Variety (April 1954)

« MISCELLANY , II ' « —< | .ll By ROBERT J. L'ANDRY f Even in the remote past it was pretty true that opening night at the Garden was not the ideal occa sion for viewing the- circus. The initial performance watf apt to be In rough-cut and dragging on to 12:30 and later. Various awkward- nesses in the spotting of acts in- variably were as obviously wrong as their subsequentCorrection was certain. But nowadays therj ace newer and stronger reasons for a lover of circus, per se, to duck the first night. There has grown up •uch a distraction of publicity' "tieups” that the evening shapes as a struggle between Pat Valdo’s on- with-the-show whistle and the slowdowns and interpolations in- jected by television, radio* stage, society and charity interests. 1 The boredom and so-what impli- cit in a bunch of charity fronts throwing compliments at each . other is compounded at the Gar- den by the size of the place. This means that much of the paying au- dience can neither see nor hear , the “ceremonies,” especially when a wall of camera guys and camera : gals forms around the mutual ad- miration society. Need sweet char- ity express itself as a stage wait? She ceremonies for the United Cerebral Palsy Fund were the sec- ond dullest special event of last Wednesday’s opening; the first dullest "event was the slow, but slow, walkaround the arena of a bunch of “guest” clowns. None of these refugees from the broadcast- ing studios quite knew how to con- duct himself in the tanbark. Sev- eral were recognizably self-con- scious. All were seemingly present at the behest of their respective pressagents because this is sup- (Continued on page 52) Gish Chides Hollywood: Films Better Made Near A Big Culture Centre Lillian Gish took the occasion of s N. Y. cocktailery tied in with United Artists’ 35th anniversary to icold the film business for its spirit- ual poverty. And to comment on \ how sad it is that filmmakers are not all in N.Y. where they might better rival the talent which is concentrated in Rome, London and Paris. Miss Gish was honor guest at \ the pouring, which took place Sun- day i4) under the auspices of the Museum of Modern Art at the east side guest house of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III. Museum is now showing a series of outstanding UA pix from over the years, also as. part of the company’s—as Miss Gish called it—“Bar-Mitzvah.” Actress, whose last legit appear- ance was in the short-lived (39 per- formances) legiter, “Trip to Bounti- ful,” was introduced by Richard Griffith, Museum’s film director. “You Tcnow,”- she stated, “I find myself referring to United Artists as United Nations all the time and , you know there is a reason for that, because United Artists and all of the fjlms put together can ; do more for the United Nations ; than any other one medium in the world. Your responsibility to this work is not yours alone—it’s ours, mine and all the rest of you as an audience to share in that responsi- (Continued on page 20) Lamb's Salute to Golden John Golden* dean of the Amer- ican theatre, will be aaluted for his long show biz service at the Lambs Club spring gambol at the Hotel Astor, N. Y., April 24. Golden's 60th anni as a Iambs* member will be marked at the club’s headquarters tomorrow (Thurs.) afternoon. . , r , . -.I—- t IrvingBerlin’s Dream Music Box Revue Now Shapes as Par Feature Irving Berlin’s dream of doing a new stage musical revqe to cele- brate the 30th anni of the Music. Box Theatre, N. Y., which he co- owns with the Shuberts, Is taking a different non-leglt form—a mo- tion picture with the same com- memorative purpose. That looks ahead of 1055 and a Paramount package involving Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby. Meanwhile, Paramount’s “White Christmas” (also Crosby-Kaye) is in the can, for October release, and 20th-Fox’s “There’s No Busi- ness Like Show Business” is going into rehearsal this week under Sol C. Siegel's production aegis. Both Irving Berlin properties. The songsmith and most of his family (lacking daughter Eliza- beth) are rendezvousing in Madrid this weekend for a holiday. Ber- lin and his wife, Ellin, fly to Paris today' (Wed.) for a 48-hour stop- off in the French capital, and Mary Ellin Berlin (Mrs. Marvin Bar- rett), her husband, and Linda Ber- lin fly direct to Madrid tomorrow (.Thurs.), Berlin will meet Paramount stu- dio production chief Don Hartman in Spain and talk further on “Mu- sic." Latter is on a business-vaca- tion junket currently in Europe. . < CONVICTED MURDERER SAYS HE’S LIBELLED Chicago, April 6. Evidently trying to tie In the ballyhoo of “Riot in Cell Block 11” with a recent county jail riot here, Balaban & Katz drew a damage suit from a condemned prisoner whose photograph was displayed in an ad for the pic. Paul Crump, convicted for murder and current- ly awaiting the outcome of an ap- peal of death sentence, filed suit for $500,000 from the theatre chain for using his picture illegally on a billboard. Crump was named a ringleader in-the actual prison out- break here. B&K’s advertisement for the pic, which has just finished a two-week run at the Roosevelt Theatre, sur- rounds Crump’s countenance, with copy “4,000 Caged Humans,” and “It Can Happen Here.” Suit claims the publicity will have detrimen- tal effect on his appeal, pending in Illinois Supreme Court. Further charge is that Crump’s constitu- tional rights to an impartial hear- ing and decision solely on the merits of his appeal were violated by the ad. 4/7 Subscription Order Form Enclosed find check for $ Please send VARIETY for To .. Street City. . (PleaM Print Name) «••••.......i. Zone• • • • State..