Variety (January 1922)

Friday, January 27, 1922 VAUDEVILLE THE BOOKING BETTING"; VAUDEVILLE PRIZE REVIVAL Oldest "Graft" System Known Among Booking Managers—Acts Bet Booking Man Can't Give Them Route for Circuit—Old Scale Boosted and Others •j»et you $200 you can't book me | ASS N TAKING over the circuit," said the act to the booking manager of the same ' Shuberts May Lose'Logan Square circuit. It has never been known when the booking manager accepted the wager, that he lost. The act be- lieves it wins, since securing the. circuit's route by so simple a de- vice. As a rule the act figures if it had asked the booking manager how much cash he wanted for a route the booker might have in- creased the amount named in the be*. 1'hls "hooking bettin?," known ?s vaudeville's prize revival and the oldest system of graft among agents, Is now reported to be in operation in a circuit's booking office in New Tork City. One act has related its experience with the booking man- ager, showing a route over the cir- cuit in proof. The 'betting" dodge wi*.3 em- ployed a great many years ago for the first time. The betting scale then seldom exceeded $21, and only 'next week" was the subject.of the Chicago. Jan. 23. The Logan square which Jimmie O'N'eil took with him into the local Shubert office for booking is going into the association for its bills. The house is one of Lubliner & Trintz, and it is understood other houces under iheir control may switch bookings again. Jack Amick, formerly with the Carrell ofllce. has left the Shubert forces here. The half dozen houses brought to the Shuberts by him, are under contract to Amlek and it is said all are being withdrawn from Shubert booking. Unless there are fr>sh acquisitions to tiie Chicago olllce for the Shuberts, there will be Utile time remaining for it to book. LOEW TIE WEST ABOUT 5 WEEKS WITH F.-R. CONTRACT CANCEL!!! BERLIN (Continued from rage 2) wager. In those days there were minor knockabouts of Shakespeare, independent bookers of a house or so giving a week's engagement each. An act aware of the soft spots would make bets with the bookers whether he would work the follow- ing week, and then, as now, the bookers, upon accepting the wager, never lost. AHACHMENT LIFTED IN BALTIMORE ROW such as, for instance, "The Comedy of Krrors," there has never been doubt to any student of the Eliza- bethan age (and the play in ques- tion is only one among many; uno needs merely to mention the names Beaumont and Fletcher, Middlotoh; or, shilling to the field of tragedy, Marlowe, i/ord and, above all, Lie Webster of the "Dutchess of Malfi"). L'ut this lack of production is un- derstandable; Shakespeare is a "name." one might almor.t say a well advert.sed trade-mark. Of Jonson as dramatist be it briefly said that, as against Shake- speare, be tends more toward the creation of types rather than the in- | dlvidualization of his plot factotums This is the wife and eight months' old son of HARRY BURNS (Burns and Freda) Will he be another balloon peddler? Mrs. Burns says "NO!" LOEW IN CLEVELAND SHIFTS VAUDEVILLE Loev/s Southern Shows (Going Into Metropolitan Dissolved, with Year to Run, by Mutual Consent Effective March 2—Result of Junior Orpheum Competition—Lubin West for Conference on Gap M. U. PLAN mm Keiiy'S ShOW PlaVS When i ,Jut .* taa **er of f irc<? technique he * . ' i surely was. as the present example Cleveland, Jan Loew's Liberty, now playing split week live acts and pictures, will dis- contimc vaudeville, Feb. 20, and adopt a straight picture policy. The Loew southern road shows will hereafter play Loow's Metropolitan instead of the Liberty. Loew has nine other houses ! ere, all playing straight pictures. The Liberty is closely adjacent to the new Keith's 105th Street, which will continue a straight vaudev'lle pol- icy. The Liberty has fallen off stead- ily in attendance since the 105th Street ope ned. Holding Corporation to Take in 802 and 310 Members The plan of adopting an amend- ment to the by-laws of Mutual Musical Protective Union, formerly Local No. 310 of the American Fed- eration of Musicians, reported sev- eral months ago in Variety, is well under way. The M. M. P. U.. according tq re- port, will very shortly become a holding corporation, only its union features being abolish d. It is likely that an arrangement will be made whereby members of Local No. 802, the successor to No. 310 in the American Federation of Musicians, will effect a plan with the M. M. P. If. that will give membership in both organizations to all members of No. 802. This would extend the sick and death benefit features to No. 802 mem- bers through the payment of $8 a year, whereas now musicians be- longing to 802 and 310 pay double that amount, $8 a year in each or- ganization. The annual morting of 310 is scheduled for early ih .March, when the newly-elcctc;! officers