Variety (October 1953)

Wrdnettlay, October 7, 1953 V.ITKIIATI Book Pub Author’s Precedent Something of s precedent is be- lieved to have been set last week when Random House obtained a judgment in N. Y. Supreme Court for $3,104 against Wolcott Gibbs, drama critic and staff writer of the New Yorker mag. Coin repre- sented a $2,500 advance of a pro-, posed novel, plus interest and costs Suit was undefended. General policy of publishing houses is merely to write offj advances paid to authors who sub- sequently fail to come through with the manuscript as specified. In this instance, however. Random House took the attitude that Gibbs, with a regular New Yorker salary,; large royalties from his comedy lut. 'Season in the Sun.” plus a viable legacy believed to have been lilt by an aunt, could afford to n turn the advance when he didn’t | write the promised novel. Contract for the yarn was signed in December, 1948, and the manu- script was to have been submitted! in September of the following \<ar. Gibbs is said to have in- iormed the publishing house he could not complete the book, and promised to return the advance. He never did so, however, and «f(er four years ‘ of reminders, Random House went to court. !f" y TL“" d «.?<*; since Ottawa was known the Yanks. Maybe its a little subtler, but it's there all right Cole’s anthology (with illustra- tions by Sprod) proves it. It’s good fun. \ Abel. Mike Steni Starts Somethin’ Author Michael Stern, currently in Rome for Macfadden Publica- tions. has been hit with two crimi- nal libel actions, filed in that city by Italian film financier Michel Olian. In addition. Olian has suits filed against Random House and Fawcett for $50,000 and $1,000,000 respectively. Court action again t RH stems from its publication of Stern’s “No Innocence Abroad ” while Fawcett has been tagged i >r its True mag yarn. ’’Wine. Women and Money.” Article, penned by Stern, appeared in mugs August issue. Stern had previously been sued by Olian for an article that had ap- peared in Europeo. Italian publi- cation. Olian, however, withdrew the complaint. as Bytown; as a daily for 88 wars, with the evening edition starting 5b years ago. It’s part of the Va:i- couver-to-Ottawa Southern chain, each paper of which is independent of the others in editorial polity, supporting most shades of politics among them. Citizen has had a 1 Guild contract for three years; Guild was recently certified as bar- gaining agent tor Journal editorial stall. Four selected aw aids Ohioana sesquicentennia lumbus. (>, t , 24 4 Ohioans’ Prizes Ohio authors have been to receive the annual from the Martha Kinnev Library Association at it* luncheon in Co- An asoeiation eom- Franciaco Chronicle columnist, sails to Europe for six months of pulp assignments Saturday 10» Jennings, who suffered heart attack which resulted In hts retiring from Chronicle duties, recently com- pleted an Elizabeth Scott' shortie for Coronet. ’’Don’t Call It Frisco.” Frisco Examiner columnist Herb Caen’s fourth tome, will he published Oct. 19. by Doubleday, hacked locally by mucho pari > in k and cocktailcry. per- times of Frank Leslie, and manent lame and fortune. Most of the great names of late 19th centjury show biz figure *n Miss Stern’s witty, scholarly, de- lightfully-written hook. There is a thorough compilation of notes and sources, which makes almost as good reading as the text itself. Ten pertinent illustrations, many of them highly amusing, embellish the volume. Down. nnttee picked the following judging 50 books: fiction Bounty Lands” by William D Cleveland: biography. ’The after “The Ellis, Kx- ‘Egad, Men, Wake Up!' After the Dodgers lost the first two straight in the World Serious, ilie Brooklyn Eagle which, inci- dentally, is in the throes of a mer- ger-sale to/with the N. Y. Herald Tribune, in a P. 1 streamer en- treated: ‘ Egad. Men. Wake Up!” The N. Y. Post’s post-second game streamer read, “Today? Now, Well, it . . The N. Y. Journal Ameri- can simply put it. “It’s Up To Krskine." PS—Erskine didn't dis- appernt the Greenpertners. The Brooklyn department store, Abraham & Straus, had a cute two- col., lull-depth ad in the N. Y, Times on Saturday (3) morning, captioned “No