«•••• Regular Subscription Ratos Ono Year—$10.00 Two Yoars—$18.00 Canada and Foreign—$1 Additional par Year m ... Z^RIETY Ine. 154 West 46th Street Now York 35. N. Y. U~ Ml'. HORACE HEIDT Currently Hotel Stutter, Now York Under Personal Management WALTER PLANT* StatUr Hot«l w N*w York City, N. Y- Jack Lait Was livid Showman & Newspaperman By JOE SCHOENFELD Hollywood, April 6. “Thirty” was written last Thurs- day afternoon (1) to the life and career of Jack Lait, a titan among newspapermen, one of Variety’s most distinguished alumni, author and playwright. Lait, who was 72 last March 13, died in his Beverly Hills hilltop home in a peaceful coma, after an illness that had kept him virtually bedridden for 18 months. At his bedside, as they had been constantly since he was flown here in a hospital plane from New York in October, 1952, were his widow, the former Laura Belle Leusch, whom Lait married in Chicago in 1906; his two sons, George, studio publicity director for Columbia Pictures, and Jack, Jr., radio-tele- vision columnist for the Los An- geles Examiner, and Lait’s only daughter, Mrs. Lois C. King. Lait had been on sick leave as editor-in-chief of the N. Y7 Daily and Sunday Mirror, a post to U(hich he was" appointed in 1936 as the peak of a long and re- nowned membership in William Randolph Hearst’s top editorial echelon. It was the high spot on an exciting road that had led Lait from a newsboy on Chicago’s streets to ultimate fame as One of newspaperdom’s alltime great re- porters and writers; a firstrate (Continued on page 20) Sure, It’s Lent But It’s Not Funny If They Stay Away from a $3,000 Act One plush ‘New York hostelry, playing a $3,000-a-week nitery act, didn’t have enough customers one night last week to do the midnight show. This performer is under the impression she’s doing all right (“well, you know, it’s Lent.” etc.) and her agents, more realistic abopt the firm four-week booking, wouldn’t release the hostelry from the rest of the commitment. Management takes the position that, for $3,000 a week, it’s a two- way street; the act has an obliga- tion to pull its freight at the gate and, if failing to deliver, regard- less of season or circumstances, it-* should bow out gracefully. Sometimes an acj; isn’t “right” for a certain room and, as happened at this posh hotel, one Irish tenor last year did that very thing. He did much better business than the incumbent “problem” situation, but wasn’t happy with the overall end-result and requested exit. He promised that, if desired, the hotel could coll on his deferred contract time at a mutually satisfactory time in future. Dig Up Old Glenn Millers With Universal’s “The Glenn Miller Story” mopping up, 20th- Fox has dug into its vaults to come up with two reissues, both star- ring the late bandleader. . Films are “Sun Valley Serenade” and “Orchestra Wives.” Musicals will be released May 26. 4 Wtdnodflr, April 7, msa Mr, Dodds Goes to Town Dr. Harold W. Dodds (who prefers to be called "Mr”) Drexv of Princeton U., caught in a seml-raivate interview at the Prince™ Club in New York on Monday (3). where he headed a delegating from the faculty to sound off on the O.’s upcoming’ tv serin? claimed a profound familiarity with the "Life "and Times Square” of Variety. He volunteered that ”1 get more fun out of translating Variety than Greek or Latin.” * The “semi-private” part , of the vis-a-vis .came about through the presence of a reporter from the N,Y. Times. Turning to him as if JUr explanation of his foregoing observation on this sheet s “scholarly approach” to show biz, hejsaid, “Well, now, the Times* English is a bit different, you know.” ' s <P. •. ; 9ih . 9 lie ‘P fi w* . As Reds Intrigue; ‘Ripois Sleeper? Snip Lili G-String Memphis, April 6. Censor Lloyd Binford has local- ly banned RKO’s “The Son of Sin- bad.” His commentf “It’s a pretty good, picture but with the vilest dance I ever saw” (Censor Is 88). This is a 10-minute sequence which Binford describes as “more licentious wiggle than dance” and, he -adds, “Worse than Rita Hay- worth’s Sadie Thompson routine.” Octagenarian snipper describes the attire of Lili St. Cyr, the of- fending wiggler in “Sinbad/'' as comprising “ a G-string and a sort of filmy apron.” DICK & RITA’S $14,000 A WEEK BRITISH BID London, April 6. Latest development in the Brit- ish concert-tour offer to Dick Haymes and wife Rita Hayworth is that Haymes is making one last ap- peal to the U. S. Immigration De- partment to be allowed to stay ~in the