Variety (November 1922)

Wday, November 24, 1922 EDITORIALS f KIETY t Trade Mark Rifflatered VstlUhed Weekly by VABUnrT, lae. Slme SlIvarmaB, President B94 We«t 4«th Street New York City SUBSCRIPTION: Aanwil tT I PoreicB ft Wacle CopiM SO Centa - e yoi* Lxix. No. 1 Tr t JACK EDWAED3 !• no long«r connected with the businoto department of Variety, and ia not authorized to repre- aent Variety for any purpose. Tha State Induetrial Board of Pennaylvania has Just completed a survey of the State to learn how the child labor act ia being: enforced. Relative to children in theatricals, the report says: ; "The effectiveness of public action In regard to the proposed regula- tions govering children in the- atricals is demonstrated in the sur- vey Just completed. The inspectors found violations of the act in this respect practically a negligible quantity. Only a few cases where children were empU^yed on the stage were found in the investigation. In each of these cases the children were accompanied by parents or guardians and a tutor, showing that the spirit of public discussion, call- ing for such care of the children has been carried out by the the- atrical interests." . The board has no cut and dried rule for children en the st.ige. al- though it has frequently discu.ssed it. Hearings brought out advocates who hold that under the child labor law no children under 16 can appear on any stage, but the board has taken the more liberal view that it will not nrioJe.st children while they are being given advantages in edu- cation. • . EQUITY FUMING AGAIN Equity \m fuminf airaln. Equity, when It fumes, furies and fumes. It's an exertion leaders are not expected to undergo except in the course of their regular work, Equity now is fuming at Varietyv Also again! Variety is not In the course of E>iuity's leaders' regular work. Variety ia Just coarse. If you don't think so, ask the Equity bunch, the inside crowd otherwise known as Branch No. 2, address the Lambs Club. Why does Equity fume? Isn't it soft enough for the No. 2 branchers? Maybe they fume to be humorous or get into a humorous mood. It sounds humorous, sort of English like. It's probably the English idea, as expounded, impounded and propounded in the Lambs. Nice place, that Lambs Club, for this winter, if it's cold and the dues are paid. Wonder how many English have paid dues to the Lambs who have not paid dues to Equity. Just a thought; no question. You need not answer. TICKET SPECULATING FUTURE The legitimate theatre managers of New York and Chicago (and they interlock to a considerable extent) are dead up against the ticket specu- lating thing. It's past bodes ill for it's future. The managers have flnal'y re.ached that conclusion. But they don't know what to do. Groping about for a solution doesn't seem to locate one. One point appears to be assured, and that is the managers have allowed their own box offices to get beyond their control in those two cities. The control has passed to the ticket agencies. That always has been so to a marked degree in Chicago. Now the New York managers see how they are threatened. Wa are not trying to be funny. No humor in this, answering Equity and not yet recovered from the Friars' dinner. As a matter of fact, we are yawning this through. But what must be done should be done, and right away, or we will forget it. . . Equity's motive may be right, but its method is wrong. It accuses Variety of lying. Says Variety said it assessed members |5 each by order of the American Federation of Labor for the defense of the indicted Herrin miners. Said we said Equity is losing |50,000 a year, and it's only- losing $16,500. Got just as sore as though we had actauUy cheated it out of the other $33,500, or had taken ourselves |5 each from members for the Herrin miners. Variety prints so much of little consequence. It's pretty tough to turn out 48 pages every week. Got to say something. The other day a man- ager cried because he said we said his show only got |17,000 last week, and It got $17,900. We said, "Typographical error" (the old bunk), but we can't use that on Equity. You can typograph wrong for a figure or a letter, but you can't for an entire story. Got to find another reason.. Equity should let the managers do all of the crying. Not cry itself. Not nice for an actors' organization that belongs to the English. Don't cry, Eq. .i ,.,;:. „..,:;:. _,■•' . ;-. ,:- ,:•■;;■.„/.-.