Variety (March 1959)

92 ' IXrtRAIX Pfi&nVrf Wednesday, March 18, 1959 A Literary ‘Shot’? There’s a hassle in British Co¬ lumbia about Stephen Leacock’s 18-year-old book, “Canada: The Foundations of Its Future,” which distillers Seagram Ltd. commis¬ sioned from the humorist and dis¬ tributed gratis in Canada. It seems the provincial liquor solons have begun banning it as a “liquor ad¬ vertisement,” though book’s in the official B.C. library and contains no liquor bally, only “House of Seagram” - credit lines. Local press raps “that such a book as this should be fouled by this petty law is disgusting," de¬ mands ban lifted because “not even (the late) Stephen Leacock could laugh at this one.” Atlanta’s Amus. Guide Joining the parade. Atlania Con¬ stitution has blossomed forth with a'tabloid Amusement Guide, spot¬ lighting all television programs,; radio, motion pictures, theatrical | news, night clubs and restaurant; activities. Paul Jones, paper’s tv-; radio editor, does a column in tab, • which is edited by Richard Gray, j who doubles as Consti’s music' critic. j Amusement Guide is Constitu-; tion’s answer to the Atlanta (p.m.) : Journal’s Green Sheet, Saturday : insert with complete listings of tv • programs, radio logs, record re- 1 views, etc. Norman Shavin, Jour-' rial’s tv-radio editor, supervises production of Green Sheet, which has been expanded to meet Con- stitution’s challenge. ! Although both papers are owned by same company. Atlanta News¬ papers Inc., management .has kept: them on a competitive basis and the result has been two strong, papers, each striving to outdo the other in new's coverage as well as service to their readers. ! sity (Scotland) authorities. Novel dealt with university life in a north-of-Britain city. James Gar- ford is a pseudonym. Attorney for the publishers said they had been in consultation with the principal of Aberdeen Univer¬ sity and, in absence of the author, who is in the Far East, they have advised their clients to postpone publication indefinitely. Copies sent to newsstands, bookstores and reviewers are being recalled. . The author is a young English student who attended Aberdeen on a postgraduate course a few years ago. Aberdeen is not specifically name in the novel, which carica¬ tures staff members and promi¬ nent figures in college life. James Ross, current editor of Gaudie, the Aberdeen University weekly, commented: “I think the author is rather hard in the way he does his lampooning.” OK ‘Looking Up* If pix are looking for new kinds of westerns, here’s one. The heroine rides while flat on her back around California. She travels in an iron lung, and 30 seconds without artificially pumped air and she’s dead. In her life and death existence she shows a lot of humor. Mother of three children, and divorced by a flying colonel who apparently was not bucking ' for an age of chivalry that was dead, she has lived nine years, a fourth of her life, in an iron lung. Her name is Jane Boyle Needham, her book is called “Looking Up” and she has told it all to Rosemary Tay¬ lor. author of “Chicken Every i Sunday." It’s a gay, exciting book. I Like old westerns, it has feuds i and suspense. Good one for “The ; Californians.” Putnam publishes, j Scul neglect the extremes and disre¬ gard minority opinion . . . Aver¬ ages are only a statistical conven¬ ience; average people are hard to find.” He discusses the sorrow plight of the serious artists and makes a case for the - elimination of the. “cabaret tax.” If performing artists are to play a role in the rapidly-changing America “we must find new angles to take the place of the million¬ aires whose ranks have been de¬ pleted by taxes,” he says. “Salva¬ tion,” in his opinion, “must come from three sources, namely cor¬ porations, foundations and the government.” He thinks all three show promise of helping perform¬ ing artists. Zelomek closed his examination of the explosive changes taking place in this country with an ex¬ tremely revealing chapter on the manifold problems confronting sufburbia. Rans. ♦♦♦♦♦+ + +♦+♦♦♦♦♦»♦ < SCULLY’S SCRAPBOOK By Frank Scully - Hill & Wang’s Theatre Books Hill & Wang is issuing four new paperbacks dealing with the thea¬ tre. Books are “Shaw’s Dramatic Criticism (1895-1898)” edited 6y John F. Matthew's; “Japanese Theatre” by Faubion Bowers with foreword by Joshua Logan; “Jean Anouilh, Volume 2” the second col¬ lection of plays by the French playwright,. and “Ibsen: The Last Plays” with an intro and transla¬ tion by William Archer. Paris Express As Daily The usually reliable Canard En- chaine, French political satirical W'eekly, reports that the Paris Ex¬ press, political weekend review will shortly make another attempt to appear as a daily. The paper tried it once before during Pierre Mendes-Frances brief tenure as French prime minister but reverted to w'eekly w'hen latter’s govern¬ ment fell. Canard has it that Express edi¬ tor. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schrei- ber, whose paper has hit an all time high since the De Gaulle regime look over, feels that coun¬ try now needs a non-CommUnist leftist daily and can pick up readers from rapidly failing Humanite (CP official organ). Paper will still continue as weekly, more or less along lines of Britain’s New - States¬ man. Oxford’s Theatre Books Harvard Prof. Harry Levin’s “The Question of Hamlet.” a new interpretation of the classic, is slated for Oxford publication next month, as is Jean Giraudouxs play, “Duel of Angels.” translated by Christopher Fry - . Vivien Leigh and Ann Todd are due in the London production on Broadw'ay this j spring. I Another prof, Earle Ernst, has j edited “Three Japanese Plays." j from the traditional theatre, also ‘ an Oxford item in April. Drama Prof. Ernst (University of Hawaii) is also author of “The Kabuki Theatre.” Educat’l Writers Awards Ann Sawyer, Charlotte <N.C.) News: Ruth Dunbar, Chicago Sun- Times; and George B. Leonard, Look, w'ere named winners of the Education Writers Association’s annual competition in Atlantic City last week. The group was one which met w’ith the annual con¬ vention of the American Associa¬ tion of the School Administrators. The three received engraved bronze plaques. Other awards: Ian Forman, Bos¬ ton Globe: Leonard Buder, N.Y. Times; Willard Baird, Lansing (Mich.) State Journal and Battle Creek Inquirer; Mary Frazer, San Francisco News; and the Detroit New s, as a newspaper. Hillman’s Paperbacks Samuel H. Post, former senior editor of Popular Library, has joined Hillman Periodicals to head i up Hillman Books which plans to reenter the paperback book field. Hillman Books will have a full line of fiction and non-fiction, both reprints and originals. Gehman’s Largesse Mag writer Richard Gehman’s standoff love affair with his native Lancaster (Pa.) County has now’ progressed to the point where he has assigned a full third of his lit¬ erary estate to Millersville State Teachers’ College, oldest (1854) teacher training school in Pennsyl¬ vania. Gehman, currently ogling the Orient on a contract book assign¬ ment, is on tour with Richard K, Reinhold, chief photog of Lancas¬ ter Intelligencer Journal, an old school buddy, on leave. • College Novel Recalled “Camphor,” new r novel by James Garford. young English author, has been withdrawn from book¬ shops in the U.K. and its publica¬ tion has been postponed indefinite¬ ly following consultation between the publishers, Faber & Faber, London, and the Aberdeen Univer¬ ‘Shakespeare at Old Vic’ “Shakespeare at the. Old Vic, Vol. 5.” by Mary Clarke (Macmil¬ lan; $5), summarizes annual pro¬ duction at the celebrated British playhouse. Season’s, director was Michael Benthall; Alfred Francis, administrative director. Plays pre¬ sented: “Hamlet” (John Neville in title role); "King Henry VI, Parts I, II, III.” “King Lear” (Paul Rogers as the King); “Twelfth Night;” and “King Henry VIII” (Harry Andrews in lead). Support¬ ing casts include players know’n on both sides of the Atlantic *for legit and film appearances. As in previous volumes. Miss Clarke’s text is concise; helpful to the splendid photographs of Angus McBean, Houston Rogers. Tony Armstrong Jones and David Sim, which illustrate the book. In every way, book is w’orthy of its prede¬ cessors, and continues a valuable stage series. Rodo. t Culture In America Vast changes in American life with automation more than merely around the country means that the citizenry will have more time on its hands, more leisure time, not necessarily for loafing, but for more worthwhile recreational en¬ deavors. These and other problems concerned with economic, social and cultural trends are carefully examined in A. Wilbert Zelomek’s “A Changing America: At Work And At Play” (Wiley; $3.95). Basis for the Zelomek picture of contemporary life is a series of talks the author gave at Virginia’s Graduate School of Business Ad¬ ministration. Book, however, is a greatly expanded version of his lectures. Zelomek, who is an eco¬ nomist and consultant to Fairchild Publications, also heads up his own International Statistical Bureau. Culture is a 10 billion dollar in¬ dustry in this land, he says. Of the value and cultural influence of radio-tv “there is considerable dif^ ference of opinion” but no one questions the fifth estate’s eco¬ nomic importance, Zelomek ob¬ serves. He. makes a strong plea for minority tastes and pooh-poohs the creation of the- so-called “average American adult,” pointing out that “no research . . . can afford to CHATTER B. H. Haggin, music critic of The Nation, who kept a record of an eight-year friendship with the maestro has put “Conversations With Toscanini” between covers for a Doubleday book due soon. Mrs. Ruth Brown Murray re¬ cently shifted from Crowell back to Viking Press, a former association, with .Patricia MacManus quitting the p.r. post for freelance scripting. Mrs. Jean Sheperd succeeded Mrs. Murray at Crowell. Bart Sheridan, articles editor of Good Housekeeping mag for the past two years, upped to managing editor of the publication. Moving into his old berth is James A. Skar- don. Latter previously was senior editor of Coronet mag. April edition