States. If this fails, the Haymeses will definitely accept the cabled offer by 29-year-old London impresario, Maurice Kinn, of £5,- 000 a week ($14,000) for a three- weeks’ tour here, featuring Dick and Rita in a double singing act. . As. Miss Hayworth has a film- offer lined up here, she would do her film-making after the three weeks’ tour, and Haymes would then carry on doing solo concerts. Kinn is negotiating for the ar- tists through MCA. Ed Murrow’s 'Person’ To ‘Showcase’ Hildegarde Hildegarde’s tv plans for her own show are nebulous at the mo- ment, but they may come into focus with the appearance of the chanteuse on Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person” (CBS) May 7 in one of those typical “at home” spotlightings. Actually, Hildegarde is not a stranger to the medium except in the so-called “new era” of video. Back in the years around 1937-39, she did a number of closed circuits for NBC, one of them, incidentally, in'the then ver- sion of color. And around that pe- riod she was also tv’d experi- mentally by the BBC in Britafn. Anna Sosenko, her longtime manager-partner, won’t give the tele go-ahead on aperies until the format is “just right.” As a mat- ter of fact, even the “Person”-al appearance underwent a lot of scrutiny before it got the green- light from the talent side of the negotiations. It had to have that “dignity” and “class” in both the setting and context and Hilde- garde & Sosenko figure the Mur- row show an ideal showcaser in this regard. The domestic atmosphere In the “Person” pitch seems to be a tip- off on the Hildegarde future in tv. It probably won’t be In the high style aura linked with the Hilde- garde name as a top cafe person- ality, but rather a format of more realistic dimensions, meaning the singer showcased in the “private life, evening with” class. The “Person” show may yield a pilot of the type both she and her right- hand woman have in mind. That would give the Murrow telecast a dpuble function for Hildegarde. By GENE MOSKOWITZ Cannes, April 6. The ,International Film Fest politically peaceful on the surface’ goes into Its final phase with its 36 entry nations, with the main undercurrents 'of dissension con- fining itself to fights between pro- ducers or internal squabbles about iWms or film merits. Yanking of one of the Italo s entries and re- placement by anothercaused some early furor here. Entry of a Franco-English film by Paul Graetz as an English pic also caused mumbling among the more sensitive French, and there is a rumor that “From Here to Eter- nity” (Col) -will be a storm cen- tre within the Jury when it comes time to award the prizes. Rumors have it that Commies on the 14-man Jury are trying to keep the first prize from “Eternity,” de- spite general approval of the pic, and have lined up half the votes needed to do so. Deciding vote may have to be cast by the jury prez, poet-playwright Jean Coc- teau,. who’s rumored considering a vote for the Jap color film, “Gates of Hell,” in order to avoid ill feel- ing. France Soir of Paris has com- mented that it’s no longer a ques- tion of liking .good pix but whether one likes the European army treaty (Continued on page 18) Reds Up Love to Tractor Level in New Film Trend; Yen More American Pix Cannes, April 16. Grigori Alexandrov, Russian film director and head of the Russo delegation at the current Cannes Film Fest, told Variety that there was a definite trend there to begin to. veer away from the straight propagandist and nationalistic films which have made up most of the output. Comedy is becoming an important part of the output, and more intime and love stories will also become part of the forth- coming Russo filmfare. He declar- ed that men will now be in love with women as well as tractors in their films, and that Russian film- makers would welcome coproduc- tions with other nations, including the United States. Alexandrov himself will make a satirical comedy on five foreigners visiting Russia, which will also poke fun at certain Russo institu- tions. The visiting five would be an American, Englishman, German, Italian and Frenchman. • However, the Soviet pix shown at the fest all fall into the old groove and “Scander-Beg, Albanian Hero” is a color costumer which depicts the life of this battler for Alba- (Continued on page 18) 35 Hollywood Names Set For Easter GI Shows Hollywood, April 6. Total of 35 Hollywood perform- ers will entertain at special Easter shows for veterans’ hospitals in Honolulu and in Washington, Colo- rado and Texas areas. Junkets were arranged with the Hollywood Co- ordinating Committee by Col. Jo- seph Goetz, director i of entertain- ment for- the Department of De- fense. Col. Goetz and HCC also ar- ranged a series of Summer tours to entertain servicemen, abroad. First troupe, headed by Johnny Grant and Penny Singleton, will leave for France and North Africa on May 28. Bob Hope will be guest of honor at the Sport Car Races Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D. C. Idea is to raise funds for recreational facilities of enlisted airmen. * si « hi • • c I I