■ Got to keep repeating to those Equity guys—the English ones. The Americans seem to be able to get the idea, but the English are either obtuse or English. (There's a gag for Geo. M. in "So "This Is London I") That's a good play, that "London" play; good because it's playing to capacity. Another Cohan play playing to capacity, "Little Nelly Kelly" (How do you spell that "Nelly," Geo., "Nelly'' or "Ne'Ue"?). Equity has a play, "Hospitality." Maybe that's a good play, too. But they don't practice it, the Equity bosses, whoever they are or whoever he is. Hospitality over here is often accepted as meaning "Come on in— everything's free.' But at the 48th Street they charge for "Hospitality." And that's all right; that's business. We had lo pay to see it, so we are entitled to a kick. , • - There are so many ways the managers affected can view the ticket agency problem it Is hardly to be wondered at many opinions expressed among them stump the question. The big danger Just now looks to be the independence with which the agencies handle the tickets of the theatres they sell for. Agencies hardly appear to consider the theatre at all. ■ ' •.. ■-■■"■■■.■..:■'■•:■■•':•■• V^'.-:'. ■: ;'■:•■"-■ The speculators have believed for a long while they are supreme. That is even outside of the "buys." Agencies have worked theimaelves into that frame of mind, perhaps somewhat persuaded in their self-formed opinion by the Chicago situation. The Chicago theatre ticket speculating con- dition is the most surprising anyone In any business could conceive. No explanation could explain how a ticket speculator may so thoroughly control the sale of tickets for all legit theatres that the agency believes Itself suindently enforced to dictate the scale of a theatre before the Incoming show reaches It. That. In brief, and but a little of the whole. Is the situation In Chicago. It was made possible In the first place through a local ordinance that prescribed the theatre ticket could not be sold at a higher price other than that printed on the ticket. That may have been when Chicago had six or seven legit theatres. Now It has IS and the condition remains with the spec almost In supreme command, though a half-hearted flght Is now about to be waged against It. The managers of the P. M. A. may work out their salvation In New York, for that Is Just what It looks like. They might remember while doing it that some of the agencies have an enormous number of charg* accounts, all theatregoers. It would not be a surprise to know that the two leading agencies have as many as from 8,000 to 10,000 charge ac« county on their combined lists. This Is aside from the counter sale. Right In those charge accounts may be the little dark fellow. If there Is a dark one lingering around. But there ia something, and after that the matter of the gyps should enter.. Still, that is too tnrtde and for the managers to solve. But the regular ticket agencies and the gyps must be controlled befofe tho cut rate thing can be sensibly taken up. Otherwise, the agencies and the gyps would dump Into the cut rates, without regulation. .'■i ■*" Vecta Wallace (vaudeville) recent- ly found a pearl and diamond neck- | less valued at $10,000. After look- ] Ing through the advert^ing columns . of the daily papers for several days i Miss Wallace hers^f advertised, an- nouncing her find. Summoned to j the Lying-in Ho.stpltal by Dr. Meyer 'Wolff, Mi J? Wallace, after assuring { herself the doctor was the rightful | owner, tuined over the bauble and j was handed a $30 bill for her j trouble. Th's was Increased later by a $10 gilt from the physician's ; wife. ! The hospitality we mean the Equity bosf es don't practice Is like this (or at least that Is what we have been told, like we are told everything about Equity and mostly against Equity, because we have no way to .«'.ecure verlfieations). That could be why we are told—but never mind that. The lacki of hospitality is right In Equity's home office. So we have been told. And this is what we have been told. That there would be or could be some American and English mcmbern around the home burning fires. And someone mentions Variety. And someone, always an Englishman, opens a window. Or maybe he looked out of a window. We are told so much. And the American says, "Why is it you don't give that Variety any news?" And after the Englishmen recover, they sing their chorus, "That rotten paper." And. of course, the Englishmen pre- vail, mostly because they are English. . There's another very much Inside aspect on this proposition that Is also up to the managers; that is the possible manner of the tickets going out of the box office and the tickets coming back to the box ofBce when they should not. The going out may be allowable, but the coming back (return on an outright buy In quantities or through digging) of tickets is wrong. It is claimed the central managerial agency or clearing house is Itn*^ practicable through envlousness or organization. Then the altematlv* looks to be the forcing of certain agencies to an understanding that wt'l limit only the agencies Invited to business dealings with the managers. That might be contingent, however, upon the presumption that there Is no New York legit manage at present holding