Hollywood Spectator (February 29, 1936)

Page Fourteen February 29, 1936 years. Robert Cummings, a youthful newcomer, will achieve stardom if his work continues to be of the quality it is in this and was in The Virginia Judge, his first, which showed him to be possessed of fine ability for drama. In Desert Gold, he succeeds utterly in a broad-comedy portrayal. Marsha Hunt ‘has simple charm and beauty combined with much talent. Tom Keene gives what I con The New York Spectacle New York, February 24. PLAY called Ethan Frome, basically from the novel by Edith Wharton, dramatized by Owen Davis and his son Donald, produced by Guthrie McClintic, sets by Broadway’s present pet scenic designer, enacted by Pauline Lord as Zeena; Raymond Massey as Ethan Frome; Ruth Gordon as Mattie Silver, knocked this playgoer out of her safe and sane world for some three hours after she saw it. So vibrant, so clean-cut, so smashing a tale was told on the stage of the National theater last Tuesday evening that most critics unanimously declared it one of the greatest plays of its kind in the last decade. Certainly no novel can boast a better stage adaptation. The story of Ethan Frome, trying to wrest an income from his land; of Zenobia Frome, his tragic, self-centered hypochondriac wife; and of Mattie Silver, Zenobia’s homeless cousin who comes to live with them, is one of the most sombre, powerful tragedies of all time. By far the best of the Wharton output, it seems to gain in majesty and realism on the stage, and the final denoue ment is a most startling scene. + * * We saw the opening of the Follies the other night and it turned out to be a much better show than even the last one was. Fanny Brice was as funny as ever, but it was Josephine Baker who proved the sensation of the evening. The dark cyclone stopped the show several times. When she took her curtain calls, she seemed particularly selfeffacing, which is always attractive in a performer. Her first entrance is dazzling. She is mounted on the backs of eight ebony men in a provocative white costume. Next she is a Maharani, singing in a piquant, tremulous coloratura. Her last number, the most striking of all, revealed a Baker garbed in silver mesh in a weird, fantastic surrealistic dance. She seemed to imbue her audience with a heady excitement whenever she was on the stage. The papers the next morning, however, were less enthusiastic than the first-night audience, and the critics limited themselves to a few lackadaisical remarks such as, “An overlauded importation,’ etc. We cannot agree. Josephine Baker first took Paris by storm in post-war times. Her hair plastered down with tar, she danced about the stage angularly, puffed out her cheeks and dislocated her body. By Robert de Flers her antics were labeled “lamentable transatlantic exhibitionism which brings us back to the monkey much quicker than we descended from the monkey.” This scalding criticism didn’t seem to do La Baker much harm, however, as she nightly filled the Folies sider his first completely fine performance, heretofore having been a bit too unctuous. His work causes my looking forward with genuine interest to his next appearance, which I hope will be in an unusually good role. Larry “Buster” Crabbe, with little to do, and Monte Blue, as the heavy, are very good. Desert Gold is a picture you should see. By Betsy Beaton Bergeres for many months, put on midnight shows at her own cabaret, went on to new triumphs in Central Europe and married a Continental nobleman. The Josephine Baker of today is more quiet, even more sophisticated .. . Backstage note: Josephine Baker has a white maid, Fannie Brice has a colored one. 6 % * Harold Hecht, who put on such musicals as Hullaballoo at the Pasadena Playhouse, is back here and about to present a new show. It should go over, as Hecht has an unusual feeling for pace. Saw the Charlie Chaplin film and enjoyed it immensely. It seemed to us, however, that he could have done away with several vaguely disturbing titles. For instance, could he not have had a sign over a gate or something of the kind to suggest an orphanage? Since someone discovered that you could portray the transition from spring into winter by the expedient of a shot from the window showing a branch of a tree blossoming, being snowed under, and so forth, I can’t help but feel that all titles could be dispensed with in one manner or another....In a small Pennsylvania town, while waiting for a train, I happened to see a picture which featured Noah Beery, Jr. I wonder if anyone else has noticed the amazing resemblance between him and the late Will Rogers. The former seems to have adopted all the mannerisms of the latter, and what’s more, he’s one of the most pleasing actors I’ve seen in some time.... After seing Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Blood in rapid succession, I am somehow reminded of a story told to me years ago. A Frenchman narrated the tale and claimed it had been handed down in his family from generation to generation. His ancestor, a pirate captain, was captured by a British man-o-war. At noon the next day the captive was ordered up on deck, where his particular fate was to be shot from the mouth of a cannon in the fashionable manner of the period. Before dispatching him the British captain, with a mixture of smug assurance and blunt Anglo-Saxon curiosity, asked the following question of the defiant rogue: “I cannot understand you piratical fools. You fight for filthy money. Why do you not emulate the English, who fight for honor alone?” The pirate turned upon his captor with a graceful leer and said, “I agree with you, monsieur. We each of us fight for that which we do not have. Fire me away, and be damned!” ‘ * «& We have heard a great deal from the self-styled intellectuals about how motion pictures are stultifying the mind of the masses. It was not, however, until we read Man, the Unknown by Dr. Alexis Carrel (who appears to be an authority on everything by virtue of the fact