vailll"? A1 Paul Lefton Co. He 11 Beer and Rams TV telPM ^J 1 sponsor ^e WCAU- year r! S * or sec ?nd consecutive telecast ° < S P fS y wil1 als0 s P° n sor caste ast vi ^ f the parade in Lan- TV in tw dl u ect feed t0 WGAL- is the a il cit /‘ Ward Wheelock Survtvs n ?Lf f ° r the account - 1,000 ooo np,t S i year showed over hters Parade caug ht the Mum- ade on home receivers. Chi Police Go After Strip Spots, Arrest 3 Chicago, Dec. 23. Not harassed enough by the fra- cas with the American Guild of Variety Artists, strip spot owners on the near west and near north side are being subjected to a clean- up by local gendarmes. The manager and two dancers from the L & L Club were arrested last week for soliciting drinks from customers and for putting on “lewd and lascivious performances.” Dealers, Distribs Can t Fill Demand For Radio-T V Sets A combination of Christmas shopping and the opening of new TV stations around the country in recent months has resulted in a tight supply situation in the radio- TV set market. Dealers and dis- tribs have been unable to get enough sets in the last few weeks’ to fill customer demands even though the manufacturers have been operating at full capacity. Situation has completely reversed the buyer’s market which prevailed at the end of last summer when dealers were offering substantial discounts as come-ons. One factor in the current set sales upbeat is the tendency of many customers to trade in sets bought three or four years ago for new models. The larger screens on the newer models are the chief inducement. Another important stimulant to sales nationally has been the opening up of new locali- ties for TV reception as additional stations begin operation. Sets are still flowing into these areas, such as Denver, with the resultant cut- back in supply for the established TV cities, such as New York. Indie Vidfilmer Buys TV, Film, Radio Rights To Hellinger Stories Television, film and radio rights to more than 4,500 short stories penned by the late Mark Hellinger were acquired this Week by indie vidfilm producer Les Hafner from Hettinger’s estate. Hafner plans to tee off a series of 26 half-hour vid- pix based on the stories in mid- February and hopes simultaneous- ly to roll a separate full-length the- atrical feature. Deal was agented by the William Morris office with Mrs. Gladys (Continued on page 46) Hollywood, Dec. 23. Disappearance of the wishful- thinkers from the telepix scene is the predominating note today as 1952 passes into history, with a record-breaking $25,000,000 budg- eted for telefilm production dur- ing 1953. Most significant fact in a company-by-company breakdown of operations for 1953 is that 35 out of 45 vidpix series which will be shooting this year are pre-paid, with sponsors picking up the tab, a far cry from the day when em- bryo producers were shooting all over town with high hopes but no angels. Adding even further solid- ity to the picture is the fact that of the 10 series being shot without sponsors, several open-enders are virtually pre-sold, having a wide market on local and regional basis. There were probably three fac- tors which contributed more than anything else to telepix’ coming of age the past year, and each is equally significant. First is the aforementioned realization by re- sponsible producers that if they were to stay in business, they must eliminate as much as possible the element of chance, and shoot prod- uct which is bankrolled before a camera rolls. More and more legit producers were shying away from agencies or prospective sponsors who still sang the old refrain, “let’s see a pilot or two.” Produ- cers on the whole feel they should be judged on the- basis of their , (Continued on page 26) See Low Talent Supply (or Inns 'Retarding Vegas Las Vegas, Dec. 23. Failure of the entertainment in- dustry to develop new names will eventually affect the gtowth of Las Vegas, according to local bonifaces. At this point the hotel owners be- lieve that the insufficient supply of top talent for all the inns will cause a diminishing of interest in the hotels. The casino operators know that gambling is the major lure, and the comparatively low prices of food and rooms, made possible by the casinos, is another. However, the Chamber of Commerce or the promotion department of a hotel cannot go to an organization with a picture of a crap table and ask the wives to let their husbands go there for a convention or a sales meeting. There must be that solid lineup of names that makes the place sound enticing and the ap- peal must be on a fairly high level. Consequently, names have, become the most important item in this town’s quest for growth. Right now some of the older (Continued on page 44) + It’ll be a race against time be- * n n etft tween CBS-TV and the NBC video Mickey Rooney Set at 9G -b Pnr Frmu»li Taciim N Y from London back to the U. S., I UI 1 ICULIl vaMllU} *• process and edit them and get them Mickey Rooney’s date for the on the air. Unlike the pattern set French Casino, N. Y„ has been set for coverage of special events in for Feb. 6. He’ll be getting $9,000 the past, the TV nets are not pool- for this stand with his revue, ing their resources for this one and Frankie Laine goes in that spot since there is not expected to be two weeks later. any live transoceanic TV by June, French Casino is still on the the nets will evidently be compet- prowl for other names, having put ing for the fastest jet planes to fly in bids to virtually every agency film footage back to the States, for some of its top names. Cafe is NBC has sold its radio and TV trying to get Patti Page or Peggy coverage of the event to General Lee to follow Laine. Motors, with Wyllis-Overland buy- — ing the CBS coverage on both media. ABC is offering radio-TV of the event in a package but to date has not sold its stuff. Mutual also will undoubtedly cover via radio. What the DuMont TV net plans to do has not been disclosed. Set for June 2, the coronation will undoubtedly receive the most com- prehensive coverage on both radio (Continued on page 46) Sherwood Buckles Down To Study of TV Medium In Propping Play Series Robert E. Sherwood, the three- time Pulitzer Prizewinner who is setting a new standard in the me- dium, under his NBC contract calling for writing three plays per annum, direct-for-TV, for three years, has been boning up on the video technique and has come away with some interesting reactions. For one thing, because of the vis- ual medium, the limited TV screen- size, and the nature of the projec- tion of televised. drama into the home, Tie is particularly taken up with the question of, scenery. _ A f „ “I don’t see why television -has Jan. 15 to prepare shooting of the to be tied down to the standard film which springs from the theme stage settings technique,” says the (Continued on page 55) (Continued on page 40) Lee to follow Laine. Berlin-Bing-Par Equal Pards In ‘White Xmas’ Pic Irving Berlin's deal fpr “White Christmas,” pt Paramount, gives him a one-third ownership of the Bing Crosby filmusical along with the star and Paramount Berlin also gets $250,000 for his songs, story ideas and all that goes with a Berlin package which invariably provides for strong collaborative interest on exploitation values, radio-TV personals and the like. The songsmith and his wife, El- lin, who flew to southern Italy to spend the Xmas-New Year’s holi- days with their just married daugh- ter, Mary Ellin, and her husband, Marvin Barrett, celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary Jan. 4 in Tourmina, an off-beat beach in Sicily. He returns to New York Jan. 7, and is due on the Par lot Jan. 15 to prepare shooting of the film which springs from the theme (Continued on page 55)