The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1929-03-21
.GLEANINGS
AND
SCREENINGS
BY ANDREW z. KELLEY

as master OF ceremonies at
Loew's Palace Theater, has been
compelled to take ten-days'
vacation. His voice suddenly
disappeared and when he sought
the advice of a specialist the
eminent medico told him his
nerves also were a little frayed.
Complete rest, and at once, was
the prescription. Mr.. Eddy will
follow the advice, returning to
the Palace stage, if all goes as
expected, a week from Saturday.
/ think the long distance
record for master of ceremonies
is two years at one house and
Mr.. Eddy is out to equal it. /
trust the sea air will restore to
complete effectiveness Wesley's
vocal organs and it must be
relief to get a Today furlougX
from four haf-hour sessions of
enforced smiling daily. Not to
mention the extra session or
dered for Saturday.
The Leon Brusiloffs are an
ticipating, as Walter Winchell
says; a blessed event.
Robert Capron, who was such a
success here with the Savoy
Musical Comedy Stock, has gone
to Denver to play the leading
comedy roles in musical stock
there.
Universal's well-touted society
opening for its super-special
"Show Boat" in the Capitol
Theater, Miami, proved wash
cut. It was not the fault of the
picture. At the app ointed hour
the theater seats filled with a
society turnout, and then it was
discovered two non-union motion
picture operators had been kid
naped. At least they could not
be found and the Movietone ap-
paratus of the theater was COM
pletely out of joint. The theater
has been having trouble with the
Operators Union over the wage
scale, so that the organized
craftsmen were rot available
for the emergency. Florenz
Ziegfeld, Harry Warner, Eugene
Zukor and Universal executives
conferred, but the only other
tkeater in Miami was giving a
show. So the audience listened
to Helen Morgan, ". c. Fields,
Joe Frisco and talks by the film
celebrities. Then everybody filed
out disappointed.
"Show Boat" had its society
opening two nights later at
Palm Beach and was voted a
great picture.
D. w. Griffith invented the
close-ups and after viewing
Lady Of the Pavements," the
conviction is he is never going
to let US forget it.
It must have been a cheerful
group of actors at the Actors
Equity meeting which heard
Producer William A. Brady pre-
dict the legitimate stage will be
as dead as a doornail in three
years.
Immediately Morris Gest sent
the literary Oliver Sayler to the
typewriter and the mail brings
this desk a communique bidding
US not be alarmed as 'the
theater is flourishing today as
it never has in past generations"
"Now," continues Mr.. Gest,
"some of the managers are liv-
ing in palaces and spending
their winters at Palm Beach
and their summers at the Lido.
Not all of course. / am not"
And so on, bringing in the
names of all the Morris Gest,
enterprises.
Before his departure for Lon
don Earl Carroll suggested that
legitimate theaters seating 5000
or more is the practical answer
to the challenge of the movies.
He says he will build the first
one, to, show how it can be
done. Then his big musicale
will play at So top on Broad
way with four matinees at 81
for any seat in the house. A
sell out gross at this scale
would bring $4,000 weekly. 1t
sounds O. k.
Mrs. Thornton D. Bonneville,
wife of Polls manager and a
first-night regular, wants to
wager not only a good meal
but agrees to cook it if "The
DEVILS Mistress" at the Belasco,
is not New York hit.
That joke about "people MAX
ing mistakes, that's why they
put rubbers on lead pencils"
must have been swiped BY all
the Hollywood directors. Irving
Cummings put it in an Old
Arizona: it is in a Movietone
short, a Vitaphone short, and
now it turns up again in 1.-THE
Bellamy Trial" Also the one
about the boy who couldn't get
a job in drug store because
he didn't know how to make
sandwiches. and "lost her job
in the five and ten because she
couldn't remember the prices"
are both venerable screen mites.
It just proves the megaphone
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