Variety (February 1921)

Friday, February 20, 1921 EDITORIALS 11 I'rtanwai •ciaier** PvblUtieS Weekly oy VARIETY In*. 8IMB SILVERMAN. Prtsldtet 111 Wast 46tb Stre.i N.w York City SUBSCRIPTION Aasval ft For«i v n ft Bin»ie coplea It cento ■ — yOLLXIT. > 120 .No. 1 tl v. 1 I. A bill regulating poolrooms was Introduced last week in Albany, N. Y., by 'Assemblyman William Duke, Jr., of Allegheny, chairman of the Codes Committee. Under the terms of the bill all poolrooms must be licensed and the fee is fixed at $10 for each pool or billiard table. Crap and all other gambling games, as well as the salt of Intoxicating liquor on or about the premises are tabooed. Other restrictions are: — That places must be closed between the hours of 1 and 7 a. m.; that no person "actually or apparently" Under the age of 18 years may be admitted unless accompanied by parent or guardian; that the inside of the rooms must be plainly vis- ible from the streei at all times and that there can be no private stalls or inclosures. Applicants for a license must be American citizens and must pay a fee of $500, in ad- dition to giving a bond for faithful observance of the provisions of the act. Certain persons are barred from securing a license, and the Secretary of State is empowered to revoke licenses and collect forfeited bonds. He is also required to com- pile a directory of alUthe poolrooms In the State. Violations of the act are punishable by fines ranging from $50 to $250, or by imprison- ment, or both. The measure is the first of the legislative program of the New York Civic League. WEEKS AND WEEKS OF VAUDEVILLE. There is enough vaudeville over here to keep a moderately salaried act playing for over four continuous years, every week. If it plays everything. In other words, It has been estimated there are 250 different weeks of vaudeville time in the U. S. and Canada. Of this there are 96 full weeks, with the other. 156 weeks made up of splits. All of this time is capable of playing at least an act receiving $400 a week salary. The greater portion easily plays acts up to $750, while some of the small time, like Pantages, uses high cost headliners, and some of the split time, like Loews (which also has some full weeks), plays act, in small, quantities, of $1,200. r A review of the 6th Avenue bill recently In Variety drew attention to the Eddie Foy Family act, mentioning that Foy had played everything, big and small, for the purpose, of keeping at work, < thereby ' earning money. The comment intimated that it was not prido nor vanity with Eddie Foy, just business, and the review suggested that all vaudeville acts do tho same, to keep working, no matter where. The review was read by Loney Haskell. Mr. Haskell culled the information above from Variety's Bills Next Week pages. He figured exactly from the bills the 06 full weeks of big time and 192 split week houses. Estimating that Variety's Bills missed quite a number of houses, like 'Gus Sun's, Fox's, Sablosky & McGuirk, with others east of Kansas City, Mr. Haskell esti- mated 250 weeks of vaudeville over here. It became a regular business, there has been only an infinitesimal amount of uncleanliness, and that largely by the hit and run promoters. The sum total of nastiness would not give the chronic renovator of other people's morals a legitimate excuse for attacking tho screen, but the "sales title" evil does. That is ths real "why" of the present menace. Mr. Haskell in his time has played burlesque and vaudeville. Besides he has been a vaudeville manager and- Vaudeville booking man. His experience when in charge of Hammerstein's while under the late Willie Hammerstein was a volume in itself. If Hasftell did not have business instincts before managing Hammerstein's he acquired them while there. It made him observant, and it made him believe that after all in the show business, as in any other business, the ultimate- success achieved by any one who does not believe he can live on glory or fame is to be accounted for in dollars and cents, saved, retained and invested. fei Arthur Prince, the English ven- triloquist, recently presented a new act in London, entitled "The Love Affair of Yussif Hassan." *t is an adaptation by Prince of Milton Hayes' monolog "The Dream Ring of the Desert," with Prince's dummy "Jim" mixed up in an Arabian love affair. Yussif, according to "Jim's" recital, loves an Egyptian princess. *'Jlm" obtains a bride for his pal Yussif by entering a harem, but brings back, according to his tale, a flock of wives for himself. Channing Pollock, writing from Algiers to his brother John, said he was disgusted with things when sailing from Hoboken but doubts if be will ever go east of the Statue of Liberty again. In Algiers Channing was pleasantly surprised by a fa- miliar face. He walked Into the Cafe Oruber and the host greeted him cheerily, calling him by name. The man was