and board of directors will put the flushing touches on the plan of making tjie M. M. P. U. a holding corporation. The M. M. P. 1'. owns its own building on SGth .street, near Third a venue, said to be worth $600,000. This will remain an M. M. P. U. property, according to the plan, with 802 taking over the building en rental. Bernstein's Claims Are Bonded Baltimore, Jan. 25. Rube Lernstein succeeded in keeping the CJayety and Palace dark here Monday, Jan. 16, by injunction proceedings brought to prevent the house from playing Mike Kelly's "Cabaret Girls," instead of Pcrn- stein's "Broadway Scandals," an American circuit attraction. The house put up a bond Tuesday which allowed it to open with the Kelly show. Saturday afternoon (Jan. 21) Bernstein's attorneys secured an attachment, claiming damages for $1,431.31. Saturday afternoon all the DOttd- (Continucd on page 11) Married at 16, Now Freed In the Jean Jarvis (Cunningham) annulment action against Edward J amply proves. The present performance Is in- ferior; only ihe Morose of Fritz Lion and the Carion of Rose Licit* cnsteln are even probable. Ben Lachmann's adaptation was excel- lent and deserved better treatment. At the Kleines Schauspielhaus they have been digging out some old French stuff, "Kikl," by Andre Picard, translated by Robert Blum, a choice evidently made on account of its starring possibilities for Kaete Dorsch, who plays the title role. To an American mind, however, this would be far from sufficient com- pensation for tho play's imbecility. Miss Dorsch is, to speak gently, plump and thirty, and, of course, lacks the lightness of body work utterly necessary to portray tho ilitty ingenue here required. In America wo have developed this type to a complete perfection (Mary Pickford, Helen Hayes), but in Ger- many, as it is seldom called for, it is almost universally murdered. "Marriage in a Circle" (Die Ehe lm Kreise), tho latest Hermann Cunningham, picture actor, a deci-j "aller-and - Rideamus-music-by- ,i nn in „ ', , .~, . V .„„l Eduard-i.uenneke operetta, has Just «ion in the plaintiff's favor has been had |tg premiere at Theatre am ftanded down. Miss Jarvis, a show , Ndlendorf Platz. Here the libret- Rirl, formerly with the "Follies," the | tista have reverted to the burles- 'Magic Melody" and "Broadway Brevities" alleges that five years ago "when she married Cunningham she was only 16 and he 19. Tho annul- ment action was not brought sooner because of her continual traveling with tho musical shows. Harry Saks Hechheimer acted for the Plaintiff. SALES OF 100,000,000 (Continued from page 1) record sales is not to be lightly dis- missed. The roll situation is understood to be picking up also, according to sports, piano salesmen showing an increased percentage of player piano x-dos. That has been the cause of the word roll depression of late. There were not enough pianos in use. The Q. R. S. Roll Co. the past few months has been advertising quing of the Greek drama which Offenbach made popular in "Fair Helen" and "Orpheus in Hades." Sut the book is in no wise compar- 3lo to those now historic master- pieces, and Mr. Kuenncke is far, far from being another Offen- bach. His last two scores, "When Love Awakes" and "The Cousin from Dlngsda," were superior Jobs of their class, but in the present he vacillates between taking himself too seriously and not seriously enough—at one moment pretentious but hollow opera-comique and the next shoddy "Jimmy" (i. e., the Ber- lin version of shimmy music). The orchestration is efficiently han- dled but generally killed by tho abominablo "time beating" of the conductor, Max Roth. The plot was suggested by Moll- cre's "Amphitryon" and concerns the visit of Jupiter and Mercury to the earth for the purpose of gaining tho loves o* Alkmene and Charts, wives of .»mphityron and Sosias, Theban generals. Leda, whom Jup- iter onco wooed in the form of a extensively in the national period- icals, advocating tho purchase of ™ ™ gJ-|£trodncii aa a char Player pianos without boosting the i ggf S£S role-the proprietress saies of their rolls. They realize j of ft da nco hall. This part and that inat en more pianos are in use in ! 