an interest In a ticket agency. We have our doubts about that. A transformed beer saloon on j Nassau street now .verves as a bib- j liotheca, where books are sold by the auction process. The auctioneer ! is R. E. Slierwood, ex-performer, i ^whose stage experience embraced! .. the extremes of circus and Shake- spearean endeavor. Sherwood, be- | cause of his entertaining sales talk and theatrical tidbits, has become famed among thp law clerks and stcnogs In tho vicinity, as a result of which he draws capacity audi- ences between the 12 to 2 lunch-hour periods. Obviously a good percent- age are attracted .solely by the auc- tioneer's per.sonality and free vaude- ville performance than any biblio- , philic intere.it. Or maybe another Eng'ishman, who can't forgot his diplomacy, says, trying to talk like an American, "Well, boys, it's like thi.s. I don't exactly 1 dislike Variety, and maybe we could u>e it. but it's rotten and it's no good, but If it would print only what we wanted it to, maybe we would talk to it once in a while," and then the other Englishmen, taking "once in a while" for the cue, bust right in again on their chorus of "That rotten paper." So the American probably wonders if those who run Equity pay anything to Equity, and"he goes on his way, right past the Lambs Club, where the English operate the No. 2 branch. If the theatrical managers of New Y'ork and Chicago want to control their business they must control the ticket speculator. It's dallying to think of or suggest other ways than direct control. Temporising or ex- perimenting will be taken advantage of meanwhile by the agencies to further entrench themselves. They are pretty strong now. They know and the managers know how strong they are. ■,♦•■ Now, listen, Eq. Don't do a run-around and say we are trying to split Equity into faction.-?, English and American. That's not the scheme. It's hospitality, when it costs nothing. If the Equity bosses, whoever they are or whoever he is, had said: "Variety is a pretty bum paper. In.fact, it's nothing at all. Nobody reads It and nobody believes It if they do road it, but they don't read it. But if they do read It, they should read both sides, so we'll hold our grouch under cover and see If we can't make .some use of that rotten Variety, for Variety reaches people our Equity monthly defender never heard of. And who can tell? Maybe If we get our side in Variety once In a while (no,cue), maybe songe of our members would pay their dues." - ' Any plan that proposed to allow ticket offices to secure tickets In ad- vance, under buys or premiums, will never amount to anything more than incrt'a.'*ing the power of the specs. Any plan that will permit them to handle theatre tickets without a buy or commission, whether with return privilege or not, is equally as dangerous, unless the P. M. A. has a oerta'n supervision of the business of those agencies selected, with tho authority to detail a representative for investigation. If necessary. The most certain means is a central office and advertise to the pubic. Why not the managers advertise to the public ihey art- iiinnmg their owa box office; others advertiso they are doing It'.' Mrs. Virginia Grant, actress for many years, \^ the new manager of the Dempsoy Beauty Shop at Au- burn, N. Y. Mrs. Grant has quit theatricals and intends to reside in Auburn. The thirc' i nniinl benefit perform- mce for tho Now York American •Xmas Fund (for the Brooklyn poor) • will be staged at the Montauk, ■ Brooklyn, Sunday night, Dec. 3. Pat ' Wo-ds, of the Keith office, will book the show, which will be donated for ;he occasion. The Levine Family will unv.rf'll a Tionumcnt to Henry Lewis Sunday, November 26, nt Wa.shington Ceme- tery at 2 p. m. If raining, the un- veiling will be postponed until Sun- day, Decoml'or 3. So if Eq. had been really hospitable, and said, "Come on In If you want to find out what you should print," instead of saying, "i'ou can't come in here, whether you get It right or wrong," that would have been hospitality without a charge, and Eq. wouldn't have to cry so often over poor Variety, that has trouble enaugh without bothering over the English of Eq. And so, Eq., when you stoop to say, after you told us to lay off of you and your member.^ not to speak to either nor* go into your offices, and even posted that notice on your bulletin board, published it. told your members not to read nor buy Variety, not to advert-ise in it. and called it a liar so often we are almost led to believe it our.seIves. that Variety should not have p-ublished that a.««seB.-^ment story without having asktnl an Equity deputy or an Equity member, because Variety's New York office is In the center of 50 or more theatres, don't you think you are ridiculous—or don't you think? h James B. Carson has retained Jac, W. Wyte to in.