Oct. 3, 1944

Walter Winchell says: You probably have been frightened no little in the past two years by the many articles which threatened inflation … The following (from Fortune) was reprinted in The Reader’s Digest in 1934:

By next June our public debt will be approximately what it was in 1919. We have borne it before without staggering and can probably do so again. A lover of statistics has calculated that the United States could run a deficit of five billions a year for 132 years before becoming as insolvent as France was when she succumbed to her great postwar inflation.

Louella Parsons says: All of Fred Allen’s funniest jokes have been about Jack Benny, and vice versa. The feud between these two has gone on for years, beautiful insults hurled in every direction, so I wasn’t surprised when told Jack will play himself in Fred’s movie, “It’s in the Bag.” It’s a nice lineup, with Rudy Vallee playing the singing waiter and William Bendix in an important role.

Danton Walker says: Complaints of civilians who have had to wait while Nazi prisoners are fed in dining cars have resulted in a new ruling; hereafter the prisoners must remain in their guarded cars and eat out of waxed paper boxes.

LIBRA: Private interests may be disquieting in outlook. That’s just a matter of how you view tasks. Your talents used diplomatically and undauntedly can progress.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.com.
Continue reading →

Sept. 26, 1944

Walter Winchell says: Many of the staffers at Time-Life are said to be “tired of anonymity” and are taking sides… The big musical hit in town, “Song of Norway,” advertises Milton Lazarus as adapting the book … When it was readying on the coast, he had his name omitted from the ads! … A film producer will be charged with “swindling the government” out of almost a million dollars via tax loopholes.

Louella Parsons says: “Since You Went Away” is dragging them in at the box office in droves and there’s no doubt but the lineup of stars — Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Robert Walker, Joe Cotten — is big bait. Now David Selznick has a similar bee in his bonnet about casting “So Little Time,” the J.P. Marquand hit which gets rolling in December with Joseph Cotten as the hero, Jeffrey Wilson. The book has a half-dozen characters almost as important.

Danton Walker says: So great is Hollywood’s fear, now, of emphasizing the war angle of war pictures that not a single shot is fired in “Abroad With Two Yanks.” It is advertised as “strictly a comedy” … Hollywood hears that if the district attorney doesn’t get a conviction in the Dorsey-Hall case, he’s out, as it will be his third fizzle. The other two busts were the Errol Flynn and Chaplin fiascoes.

LIBRA: A real manifest of your fortitude will overcome day’s less friendly rays. Any soundly forceful effort will certainly repay in long run. Romance sponsored.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.com
Continue reading →