Xavier Hirth, one time head-waiter at the Friars, re- signing when he failed to receive the assignment of club manager. The following is along the line of thought worked out by, Mr. Haskell after amazing nimself when securing the total of what the average vaude- ville act can do and play. Two hundred and fifty, weeks, says Mr. Has- kell, without a repeat. Even an act playing the split time-could work two years without a return date, And without a doubt, if covering all of that time, could repeat over most of it. Deducting the "opposition time," that time say In the west, where Loew would not play the turn that had gone over the Pantages Circuit or vice vetsa, there yet remains all the time one wants. \k> ' .. The big time vanity (though Mr. Haskell does not call it vanity—that is our term), steadily forces an act, Mr. Haskell says (and he is now playing on the big time), to seek and procure new material. .A. whirl around the big timers in the east (for [the Orpheum Circuit is almost a foreign tour as far as New York is concerned), and the artist thinks his turn is stale. He wants to keep on the big time and goes to extra expense in dialog or playlet or wardrobe or scenery, to do so. Whereas he might get his salary just he same and work with the same Identical act for from three to six seasons (instead of changing every season or so), pro- vided the artist will accept vaudeville as a business, as the vaudeville managers do, and mak^ up his mind there is no glory nor fame attached to vaudeville—just money, through earning it as an artist and saving it for himself or his family. Mr. Haskell Is right, in our opinion. If the New York Palace thought it could make more money than it does by playing four shows daily, without letting in an opposition of a two-show policy in Times square, it would play four shows. The Orpheum Circuit built the finest vaude- ville theatre in Chicago, of the largest capacity, called it the State-Lake, and plays four shows a day in it, to the second largest gross profit of any vaudeville theatre in this country—and then asks acts to cut their salary for the State-Lake! That's business, on the part of the managers. Why- should an artist be less business-like while working for those same man- agers? This is not Mr. Haskell's thought, however; it's ours. We don't want Mr. Haskell to lose the Orpheum Circuit route for what we think. and what we think about the -State-Lake is that it's \he nerviest thing ever tried by a vaudeville circuit, to advertise it's making $11,000 weekly, play its acts three times daily, and ask for a salary cut besides. Felix Adlsr bowed himself up the gangplank of a London-bound liner last Saturday. Almost at the same time Tommy Gray blew back from the sunny Southland to kiss him- self Into the only blizzard New York has been treated to all winter. Ad- ler was ably coached around the Friars as to what he should and shouldn't do in England, and he Is practising wearing evening clothes nightly on the way over. ■ . Negotiations are now on to bring Niklta Balieff and his company, known as "La Chauve Souris" (The Bat), t6 this country in the ap- proaching spring. "La Chauve Souris" is an organization of a type somewhat similar to the Greenwich Village*inhabitants in this city, and has been prominent in Russian theatricals for the past decade. The company includes a cast of about thirty people and it is un- derstood that the repertoire is un- limited. ■ Ruth Budd will sail next Satur- day aboard the Aquitanla for Eng- land, where she will appear in the Palace, London, for a week, with the Sir Harry Lauder show. Miss Budd will then remain on the other side, Indefinitely, going out over Moss' Empires following her en- gagement at the Palace. Comtesse Rose Ernest (Five Mar- tha Washington Girls) secured a di- vorce in Baltimore last week from " ber husband. Edward Soper. Both had been engaged in running'a hotel In the city. They were married June 28, 1917, and separated in No- vember of that year. The Palace, New York, the biggest money maker, in the past had new turns going in there on a cut, to show. Now new acts go in there to have their salary set. — Why doesn't Marcus Loew play big time? (not Haskell's). Because Marcus Loew thinks his circuit can make more money playing small time. It's all business. Money making, money saving, nothing but money— because it's business, whether it's the big time or the small time man- ager. This is Haskell's. If an artist will make up a list of all the time he knows he can play at his figure, say to himself he will play it, and then play it all over again, if nothing better cornea to him meanwhile, he can in pursuit of that purpose virtually obligate himself to save a certain sum weekly out of every week's salary, have an idea meantime how much he will eventually save, and during his period of saving, look out for substantial investments, so