0 f Sosias aro the better written of American homes the roll sales will the ensemble. Jump accordingly. The Leda of Claire Waldoff stands nechanicals* for additional rev- J as'Alkmene is weak vocally and in- D: *ue t.» balance matter 1 sipid from the acting angle ILL AND INJURED Marcia Hamilton, suffering ex- treme i ain from a broken ankle re- ceived just before her pe. tol mam 0 of "fcJhow Me,** comedy skit at the Gaiety, Ctica, N. V.. playing Keith vaudeville, went to the theatre and rehearsed a young woman from an- other skit in her lines. The bones broken from a fall on a slippery sidewalk have been set and Miss Hamilton is at the Hotel Martin in Utica for live weeks. Mrs. Margaret Vaughn of Utica completed the work in Utica with the act and goes on the road until Miss Hamilton re- covers. Maurice Diamond (Diamond and McMahon) will resume playing Feb. 6. The dancer has been off since Jan. 2, when he fractured a rib while dancing. •Snnwif" Maybelle Phillips, con- fined to her homo in Chicago with pneumonia. While performing their act in the Salinas theatre, Salinas, Calif., last week Upton and Junius, wire act, suffered an accident in which Upton received a broken leg and Junius was badly injured about the head. The stage of tho theatre is said to have collapsed. Joe Riley (Joe Riley and Co.) playing tho Orpheum Circuit and booked at the Kansas City house week of Jan. 2d, reached there "last Friday and was taken to the Re- search hospital for an operation. He will be unable to work for some time. Shireen left tho Lyric, Hamilton. Ont., on Monday with an attack of flu. Wells, Virginia and West were off Monday at the Riviera, Brooklyn. Leo Beers doubled into the vacancy from the Flatbush. Carl Cameron, a member of the Al. O. Fields Minstrels, has been successfully operated on for appen- dicitis at the Moore Overton Hospi- tal, Binghamton, N. Y. NEW ACTS Jimmy Francis' Revue, four peo- ple, singing and dancing (Jack Lewis). Anna Held, Jr., in "French Pas- try," with two men and two women. Frank Francis (Kennedy and Francis) and Sam Ross tAl. G. Fields Minstrels). Bob Higgins, four people, musical skit. Boris Fridkin producing dancing act featuring Leo Flidkin and Syl- vaine. Leon Lawrence (Lawrence and Beasley) and phlllls Oakland (Oak- land Sisters) in a two act. They open OUt of town Monday. The Strand, Newark, N. J., plays five acts of vaudeville, commencing Jan. ao, booked by Pally Mu'ati. The Plnkelsteln eV Hubin Palace theatres, Minneapolis and St. Paul, will l(jJTVe the Loew booking office March 2, dissolving a booking ar- rangement by mutual agreement which has still one year to run. The opening of the Hennepin, the new Junior Orpheum house in Min- neapolis is believed to be the cause of the withdrawal, business falling off in such proportions at both. F. & R. houses that a change of policy and tho cutting down of the overhead were deemed imperative by the northwestern owners. The houses will play a combina- tion picture and vaudeville policy after that date. Ten reels of pic- tures and one or two vaudeville acts Is said to be the plan for the future. The possibilities of the Shuberts being asked to supply the vaudeville turns is considered remote, although F. & R. are reported as having noti- fied the Shubert office that they would play the big names for two or vnore weeks, surrounded by a straight picture bill, the stars to be chosen at the discretion of Finkic- steta & Rubin. The withdrawal of the twp houses necessitates Loew acts toing west to jump from Chicago to Seattle, and cuts the Loew western weeks down to about five, not consecutive. J. H. Lubin, Loew booking man- ager, left New York for Chicago Tuesday to confer with Ed Schiller about the Loew western sltuatlo • At the New York Loew headquar- ters it was denied the balance of the western Loew circuit was to be booked out of the Loew Chicago of- fice. LE VERE of Holmes & Le Vote, .-coring "a knockout" with their novel (•• I d/ turn entitled. "THEMSELVES" at R I'. Kelth'S Hist Street No.-/ •' .v.i. This Week (Jan. 2S). Direction: HARRY FITZGERALD Landers Stevens r.ack in Vaude Los Angeles, Jan. < r. Landers Stevens, late 01 Metro's l<»cal studios and well-known char- acter, man around the neighboring lots, returned to vaudeville Sunday with "The New Chief of Police," at the local Pant axes theatre. The sketch is headlining here th ; s week. Wood Film F.xecutivc Bah Francisco, Jan. 25. E. George Wood, a pn due* t of cabaret shows, has I n engaged i assistant manager f< t Jem en A Von Her berg, owners of one Of the l->r;;- est chain,of motion picture UVoatrea in the Northwest. Wood wrlll m his headquarters In the CoHimb'a theatre, Portland, Di e. Harry Singer East en Virit • Harry Singer, ■■ * i\ ma t he Orpheum Cir< nil hi Ch rlve*d :i» SN »' Yo: ( I vi-M. PRICES ON NW. FAIRS Eastern vaudeville and fair a gents have lost interest in the North\cr<L- ern Canada fair circuit upon re* ceivlng a schedule of appropria- tions. There are two groups of events known*** Ofrcuit A and Cir- cuit iJ. * r>" chows will b? played a week and must total not more than la.SOO, There are 16 events on Cir- euit ]'., Involving a semi-weekly change of show or 20 in all, ;\',t\\ for ii: si- only . i - nil is provided. At these limits the bills cannot booked • "t ut the east and W.iM lu'obubry be i indled from Chi i Jack Dcmpsey Vacationing i .-<•'; 1 "•!!,!> icj . of the Kei of- I ' for Lnkewo< <l, ^N. J., this . ■ he will §i» nd $ \ i rai '■•*. !••: ! :.!« will handle the