Not Dead, but Reeling

Reports
of the death of the movie industry at the hands of television are
premature, Jerry Wald, Fox producer, told a Press Club audience.

He conceded, however, under the expert needling of Joe Hyams of the N.Y. Herald Tribune, that the business has developed a suicide complex.

One
big trouble, he said, has been the prevalent thought that a big star,
which means a big guarantee, can save a bad story. Not true. The story,
producers have learned, must come first.

"Just write a masterpiece, or even a best seller." Jerry advised newsmen, and we’ll take care of the rest.

NOT LONG ago
9,000 inquires were sent out, asking what themes people preferred. Of
the 7,800 replies, the majority looked for the theme of survival, the
will to live. Next came security, sex third. Wald wasn’t knocking it.
After all, he made "Peyton Place." Incidentally, he had a rebuke for
lurid movie advertising, which is out of his control.

Wald
also blamed myopic movie moguls for some of the trouble, recalling the
time a studio chief was asked why he didn’t make "Johnny Belinda," the
story of a girl who couldn’t talk. The movie exec replied, "Because we
have talking pictures."

His parting shot. "Television is where you see all the pictures you’ve been trying to avoid for years."

And so goes the war.

ART CRITICISM is an exclusive realm, in which the eye of the beholder is everything.

At
an exhibit, Harry Essex, writer and artist, was asked what he thought
of a group of paintings. After a moment’s thought he said, "They make
me feel like going over and putting titles on them — January,
February, March, April . . ."

GASSER
Hear the pettifoggers’ pronunciamento,’
I fear the smog’s hit Sacramento.
–CLIFF MACKAY

ALL’S WELL at last among the feuding claimants to the title, mayor of 7th and Alvarado. Korny Kenny, self-proclaimed alcalde, has graciously slipped the halo to his friendly opponent, Joe Hart.

In
a formal statement Kenny wrote, "The people have spoke, my heart is
broke, I wish the new mayor the best. But I would of won if it wasn’t
for the gosh-darned vest." He was referring to his sportingweskit, object of derision. Another factor in his abdication was that he ships out on freighters and is gone for months, leaving 7th and Alvarado without a firm hand. 

Joe
Hart, who backed into WW 2 in time to get wounded in the South Pacific,
has had cards printed with a big red heart on them through which his
name and new title stab prettily. His slogan: Equal rights for pigeons
and men.

THE CONCENTRATED LAPD raids on narcotics peddlers and addicts which netted about 200 suspects a few days ago turned up a fearsome non sequitur.

An
officer knocked on a door but got no answer. He knew people were inside
and shouted for them to open the door. No answer. He asked, "What’s
going on in there?" No answer.

Taking a more jovial approach
he called out, "What’s happening, man?" Came the frightened response,
"I don’t know anybody by that name."

AROUND TOWN — Tom
Devlin, L.A. newsman, has brought out a 350-page documented report on
the strange case of the Finn twins, charging their conviction was a
miscarriage of justice. It represents five years of investigation. In a
forward Devlin explains his purpose, "A man must do what he must do" .
. . You know those bus loaders on the Broadway islands who have their
cash boxes on a long stick? Between cars, one of them was solemnly
waltzing his stick . . . No truth to the rumor, Roy Walters whispers,
that one of the new edifices planned for Bunker Hill will be called the
Bunker Hilton.

Closing the Books

In the last week two big downtown bookmakers have folded their form charts and quietly stolen away.

The gendarmes didn’t knock them over. The longshots at Santa Anita did.

To stay in business a bookie has to figure on 20% — $20 of every $100 wagered.

Normally
around 33% of the favorites, or chalk horses, win, paying short prizes.
This has been especially true at the big Arcadia slot machine.

But
not this semester. The longshots have been tromping in like crazy. One
bookie was hit for $3,000 last week by an uncooperative nag which came
from nowhere.

IN THE OLD DAYS when a bookie got loaded
up on a longshot, he could lay off some of the money so he wouldn’t get
hurt. Now he can’t. The lay-off spots aren’t around any more. And he
can’t refuse the action or the players will become irritable. So, down
the drain.

Naturally this distressing situation is working a
hardship on beleaguered bettors. When a bookie is hard to find, a
player, especially one with a hot tip, faces the terrible prospect of
going out to the track and getting clobbered for the full ride, maybe
even being refused admittance because his tie isn’t on straight.

Man, it’s murder.

DRIVING THROUGH a beach town, Jo Meade commented on the
unimaginative street names and wondered if they’d ever be changed to
something more colorful.

"I’ll start them out," Tom, her husband, said, "with Squid Roe."

EVERYONE doubtless has noticed how everything’s going
Italiano these days — clothes, shoes, film start, small cars, cuisine.
Well, Dana Burkhalter puts it this way:

With all this Italian cooking, I guess
They’ll soon call our city Lasagna-les,
The name doesn’t matter, I’d like, never fear,
To own a few pizzas of property here.