of Esquire carries the complete original working script of “Sweet Bird of Youth,” the Tennessee Williams opus which got unanimous critical approval on its Broadway opening at the Martin Beck Theatre last week. Julius Ochs Adler Jr., of 168 East 74 St., New York, Is a director of Colonial Bowling Corp., char¬ tered at Albany to operate a re¬ creation and entertainment busi¬ ness in Richmond County, N.Y. Other directors are: R. Palmer Baker Jr. and William N. Jenkins, of the law firm of Lord, Day & Lord, 25 Broadway. Look will serialize excerpts of Joseph W. McCarthy’s soon-due Dial biog of the Joseph P. Kennedy & Sons family of Boston. The for¬ mer showman-later-Ambassador to the Court of St. James’ two sons are the present Senator John F. Kennedy, from Massachusetts, and Robert Kennedy, now' chief counsel for the Senate rackets investigation committee. William Stanley Parker, nation¬ ally know'n Boston architect, long an active actor-producer with the Footlight Club, has authored “The Messengers of Peace,” an allegory in blank verse, which Christopher (Boston) is publishing. The 81-year- old architect-author wrote it as a “labor of love” and agreed to its publication because of the inspira¬ tional values entailed. Author-psychologist Dr. Smiley Blanton, now 76 years old, who de¬ cided upon a medical career in 1911 at the age of 29, was origi¬ nally a legit actor, long touring with a New England stock company. His thespic training has stood him in good stead in post-literary career as a lecturer. Prentice-IIall ;s bringing out his “The Promise of the Middle Years” soon. James Cross’ second suspense novel, “The Dark Road” (his first, “Root of Evil” was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America First Novel Award for 1957), is being published April 8 to coincide with the first installment of the Satevepost’s six-part serialization. Author’s nora-de-plume is for a USIS staffer who, since 1955, has served in Europe and Washington. N.Y.. Herald Tribune Rome bu¬ reau chief Barrett McGurn has done a book on his “Decade in Europe” for Dutton in April. Same firm is bringing out Allen Church-; ill’s “The Improper Bohemians: A Re-Creation of Greenwich Village in Its Heyday” (Eugene O’Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maxwell Bodenheim, Emma Goldman, George Cram Cook, the Province- town Players, The Little Review, etc.). Palm Springs, March 17. For more than a year, Joe Reddy, publicity director of Walt Disney Productions, has been covering the land w’ith green snow. Exam¬ ined, thfe particles proved to be scores of releases of a Disney 12-year project called “Darby O’Gill and Little People.” The little people are the Irish Leprechauns and Disney is credited with personally having signed their king, Brian Conners, and 140 of his fantastic followers. Of course in Ireland the word fairy doesn’t mean what it means in America. There it is a profession, mainly of do-gooders. They can give friendly services if asked and unfriendly ones if not properly fed. Underfeeding causes them to lose their tempers. They never lack for mohey, having more pots of gold than pots of porridge. And it is still considered very sensible, especially, in the areas outside the big cities where the leprechauns seem to have re¬ treated in recent years, to leave out some food by the kitchen door during the night. Joe Reddy, who should get the full billing of Joseph Patrick Reddy within the octave of St. Patrick’s Day, obviously is Irish. He claims that there is a lot of Irish in Walt Disney too. But judging from the way things have been going for Terry Brennan, Donald O’Connor, Dennis Day (McNulty), Dan Dailey, Pat O’Brien and other Irish no¬ tables, not to forget the late James J. Curley .and the late James J. Walker, they had better not bank on the luck of the Irish to make “Darby O’Gill and the Little People" a hit. They’d better cater to the caprices of the Little People as well. Albert Sharpe, now 74, knows all about leprechauns, on account he starred on Broadway in “Finian’s Rainbow” and in Hollywood in “Brigadoon.” But because he is a Belfast townie he hasn’t a proper respect for country sprites. He learned in Burbank, while playing Dar¬ by O’Gill, that they can mess a man plenty if not looked up to. This is hard to do because they are only 21 inches tall. What Little People Can Do To Big Ones Failing to tip his hat to them (because he doesn’t wear any), Sharpe found his dressing room light extinguished with such force it cracked a mirror, his trailer trucked off three blocks (though still within the confines of the Disney studio), by a headless horseman and, so far as he could make out, a headless horse, and torrents of rain -deluging him such as he had never seen in Belfast. To top it all, the lights went out all over town during one of his most important scenes. He had learned his lesson. He wore a hat and tipped it to the leprechauns at night. Things went so smoothly after that he found his fat part had in¬ creased his weight 15 pounds. As they stand less than two feet high and wear grass-green