hard feelings, but . . .” and extended greetings *'to the Yankees” and “to the Dodgers.” All the omens were il- lustrated, in opposite contrasts, with the nod to the Brooks, of course, viz., broken wishbone (Yan- kees i, whole wishbone (Dodgers); black cat versus rabbit’s foot; broken mirror versus whammy; spilt salt versus shamrock; walic- under-ladder versus knock-on- wood; and horseshoes, wrong side versus right side up. . Incidentally, a Variety nuigg coming down the 6th Ave. (N. Y.)J bus with 10 pennies, which the driver had to exchange before de- positing it in the dime coinbox, was goodhumoredly greeted by the omnibus jehu: “Betting on the Dodgers, eh?” Harold Bone's ’Info’ Post As of current October issue of Info, general monthly mag pub- lished in New Haven, addition to masthead now lists Harold M. Bone as advertising director and associate editor. Bone was for- merly an advertising counselor in the display department of New Haven’s morning sheet, the Jour- nal-Courier, and has been. Variety mugg in that city for the past 23 years. Info is published by Sol Chain, who was general manager ot tile publishes. liaordman Mr. Morris” by Howard Swiggett. Ripley; religion and phi- losophy. "Making Prayer Heal” by Lynn James Radcliffe. Cincinnati; and social' studies. "Republic and the Person.” Gordon Keith Chal- mers. president of Kenyon College McQuaid’s NATO Post Elias McQuaid. former New Hampshire Sunday News reporter, left with his family from (lieu home in Candia. N. H . for Frame, where he will serve as press sec- retary to Ambassador John C Hughes of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization He was tor* merly press counselor to the I S Embassy in Paris for tom years, and since last tall had been special consultant on press relations to Secretary of State John l ost t D ulles in Washington. Faye Emerson’s Legman Legman for Faye Emerson, whose new TV column is running in the World-Telegram A Sun and Seripps-Howard syndicate, is Ches- ter Feldman. Among other affiliations. Feld- man has done work for jabber- jockey Henry Morgan. Bill Dowdell's Blank ‘Column’ The Rome American News, of which Bill Dowdell was editor and publisher, until his untimely death at 53 last month, last'week pub- lished the front page blank, in mourning border, save for an ac- tion shot of U. S. Ambassador Mrs. Clare Booth Luce. This was the traditional P. 1 position of column- ist Dowdell’s newsy “Seen & Heard,” a Roman runaround. Michael Chinigo. president of the publishing company, incepted a “Front Row" column which stated this "could never be a substitute for ’Seen & Heard.’ ’” Harry Cushin IV, Albert Salvatori. Peter C. Borre, along with Chinigo and Dowdell, are/directors ol Ameri- can News Pub. Co. Koegel s New Book Otto K. Koegel, of the 2<Mh Cen- tury-Fox Film firm of attorney, Dwight. Koyall, Harris, Koegel A (askey. has written a hook in tribute to Walter S. Carter, found- er of the old New York law firm, titled “Collector of Young Mas- ters.” Koegel traces the bibliog- raphy ol a galaxy of eminent bar- risters and jurists who were Cradled by the founder of the pres- ! entday law firm, including Chief (Justice Charles Evans Hughes, Paul D. Cravat h, Jacob Gould Schurman. cl al. Unicorn Press town's only exclusive F.M station. IWBIB. prior to its acquisition by WELL another Kim City outlet Danish Journalists’ Junket. Eleven Danish newspaper scribes, touring the U S under tin 1 Foreign Operations Adiuini.sti a- tion program, were guests of the AMP!* yesterday <\lon • on the Paramount and Warner lots. Newspapers they represented were the Copenhagen Borscn. Po- litiken and Aahus Stifstidende, the Lyngby Berlingske Tidende and Social-Demokratefi. the Holb.uk Xmas Venstreblad. the Dagblad Roskilde and the Sborg Finansti- dende. Another ’Expose’ Mag Eugene Tillinger. freelance magazine writer, hitting the stands with liis own mag, Top Secret. Oct. 14. Mag will include “exposes on Hollywood. Broadway, cafe society and the international scene” It will go bi-monthly after the first issue. Noblesse Oblige Unlike CBS and NBC which only recognize each other as “on another network.” the N. Y. Times' It.id story Saturday (3>. on the YIP Sing Sing