that his savings may return him an old-age Income. That's Mr. Haskell idea, and it's a great one. There are acts now in vaudeville playing twice dally that in their youth played 10 times daily. They had to. There was nothing else. There is more now, but whether it's two or three times a day, what's the difference if there's an objective? There are fellows on Variety who worked 22 hours daily when the paper Started, fellows who fell asleep on their typewriters from exhaustion, and they didn't kick—end they are still working steadily 16 hours a day most of the time, and picking up a souse before getting some sleep out of the other eight as a rule. : > Follow the Haskell idea. Keep working, anywhere, for anybody who will pay your salary. Conclude that vaudeville is purely a business. Be a Cressy and a Tom Byan and a Sam Morton and an Eddie Foy—work and get the money, save the money and get an income. Then the vaude- ville managers will tell you after you quit what a great act you were and they will have admiration for your sense. They won't tell you that now, afraid that you will raise your salary, and if you do quit broke, what 11 they say? Be a business man, and if you can't be, hire someone to be one for you. SPEAKING OF "SEX PICTURES." In 36 states—three-quarters of the Union—legislation aimed at films is either in process of enactment or being threatened. Wherefore there is loud wailing in the wilderness of pictures. That the emergency finds the industry a house divided against Itself, with the wholesalers and retailers of screen entertainment calling each other names, is aside from the main issue, though illogical enough, 'tis true. The chief question Is: "Why are the states considering censorship in such a huge dose?" • To eliminate "suggestiveness and Immorality from the screen," the reformers will reply, and the defenders of "the fifth industry" will an- swer, "it is a plot to ruin us and to rob the people of their liberty, to give the reformers and politicians a payroll." Neither answer is honest nor accurate. "Sales,'* as a word and as a fact, Is the besetting s!n of-pictures, the evil eye that has hynotized everybody In the business. It is more than a fetich. It is a god, a Buddha before which an industry worships and prostrates itself. The "sales angle" is the Alpha and Omega of the business. A screen subject la not selected for its intrinsic literary or entertaining. value. ,i,t is chosen for its "sales value/' A title is not placed on a picture because it tits or has any connection with the subject matter. It is dictated by "sales value." A man whose suggestion for anything connected with a picture or the conduct of any branch of the business, from window clea:*»- ing to a publicity campaign, is adopted, does not say his plan way adopted. He says ho "sold'* it to the boss. » -.-»• There is now and ever has been comparatively little "sex stuff" on the screen, the Indecent picture being the exception rather than the rule. Certain "shoestring" producers—the boyg who bull some angel into put- ting up coin for a single picture—have tried to rlean up bankrolls quickly by making dirty subjects and state-righting or' selling them before they got caught ar it. One or two of the big companies have tried to slip over a few. But out of the thousands and thousands of pictures made since "Salsa talk," "sales title," "sales value"—are the chief terms of the trade, and they are used glibly by Its big brains and little. The "wise guy" cannot use any other. : — And to this obsession the censorship mobilization may be directly traced. A member of Variety's staff, believing the sex title, or "sales title," was more to blame for the existing situation than "sex" pictures, as such* went through the card index hies and selected at random some titles. They will be found listed in the picture section of this issue, and the suggestion is offered that the makers, sellers and exhibitors of picture* study them in their relation to the censorship menace. It will bs said by the perpetrators and beneficiaries of these titles that the vendors of the pictures bearing them "made their money off those pictures." All right. Let them continue trying to make then- money off pictures with titles such as these and they not only will kill the goose which has laid the golden eggs, but will have to turn loose a great many of the eggs in a defensive warfare against restrictive legislation. LOS ANGELES ASLEEP. There are indications Los Angeles, as a city, is fast asleep! It is time some one slipped a Big Ben under the pillow of the town and made it realise just what the picture industry means to it. Perhaps the activities of Jacksonville, Florida, will have the effect of leading to a better real- ization in the Film Capital of just what the celluloid strip has done, not alone for Los Angeles but for the whole of Southern California. The attitude