A MAN I KNOW went to the freezer to get some hamburger for
dinner and found some freshly washed clothes. Holding up his wife’s bra
he demanded, "What’s this doing in the freezer?"

Surprised at
such ignorance, she said she kept them there until she was ready to
iron them. The cold, she explained, prevented mildew.

Logical, but a little depressing.

THE WAY Lou Huston tells it, Hamlet, tortured by inner
conflicts, attempted to resolve his hostilities by the wanton slaying
of inoffensive donkeys and a particular species of bird.

One
day, as the unhappy prince stalked through the garden at Elsinore,
terminating the lives of the beasts and birds, he was observed by his
mentor, Polonius, who admonished him, "Neither a burro oriole-ender
be."

ONLY IN BURBANK — Mrs. M. Belden’s son, a first-grader,
came home from school bursting with the news that there was a new boy
in class named Felicio, which, he said, means "drop dead."

Knowing
the name means happiness, she asked where he got such an idea. Came the
reply, "Well, I asked him what his name meant and he said, ‘Drop dead!’
"

AROUND TOWN — A Duarte lady, who has just received a
Christmas card from a great aunt in Havana postmarked Dec. 10, 1958,
asks, "How manana can you get?" . . . A family on Golden Gate Ave. near
Sunset Blvd. is beginning to think autos don’t like the two trees in
front of the house. On Lincoln’s Birthday a Chevy crashed into one and
on the Washington Birthday holiday the other was fiercely attacked by a
Plymouth. The trees fought back resolutely but hardly made a dent . . .
Overheard by Frank Barron in Beverly Hills: "If I put as much money
into payments as I put in parking meters my car would have been paid
for by now."

Wages and Ages

From out of the
desert, where the lizards and the chuckwalla roam, comes a discouraging
word from my sagebrush podner, Harry Oliver.

The serenity
which Harry enjoys at his adobe fort at Thousand Palms; where he
publishes his quarterly Desert Rat Scrapbook, has been disturbed by the
revenuers.

Harry, 71, has been notified by government men that he must either give up his pension or stop earning money.

The
Scrap Book isn’t the problem, as it operates at a loss, or did until he
recently raised the rate. The rub is that Harry has been paid $11.50
each for some yarns he spun for a Riverside paper. He must give the
$11.50 to the government or lose his pension.

ONCE HE IS 72, he was told, he can keep the money he earns. So far, he has not devised a means of speeding his birthday.

Harry
was asked by L. Burr Belden of the San Bernardino Sun why he didn’t
just quit. He replied he was having too much fun. "I’m told I’m in my
second childhood," Harry said, "but I’m having a lot more fun than in
my first one."

His advice: "Matt, don’t get old — the pension isn’t worth it."

OVER COFFEE
in a Sunset Blvd. joint, two writers who haven’t been doing very well
lately were discussing a third, an acknowledged scoundrel, whose new
play had just received rave reviews in the trade papers, insuring its
success.

One questioned the reliability of fate, which perpetuates such injustices.

The other nodded sadly and said: "Yeah, it COULD have happened to the nice guy."

NONCONFORMIST
He’s a guy who thinks for himself,
The rugged he-man type;
From early morn ’til late at night
He smokes a pungent pipe.
— G. L. ERTZ

A
Manhattan Beach lady who is prematurely gray occasionally tints her
hair. She discovered her supply was gone and phoned a store for more.

When
she was connected with the dye department she said she couldn’t
remember her color and asked the girl to read the list. The girl read,
"Jet black, golden brown, Old Glory red." She paused, then added, "Oh,
and we also have Old Glory blue."

In the nick of time the caller
realized the girl was naming clothes dye colors, not hair tints, and
she remains fascinated at the possibility that she might have wound up
with Old Glory blue hair.

AN ACTOR recently was found guilty of drunk driving and fined $263. Now someone asks, "How do they arrive at that ridiculous figure?"

Well,
it’s like this. The fine was $250 and under state law the suckers must
also pay for driver education on this scale: $1 for fines up to $20, $2
for fines up to $50, $5 for fines up to $100, etc.

Next time try the taxi cab.

THERE’S
something awesome about a man who is both dedicated and muscular. This
was proved again at a high school where things are being rearranged to
make more space.

A crew appeared and prepared to haul away the
music department’s grand piano. The music teacher protested and the
head mover produced a paper and announced ruthlessly, "It says here
we’re to move this piano at 3 p.m. and what it says to do we do."

So the piano now remains unused in an inaccessible place — no one knows why.

MISCELLANY — A
Huntington Park couple submitted first and second choice names to the
American Kennel Club for registration for their poodle but were
notified both were rejected because of prior usage. They pondered
others but suddenly an obvious one occurred to them — Mademoiselle
Martini. After all, they live on Olive Street . . . The typo which
probably plagues printers more than any other occurred again in a San
Fernando Valley paper. A For Sale ad for a boat listed as accessories
"life jackets, anchor and wench, just refinished completely."