visitors to convicted labor leader Joey Fay came out with a frank credit to the N. Y. Journal American and the N. Y. World-Telegram A Sun. which broke the yarn the preceding eve- ning (Friday). It dealt with State Senators (now Lt. Gov.) Arthur H. Wicks and William F. Condon, among the’ political bigwigs who were the convicted extortionist Fa\ s regular visitors at Ossining. Gov. Dewey, openly incensed, ordered Fay removed to Danne- mora. the “Siberia” of New- York date's penitentiaries. N. Y. AP Meet In N. Y. C. New York, rather than an up- date city, will be the scene of this V ear’s meeting of the New York Slate Associated Press member- papers, at the Hotel Biltmore, Oct. 13-19. The meetings have been held in Albany for several years I )Hs t. Governor Thomas E. Dewey i*' scheduled to make an off-the- record address to the publishers and editors. Roger S. Phillips' World Mag World, new magazine of world events, will make its initial appear- ance on the newsstands Oct. 23. A monthly, it will be published by the same group which turned out UN World for seven and one-half years, with Roger S. Phillips as publisher. In addition to the monthly, the mag will furnish sub- scribers with spot newsletters, titled “World-Cable.” within 24 hours after the exclusive cables come in. , Mag will attempt, according to Phillips, to fill a need for "a truly topnotch American magazine which will report and interpret the news of world politics and world busi- ness accurately, fearlessly and right down to the roots.” Phillips is aiming at a “select” circulation of 150,000, of which one-third is in the house via UN World subscrip- ti ns. Prolific Victor Rosen Y ictor Rosen, who was reported last week as having completed work on his biogs of bandit Vincent (’oil and hanker Otto Kahn, artual- I I.v is still writing the Coll hook and 1 Still researching the Kahn tome, after three years. He won’t begin work on his historical novel for Lion Books’ ‘paperback originals* Joaquin Murietta. till the first two i are out of the way. I Incidentally, it Was Rosen w ho j initiated Gold Medal Books' series 'of “classic murder cases” with his t “A (bin in His Hand.” a re-crea- I tion of "Two (Jun” Crow lev's mur* 1 der of a policeman on Long IslantL ! in 1931. which Gold Medal pub- lished in April. 1951. French Film Rooks Three new film books have come out in Paris, to excite interest Two are in French and are now being translated for the Knglish and pos- sibly. the American market. The third is in English, put out bv the press section of the Venice Film Festival and called “Twenty Years of Cinema In Venice.” Gallic hooks an moniaque” (“The Screen by Lotte Surrealism Dans 1 Ado Kyrou. M leading aulhnril film here. Her written looksce origins and the “L'Ectan I) e m o n ‘isner, and ('iriema.' Eisner is Do- i a e “Le by the Seldes Tutoring Gilbert Seldes Is conducting two courses on television at the ! New School for Social Research. N. X. Both are 90-minute sessions, j one on “Television: Its Nature Programs and Uses.” the other a “Television Writing Workshop " I Seldes currently ha* a radio commentary show on WNYC, N. Y. Packs Beauroup ‘Punch.’ Too England had its Punch, Germany hid its Simplircimus. the French had the old Figaro. America had ,,s °ld Judge and Life and Leslie’s weeklies to reflect the moods and n ores of our country in cartoon and short takes. All have gone, ex- "pting Punch. American humor ) s now either newspaper, syndi- ' ated. or its aspects have fled to h broader media as The New Yorker, the Satevepost's humor < orner. not to mention the cartoons v hich punctuate that weekly, Col- r s and elsew here. William Cole, who is pa. for Enopf. has edited “The Best llu- 1 <»’ From ‘Punch’ ” for the com- P«‘titive World Pub Co. <$3.50‘, and ! "od value it is too. He lias moken down the short and long . Bte prose and poetry and Parodies, into chapter categories. all orderly and well organized • 1(1 s *ne. but the pleasant feeling 'W2CS that the British—praise ' —too hare their vagaries and. 