Oldtimer

A sure way to induce nostalgia is to review the musical plays of an old-time theatre manager. Most people can identify most periods of their lives by old songs. Producer Arthur Hammerstein is responsible for many of these songs. "Sympathy" was in his first show, The Firefly (1912). "Something Goes Tingle-ingleing" was in his High Jinks the next year. "The Bubble" was in his Katinka. Because the charm of his productions still lingers, Manhattan show folk and theatre-goers were sorry to hear last week that Producer Hammerstein had gone bankrupt. He listed his liabilities as $1,649,136, his assets $53,083, his cash $5.77.

Six years ago, when he produced Rose Marie, Producer Hammerstein was on the crest. The show made him $3,000,000. Shortly thereafter he built a $2,300,000 theatre with a bronze statue of his father, Impresario Oscar Hammerstein, in the lobby. The father's opera hat was put in the cornerstone and ten stained glass windows commemorated the operas he produced. From that time on, Producer Hammerstein fell upon evil days. The Wild Rose, The Golden Dawn, Polly, Madeleine were not successes. Sweet Adeline was wrecked by the 1929 Crash. Says he: "I was a real estate operator with a theatre and office building to fill, as well as a producer. I was in a hurry to recoup my losses, and I made the mistake of trying to hurry a musical show. It can't be done. The trouble with the musical show business is that it takes $200.000 or $250,000 to stage a show and if it does not succeed, you are out of luck. You can produce a drama for $5,000 and if it fails, what of it?"

In the face of increasingly stiff competition from such alert young firms as Aarons & Freedley (Girl Crazy), Schwab & Mandel (America's Sweetheart), Green & Gensler (Fine & Dandy), oldtime Producer Hammerstein's shows seemed to grow poorly and more poorly. His first play of this season, Luana, during the rehearsals for which he got hurt in a fight (TIME, Aug. 11), was a failure. His second show, Ballyhoo, was taken over after a two-week run by Funnyman W. C. Fields and the cast. Philosophical about his losses, 54-year-old Producer Hammerstein said last week: "When Mayor Walker comes back I will ask him to take the statue of my father and put it in some public place--possibly around Times Square. It is a curious thing that when he was exactly my age my father went through the same thing. In 1897 he lost under foreclosure the Olympia Theatre. ... In a couple of years, when conditions improve, I'll be back again, bigger than ever."

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