costumes, leprechauns may be hard to spot. But they also wear a* white feather in a cocked hat and silver buckles on their black shoes. These touches make it easier to see them. And they carry a bag of gold—florins real¬ ly—for purposes of ransom if caught. They long ago realized you can buj* anything in this world—even freedom—and that everything has its price. If caught, they will pay off. Released, they can then break a man’s leg with a snap of their fingers (after dark of course) or ruin a year’s crop with a sneeze. They are powerless in the daytime. They have no problems of sex. being an all-male race, and since King Brian has ruled them for 5,000 years they must be monarchists, which has always been a tough thing to be in Ireland, or even in the United States where there are 20.000,000 citizens of Irish descent. Lawrence E. Watkin, who wrote the script from H. T. Kavanagh’s “Darby O’Gill” stories, made two trips to Ireland in relation to the picture and one of the country's traditional storytellers, the shana- chies, told him about a labor strike in County Mayo when carpenters were asked to build a fence through a fairy fort. They were terrified at what the leprechauns would do in retaliation. In his fort, called a caher, a leprechaun is safe during the daytime. This may be a mound 100 feet in diameter in the middle of a potato garden. Farther down the field where cattle graze may be a stone fort like a jagged black crowm resting on a soft green pillow of earth. The Silt of Skepticism, Is It? Once these underground passages were big enough to accommodate a man walking upright, but the silt of skepticism has so filled the tun¬ nels that only a little fairy man can walk through them now. Irish history is full of tales of the misfortunes which came upon people who ignored these lisses and cahers. Robert Stevenson, who directed the picture and is claimed to be dis¬ tantly related to Robert Louis Stevenson, also claims that his mother’s people were Irish and even in England left out food at night for lep¬ rechauns, though with British pixies, brownies and the like it is hard to see what leprechauns would be doing muscling into English terri¬ tory. Stevenson says a straight pin and a piece of holly are protectives against their caprices. Pins placed in keyholes keep leprechauns from getting in or out of rooms with closed doors. And for some reason no leprechauns will come anywhere near a holly. He claims they also hate water, even for drinking. Apparently, however, they are not ad¬ verse to being photographed by a motion picture camera, but then Disney’s cameramen have photographed polar bears and accouche- ments in the wildest parts of the animal kingdom. Darby O’Gill is the story of a feisty old shanachie who matches his wits with King Brian of the leprechauns, and winds up with more frightening adventures than he knows how to handle. While there are good and bad leprechauns, King Brian says his are the good ones, though not without their weaknesses for they have fallen twice in this history: once from heaven and once for Disney. They were angels originally. Millions of them were flocked together and Brian was king then as he is now. Then a row broke out between the angels and the Little People tried to keep out of it. The morning of the great battle one line of angels was stretched clear across heaven. It faced another line. There was a valley between. Each angel had a trumpet in his hand. The angels under Old Nick were swearing but when it came to hurling thunderbolts at each other, they got the worst of it. The Little People were too small to li r t a rock, let alone throw one, so King Brian said, “This is no fight for the likes of us. We’re neutral.” He took all his people out of battlements to the edge of heaven. Angel Gabriel caught up with him there. “A man who, for fear of his skin won’t stand up for the right may not deserve hell, but he’s not fit for heaven,” said Gabriel. So he heaved the Little People out of heaven and after years of tumbling through space they landed in Ire¬ land. In fact, they were two years and 26 days on the way and if Ire¬ land hadn’t looked so much like the heaven they had been booted out of, they might have been satelliting around till this day. Then there would have been no Abbey Theatre players and without Kieron Moore, whose real name is Ciaran Oh-Annrachain, (and isn’t that a piperoo for a heavy?), Denis O’Dea, Farrell Pelly Jack Mac- Gowran and Nora O’Mahoney, not to mention Jimmy Devlin from the Ulster group, where would Disney be, even if without them he still had Janet Munroe (redheaded, yes, but English), Sean Connery, and Jimmy O’Dea. to back up A1 Sharpe. And Sharpe wouldn’t be a broth¬ er to Barry Fitzgerald, would he? Fitzgerald’s name was Sharpe be¬ fore he took up with the Abbey players, remember? When he started in show biz 65 years ago an old comedian asked him if he was going on the stage. He said yes. “It's nc( a bad life,” said the comedian. “You’d be better off.” “It took me all these years,” said Sharpe, “to get what he meant.’*