'Tempo’ Goea ‘Bold* Pocket Magazines, Inc., publish- ers of Tempo, is readying a new pocket-size monthly to be tagged Bold. Teeoff issue will hit the stands Nov. 5. It’s the second mag venlure for the corporation formed by seven former editors of the now defunct Cowles mag. Quick. Bold will be edited by Mickey Grecnman. Books on ’Scrabble’ First two books on the new game craze. Scrabble, are due for pub- lication during November by Gros* set A Dunlap. Paper-backed vol- umes. at $1 each, are called “How to Win at Scrabble’’ and “The Scrabble Word Guide." Both are by Jacob Orleans and Edmund Jacobson. Publisher has an exclu- sive deal with the patent-holder of the game. Krutrh Between Covers In 1952 Joseph Krutrh delivered a series of lectures at Cornell Uni- versity on “Modernism in the Modern Drama.” Krutch’s talks are now published (Cornell U ! Press; $2 75). From Ibsen to Miller ; and Williams, these essays pretty thoroughly cover the field of lat- ter-day stage literature, assessing Shaw. Strindberg. Pirandello Synge. Chekov, O’Casey and An- derson. among other playwrights. Of specal interest are hitherto un- published quotations from conver- sations between O’Neill and Krutch. One may not agree completely with the author's evaluation and definition of such recent works as "Death of A Salesman" and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” hut few readers will debate Krutch’s eru- dition and many will enjoy his concise manner of presenting his subject. Down. mi the German honk is a we!l- at German him period from 1!M9 to 1928 when the mass exodus to Hollywood just about cleared Ger- many of all its pic greats Book neatly sums up the contributions ot the great directors who subsequent- ly' went to the U. S„ Midi as Frit/ Lang. Fred Murnau, Ernst Lu- bitsch, Paul Leni and others Book is informative and vveH-eunstructcd and a good asset to any compre- hensive film libraries Kv ton’s “Surrealism” is in a completely personalized vein and gives an individual idea ol what cinema should be. Though a Ini (anting in spots, it has an interest- ing. fresh viewpoint, and is ol in- terest to those immersed in films as a means of expression “Venice" is an informative com- pilation of all the films shown the Venice Film Fest since 19.(2 It also has articles from leading erix from various eoiintiics. and shapes as a good info material East U. kudos and entries aie thoroughly recorded and of inter-! est in diversity and the appeal they had to aud and juries in Venice. Monk. Good Biog Most stagers Ottawa Citizen Folds Ottawa Morning Citizen, pub- lished as an edition of the Evening Citizen, folded Sept. 30. two years after the Ottawa Journal's morn- ing gave up the ghost. This leaves the Canadian capital without a morning paper, the third daily— Franch-language Ue Droit, being a pin. Toronto and Montreal still have one a m. each, and two p in s. Citizen has been published for Barnaby Conrad's Bistro Barnahy Conrad, author of hr»t- seller “Matador” opened his own nitery in the heart of North Beach near San Francisco. Oct 1. Boite named after his bestseller, will fea- ture flamenco music and bulKnng by author the After- specialty of murals also painted Conrad. “Death In noon” will be a bar the house Conrad's newest tome. ‘La Fiesta Brava,” which according to the author is “the bible of bull- fighting,” will be released hv Houghton Mifflin the latter pait of October. Dean Jennings author of San Quentin Story” and former San of Mrs. Leslie will enjoy “Put ole Passage,” Madeleine B Stein’s ex- cellent biography of Mrs. Frank Leslie, American publishing tveoon of the ’80s and '90s «U. of Okla- homa Press; $3 75>. In addition to running Leslie’s Monthly, parent publication ol Hu- current American Magazine, M-< Leslie was once an actress Born in Louisiana in 1836 as Miriam Florence Folline, this'amaz- ing Creole masqueraded on the hoards as Minnie Monte/ sister ol the celebrated Lola. The duo bowed for the first time in 1857 at Al- bany's Green Street Theatre 'I le v played Edward Stirling's drama The Cabin Boy,” in whicli .Minnie appropriately essayed the role ol Jenny from Dominique ' who .e whole life has been a strange mystery '! The Monte/ sisters act soon broke up. and Minnie trouped a< a st.u in her own right, appearing in Tom Taylor's “Plot and Passion ' She loused audiences with such dialog as "Miscreant! dog! slave ol a slave!