in general of the "native sons from Iowa" who have settled there and became the California booster may be gathered by the host of classified advertisements for flats and bungalows which bear the line "No motion picture people wanted." This line is usually coupled with the same one about dogs. ft is about time Los Angeles admitted the picture industry part of its civic blood and ceased to look upon tho thousands here active in the making of pictures as its "picture colony." The great bulk of the capital invested in pictures in the making on the Coast Is from the East, generally New York. The producer gets his bankroll somewhere east of the Mississippi and takes it to Los Angeles, to build a studio, shoot his pictures and spend his money. But he isn't accepted as a "member in good standing" by the city. He is just a visitor-and as such, is good game to be trimmed with the sucker-tourist. Everyone of the older Inhabitants of Los Angeles, those that have been there more than a score of years and so are entitled to the title of "native." brags about the marvelous growth of the city in the last ten years. What then other than the pictures can be pointed to as responsible for the growth of the town? Prior to ten years ago there was no picture making in Los Angeles, or much of It anywhere else for that matter, for the picture Industry was just about able to reach over the side of the cradle to grab at the milk bottle. Prior to ten years ago there wasn't much of a Loa Angeles. Then the pictures came and Los Angeles has grown by leaps and bounds, but all the while Los Angeles has been trying to steal the nursing bottle from the baby responsible for its civic life. Ths studios, the stars and the minor players of the pictures made in Los Angeles have given the city of Los Angeles worldwide adver- tising that it could not have secured had it spent millions. The studios and stars have likewise proven a lodestone that has attracted the tourist and made it possible for the big hotels and shops in ths town to exist* brought hundreds of thousands of visitors there and millions into the coffers of every Tom, Dick and Harry, butcher, baker and candlestick maker in the town. In return what does the industry as a whole and the player or producer, as Individuals, receive? Not a thing. In time this treatment is bound to have its effect and even those who have spent tremendous sums on studios in Los Angeles will pull up the stakes and leave In the event that the city docs not awaken to what Is due of the picture producer and the profession at large. At this time Florida, especially Jacksonville, is making a bid to attract the industry and New York bankers are said to be behind the plan. Eastern producers are going to Florida to make pictures and Los Angeles producers have been approached. Perhaps Inducement sufficient to overcome the pang at leaving the land of Sunshine and Flowers and the studios now standing there will be offered, and then Loa Angeles will be nothing more or less than a "close-up of a Hick Village." Los Angeles Is on the verge of slipping. CHARLEY FITZMORRIS. Out in Chicago there is a new young Chief of Police. He has no uniform. And he has no illusions as to hia own greatness. He still ia a plain citizen. He believes he should retain the viewpoint of the citizen. He bellevea the citizen doesn't want the body and soul cut out of movies and other amusements to please the blue-noses and the bc^U.e-«»,»rowjt:. And ha 60 tolti tttttM iAWlies in coldf turkey English. Charley Fitzmorris learnod that kind of language In hb years as a newspaper man. He is a slender young fellow, but he never has been afraid to use what he learned. He is death on thieves—within his own department and elsewhere—but be can't get excited about a couple of extra feet of kiss on a film. He Is very set against graft, including the kind that draws its source from harrassing legitimate business, including the show business. Show business, he believes, is no bolter than the rest of the 'ndustrlal branches—but no worse, either. It is a relisf In this generation of "don't" hounds, when public officials, as a rule, follow blindly the hue and cry of the self-interested and blatant minority, to see an ordinary citizen who has been given some power retain his equilibrium and still think from the attitude of a taxpayer, a male man and an American; neither frightened by the threats of the thin-blooded scolds, nor leaning too far the other way to attract the approval of the hoodlums. What ws need in this country is balance. Balance means sanity. Sanity means tolerance. Tolerance means normality. Normality means the natural assimilation of what is right rather than efforts to choke down the protesting throat what cannot go through the wind-pipe. I S Erfj < aj t l i ' . i , ... ,. :>>» ■ i •• i i , - I i > »• lO '4^i I ¥ I » stopj I I i •/ > ir ■*x» wo. ■ i •