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Show 11 1 Li 1 f - j, v $ Sallies In Our Alley: Benny Goodman Good-man and a chap who just signed a Hollywood contract were discussing Movie Town . . . "How's the weather weath-er out there now?" asked the Broad-wayite. Broad-wayite. "I'll be leaving for Hollywood Holly-wood shortly. What clothing should I take along?" . . . "You might take along," said Benny, "a knife-proof vest!" . . . Congressmaid Clare Luce, at a party, was seated between be-tween playwright FredcrickLonsdale and producer Gilbert Miller . . . Lonsdale asked her: "If you had a choice, kissing me or Miller, whom would you choose?" . . . Clare hesitated hesi-tated . . . "I'll never," said Lonsdale, Lons-dale, "forgive you for that pause!" Somerset Maugham's first book was "Liza of Lambeth" . . . England's Eng-land's great book critic, Edmund Gosse, whose opinions made or broke a writer, wrote an ecstatic notice about it . . . The next day Maugham was on the road to fame . . . Once he had six plays running In London at the same time all walloping wal-loping hits ... He followed through with "Of Human Bondage" and many other best-sellers . . . And critic Gosse constantly met Maugham at dinners and parties for twenty years and always said: "Mr. Maugham, that wonderful book of yours. How wise you are never to write another line I" A legend in Cuba (the home of the famed Bacardi rum) is this. The rum was originally owned by ten brothers. Only two survive. Every time one of the Bacardi brothers passed on he was buried with a case of the rum "knowing the brothers In Heaven were waiting for some!" Fod'n the Round Shoulders: Margie Mar-gie Holliday tells of the chap who took out a lovely looker, who was unbelievably dumb. When he delivered deliv-ered her home after an endless eve'g he sighed: "You're very beautiful, but so stupid!" "If you think I'm stupid," she ga-ga'd, ga-ga'd, "you should see my mother. She's all bent 'over!" Yes, Indeedy! : In the newsreels from the war fronts our brave commanders com-manders are usually photo'd leading lead-ing their men to the attack. We saw a closeup like that last night. The General facing the camera. A woman in front audibly remarked: "He's certainly brave but how about the unknown photographer who has his back to the entjmy?" The Magio Lanterns: "The Lodger," Lodg-er," a classic among blood-curdlers (based on the sinful Jack, the Rip-! Rip-! per), loses none of its shudders in its transfer to the screen . . . "Higher "High-er and Higher" is a pleasant song-and-dance film. It brings Prof. Sinatra Si-natra into focus. He'll never get as many girlish squeals for acting as he gets for paper-dolling, but he gets by okay. J. Haley, Michele Morgan Mor-gan and the Hartmans help considerably consid-erably . . . "The Miracle of Morgan's Mor-gan's Creek" is wild waggery, a direct di-rect slap at Pop Dionne. Eduardo . Bracken is a pranky parent, and Betty Hutton jumps out of her skin from time to time . . . "Where Are' Your Children?" deals with juvenile delinquency. It skips the preacher angles and assumes its audience is more than eleven. Willie Collier is dead. There was a comic. He had wit and showmanship showman-ship and a style of offhand clowning clown-ing that you hardly ever find in the days of stun-the-peasants technique. You remember him best from one of the first Music Box Revues, teamed up with the late Sam Bernard. Ber-nard. That was where Willie popularized popu-larized the word "nifty." A couple of seasons later he produced a show for himself and Bernard, called "Nifties." It died, but nothing of Collier's deserved to. Another time Collier was a last minute replacement for Lew Fields it seems. On his first entrance he turned to the audience and exhibited his shaking hands and . won the house. Later, making an exit, he was asked by the heavy where he was going. "Back to the dressing room," retorted re-torted Willie, "and study my lines." Sallies in Our Alley: Over at The Gamecock a movie actor said that Hollywood "is wonderful to everyone every-one except people with smallpox" ... To which a cynic queried: "You mean to tell me that a guy with a flat wallet would be welcome there?" . . . "No," was the retort, "in Hollywood a flat wallet is the first sign of smallpox!" . . . D. Lowe's nifty: "When the Yanks take Cassino, they'll have to play with 51 cards as the Duce is missing." Quotation Marksmanship: Barbara Bar-bara Nix: The minutes crawled by like wounded men . . . Msgr. Fulton Ful-ton J. Sheen: Peace without justice jus-tice is like painting rouge on the international cheek ... J. M. Bar-rie: Bar-rie: In love-making, as in the other arts, those do it best who cannot tell how it is done . . . Paschal Boland: Pride is a one-man parade . . . Somerset Maugham: They simply lived in one another's pockets . . . Joan Eden: She swallowed her tears . . . Anon: It's not the creed; it's the deed. |