-^lltute legal proceed- ings against H. I. Phillips, the New York "Globe" columnl.st.' The suit —Il to recover ore-half of the profits Phillips received from writing "Tak- ing Chances" In collaboration with Harold Orlob. Carson claln.s ho in- troduced the two collaborators on the undets'anding both wore to share alike in tho profits. Phillips authored Carsons \audevillc mono- log last season. Chris Pender ."a.ws that he and his There's the silliest squawk ever heard outside of the Frhirs' card room. Tell us to keep out, so we can't get verification, and then cry boo.iuse we can't. Oh. Eq., honest, it does look as thoujjh you are really all Eng'llsh. Did anyone ever hear of the New York "Commercial," to get back to the matter of tjie assessment? The "Comm«rcial ' printed a Vtory about the assessment, taking its Htory from Variety's. Equity sent a denial to the "Commercial,''-and the "Commercial" sent the writer of its story to Equity's office. Then the "Commercial" printed another story of lt.« writer calling at Equity's office about the as.~^es.sment. And the "Com- mercial's" second storj' J^ald that when lis writer asked Frank (Jillmo: lo make a short written statement to the effect P^qulty hud not assessed members nor asked for .my money for tho Horrin miners. Mr. Glllmorr refu.sed to make .such a statement. And tbafa that. SPORTS That's about all. And we-have drme this whole thing on a tipsy type- writer without a Uriult. it's now 6:30 ia N-'f-tir v..rL- ^^m 11 !» n i.. i.n.wi.m Take your choice. two partners were chloroformed In their apartment at 4 a. m. Sund.iy by thieves who stole jewelry uid flothlng to the amount of $100. The act Is Meyeis, I'endor and McClus- ley, with tho three men living at CJ!< .*^pruce street, I>hiIadoIi>hia, while- r>laying a cabaret engagement in that city. Local delectivos were given the matter to Investigate. The Empire, Fall Rlv.'^r (vaude- ville). ot»en3 n»it w*'ek. fiooked '.»y .-hoo.ly. What may, or may not, be a new angle on the gambling dement around New York has cropped out with the approaching finish of the football season. It's undoubtedly an old gag dressed up for the college students to fall for, and, according to report, the gyppers have been more than fairly successful. Last week's Yale-Prlnoeton contest is said to have netted $38,000 for the inside workers. Those who are "in" on the frame consist ot a clique comprising about ten, in round numbers, ranging In age from 25 to 40. The idea is the clique splits half and half to bet on the games with the five who are to place money on the favorite, or the team they pick to win, laying the heaviof^t bets and both halves carry- ing about $2,000 in cash with them to make It look good. Tho gang may migrate to the re- spective college towns about a week before tho game, get in with the students, ride 'em around in cars, spend coin and establish their finan- cial menns while also conversing about bets. When the time come.'^ for the actual laying down of tho money a certified chef k is produ'-od by th*» wise lM-y?<. unfl ev<~ryti>ing is supposodly on tlu- level. Hut tiio piitit on the chock I.^ a phonoy a.«5 tho gang has its own rubber stamp. Following the garno. and if the favorite, or the team tho "hoasy dough" \h on, win.«. tho gyps make good the lOKiiig hots (f«.r- i lj< t o m.i> 1)0 a chanoo f»f a r<|!oaf o'l ;iroilr.'i Tame), biit if ii"? tl<' i.ihor \\.i\ around the ".snial »n.'n<v li;i|f* toi- lect their winnings and the pals who have gone "overboard" through wagering the large end In bad paper blow out. It's a pretty wise mob handllni? the proposition, with enough scn^^e to lay off the tough boys, who are liable to follow the bad checks ud and make trouble. Hence, they ad- hero mainly to the students or In- dividuals they know they can take. Besides which it was reported that the clique are not only limited to the fall season and f^rldiron game. Imt are extensive In their campaign covering the summer months bv baseball and tho ponies with, of course, variations to the rout.no. Two ro.nl .»!orapp''r.s from the oMier side of the world are making bnxini? history nniund these part.s. Thoy comprise the team of brown glove- men brought from the Philli' ines. Pnncho Villa, the midget with the Mexican name, and Elino Floro.<». the likely visitors, featured the c.i'd at Miidi.xon V, luare ftardon Inst I'ri- day. IJoth perf«jrmefl with credit. The I.id.s have boon in this coun- try six months. Porhap.s the Phil- ripTnn.<f are mturrtT tTgM c r w. in f ar i . that was the ifnpre.«Hion nbnad when the country had AtruinaMo • oai ing loo^e. It's a good giiovs '.hit tho .rNrn^rlcan soldiers quartered on I ho i.-•|.lnd^ ihocniatod tho ■'ounfr»-j* j,'r(ioiati,»n with tho g'o\ii \:nis Ii Ills- event, I ho two boxer-' ar»' r!ng u i f \\n<\ .It ii<> time fiff.'r th' Ir <i'miiI inuoil (>M pp'»e fJtl t