—stand up or I will tread vnu under my feet!" Hundreds wept when Minnie anguished. “The link must tinn—it must—or fheie r laudanum at the worst!” Miriam-Minnie doffed her leo- tard to marry wealthy E G Squu-r who lured her from the gieenioom to greener haunts of security and respectability. From this vantage point, the sprightly lass skipped and bounded into the life and Kronrnhorgrr And GHS Louis Kronenherger has edited and written the mtroduetion for "George Bernard Shaw: A Critical Survey” (World, $(>>. 1 he book comprises 21 essays on the late Irish dramatist, including Max Beerbohiu's 1901 “Conspee- iiis.” and closing with Thomas Mann's 1951 comment on Shaw, lie Was Mankind's Friend.” Along the wav, there are Shav- ian reflections by Hunekcr H905>; George Jean Nathan (19311; Ed- mund Wilson (1938); Auden <1942‘; Stark Young (1948>; and John Ma- son Brown's review of the 1950 Broadway production of "Caesar and Cleopatra ” Certain to provoke discussion is Ludwig Lew isohn's 1922 entry, “Sliavv Among the Mystics.” In these times ii is good to re-read the evaluation of G. B. S. by G. K. Chesterton! certainly one of the most polaric of the playwright's c e I e !> r a t <• d contemporaries. It seemi. a pity that some ot Gabriel Pascal's remarks about translating Shaw into the cinema have not been included. Kronenherger supplies a Shav- ian chronology, which is helpful: and the wit and urbanity of the editor’s introduction arc in hi.s best Hyle, Down. CHATTER w W. Norton A Co on Oct. 26 is pubic lung “In For Life," by bank robber-lifer Tom Runyon. Publication of “The Voice of Xmerica I bis Week” has been dis- continued will) issue No. 63, week ot'Sept. 11-17. Gold Medal will Issue 300.000 copies of “Hondo” in November tfi coincide with the release of the Wayne-Follows product ion. Gerald Green, managing editor for NBC-TVs "Today." has just had published bn, second book, “The Sword and the Sun," a histor- ical novel about Peru. Publisher is Scribner's. Writer Louise Baker «“Snips and Snails,” “Out on a Limb,” “Party Line ) of Lincoln will be the speak- er at the 12th annual Midwest Book Reviewers Conference In Omaha tomorrow 'Turs.r. Ian Ballantine. head of Rallan- tine Books, will discuss promotion in the double market, relating to simultaneous hard and soft cover publication, at Hie monthly meet of the Publishers Adclnb Oct. 15 Norman Cousins, Saturday Re- view editor, hack in Japan for his ♦ bird postwar visit Cousins is gathering material for future writ- ings and checking on a program of “spiritual adoption” ol lliros- h-rna orphans which lie instigated on his last visit. Mrs. Dorotliy Barclay, writer on home economics for N Y. Times, has been appointed by the Hoard of Regents, meeting in Albanv, 1o a five-year term on the State Home Economics Council. She succeeds Gerald H. Salisbury, managing editor of the Albany Knickci- bocker News. Waller Murtagli, former report- er for the Union-Leader arid Sun- day News in Manchester, N II , named editor of the St. Albans •Vi .1 Messenger. He reaigned ax publicity director of the N. M. Stale CIO Council and Walter Ifcalv of the Union-Leader was chosen to succeed him in that post. Bennett Cerf, Random House president, magazine columnist and I \' panelist, will deliver 27 lec- tures this season, 17 of them to college groups throughout the country. He'll do a short midwest tour in October and a transconti- nental jaunt in Jarman Hie latter carrying through, early May Prof Herbert c Mot tun foi- m< rly with the St Paul Piom i r Pres-- Dispatch and the C ot Min- nesota S< bool of Journalism, has gone to Dartmouth College to gi-.e a two-semester course on "'Report Writing.” The course is designed to help students intrea i e the ef- fectiveness of their written icpoits ori bu-mtss problems. A new experiment in joint pub- lishing is being tried by the Satur- day Evening Post and Doubleday in connection with Phil String's new' novel, “Return in Align t It’s being serialized in six parts try the mag. first installment appear- ing Oct. 16, the day that the book goes on sale. Normally, a book is not published until after magazine serialization, and in many cases not until months later.