Manhattan Parade (Warner Bros.) (1931)

~2 Good Sunday Features And All The Snappy Shorts You’ll Need! 0) Their Bowery Still Living Smith and Dale, famous team of the Avon Comedy Four, appear in their first feature-length screen farce, “Manhattan Parade,” at the The Bowery has long since passed as the Gay White Way of its time, but to Joe Smith and Charles Dale, one half of the famous Avon Comedy Four, who are featured with Winnie Lightner and Charles Butterworth in “Manhattan Parade,” the new Warner and Vitaphone production in Technicolor, which Gomes tothe. os Dheatre...=. it will live forever. These two comedians who recently rounded out thirty years as an inseparable team, got their start there, scored their first big success there, and spent a considerable portion of their early life there. Born on the East side before the advent of the Gay Nineties, the two were playmates together. Both early showed a latent talent for making people laugh and they decided to throw their for-~ tunes into one histrionic pot. They emerged professionally in one of the smaller Bowery music halls as a blackface singing and dancing team. This was in 1899 and their debut was rather inauspicious. They managed to get enough bookings, however, to keep the wolf from the door and their stomachs warm with food until 1901, when they joined forces with Will Lester and Jack Coleman. They organized the Imperial Vaudeville and Comedy Company and made Rondout, New York, their headquarters. They were the star attraction at a dance hall up there known as Zeihy’s, and in lieu of salary, received room and board for Sunday night entertainments. On week days they played the communities suburban to Rondout and earned whatever real money they made in that way. It. was here that they got their first idea of show business. They not only put on a full evening’s entertainment, but gave a moving picture show to boot. The movies were little known in those early days, and they carried their own projector, calcium lights, films and did the billposting and ticket collecting as as well. It was an unusually severe winter and they had to go from town to town in a large sleigh. Lester and ‘Coleman, because of illness in their re spective families, deserted Smith and Dale, and the two carried on until business became so bad they woke up one morning to find themselves stranded. They dropped histrionics and went to work in an ice house to raise the railroad fare back to New York. Upon their return they discovered Lester and Coleman working in a cabaret called the Avon. Smith and Dale prevailed upon them to quit and once more the four were reunited, this time under the name of the Avon Comedy Four. They broke in their famous school act at the Atlantic Garden in Page Four Pees ae Theatre. the Bowery and scored a veritable sensation. They were immediately booked over the Keith and Orpheum Circuits and even in Europe. Their famous act, “A Hungarian Rhapsody,” did not come into being until 1914. While Smith and Dale have been part and parcel of the Avon Comedy Four, for more than a quarter of a century, there have been fifteen actors through the years who have made up the other half of the quartet. These, in addition to Lester and Coleman, were Irving Kaufman, Harry Goodwin, Eddie Nelson, Al Wohlman, Pall Mall, Eddie Miller, Frank Corbett, Cliff O’Rorke, Charles Adams, Eddie Rash, Lou Dale and Marino and Lazarin. In 1916, Smith and Dale went into the “Passing Show” and they have since been seen in the revival of “The Belle of New York,” “The Midnight Rounders,” Harl Carroll’s “Vanities,” and in “Sidewalks of New York,” “Mendel, Inc.” is their first straight comedy. Winnie And Charley Will Pep You Up The cheeriest clowns in the show business are the two comedians featured in “Manhattan Parade,” the Warner Bros. and Vitaphone production in Technicolor, which comes to the Ree Si See Phestre: <2... cee Ne Rt: They were recently seen here in “Side Show” but this one outclasses that carnival riot. Winnie Lightner and Charles Butterworth have a drama with real punch in “Manhattan Parade,” which is a rainbow panorama of fun and fashion—in a _ theatrical costuming company. Smith and Dale of the Avon Comedy Four aid the hilarity. Lloyd Bacon directed. Today Ends Run Of “Manhattan Parade” “Manhattan Parade,” the Warner Bros. and Vitaphone comedy in Technicolor featuring Winnie Lightner and Charles Butterworth, ends its record runsat= thee we. Lheatre “today. The gorgeous panorama of fun and fashion which serves as background for drama with a punch, has met with noisy approval. If you are one of the few who have missed “Manhattan Parade,” gather up the family and go tonight. That a good time will be had by all is guaranteed. Gayest And Glummest Come In Comedy Hit Winnie Lightner, most rowdyish of screen roisterers, and Charles Butterworth, most abysmally solemn of all funnymen, will be seen at the ........ Pheatress ass os next in “Manhattan Parade,” the most dramatic and at the same time the most amusing of their films. Aiding them as a pair of brothers who wrangle over their theatrical productions, are Joe Smith and Charles Dale of the Avon Comedy Four. “Manhattan Parade,’ based on a Samuel Shipman play, is a rainbow panorama of fun and fashion. Lloyd Bacon directed. “Manhattan Parade” Is To Be In Town Soon “Manhattan Parade,” as the title suggests, is a colorful panorama of fun and fashion, a show within a show, in which Winnie Lightner and Charles Butterworth disport themselves with more gusto than even they have before done. All the picturesque personnel of the show world are seen in this Warner Bros. and Vitaphone production which is entirely in Technicolor. Joe Smith and Charles Dale of the Avon Comedy Four are in the large cast. This is the eure for what ails you. Don’t miss “Manhattan Parade.” It comes to the ee POU O se oe next. A Stage Comedian Declares Motion Picture Work Is Not Difficult Cut No. 21 Cut 30¢c Mat 10c Joe Smith, Winnie Lightner and Charles Dale in a scene from “Manhat Winnie’s Slenderness Is Strenuously Found The girlish figure of Miss Winnie Lightner now featured with Charles Butterworth in “Manhattan Parade,” the Warner Bros. and Vitaphone picture in Technicolor at the .......... Theatre—was not attained and is not retained without strenuous antics on the part of the comedienne. She punches the bag, boxes, undergoes rigorous treatments and sees to it that her diet has just the right amount and kind of vitamins. Not so long ago she broke her Spartan schedule by fiercely ordering hot mince pie with brandy sauce and hot chocolate. “Let’s pretend it’s my birthday,” she said by way of apology. “Manhattan Parade” Is Antidote For Blues Grand and glorious nonsense and a gorgeous array of stage beauties, and stage folks of all sorts and conditions— all in the most vivid natural colors, provide the atmosphere for the dramatic comedy-romance in which Winnie Lightner and the solemn Charles Butterworth do: their stuit-now..at, the 2.-.5. It is a Warner Bros. and Vitaphone production and the most amusing vehicle yet given Winnie and Charles. Don’t miss it. Take all the family, they are assured of a royal feast of unusual entertainment, tan Parade,” a Warner Bros. and Vitaphone all Technicolor production. By JOE SMITH (In “Manhattan Parade” at the ..... RE eee oe ee aes Theatre.) This is our first comedy on the screen. By our, I mean Charles Dale and myself. As two of the original members of the Avon Comedy Four, we have been inseparable in the theatre for more than thirty years. We have done everything together and it is only natural that we should be in the Warner Bros. and Vitaphone Technicolor picture, “Manhattan Parade,” together. For a long time we have been looking forward to the day when we would be featured in a big film production, away from the tinsel of musical comedy and the pace of vaudeville and now at last we have reached our goal and both of us are happy. Having tasted what vaudeville, musical comedy and the legitimate stage has to offer, I say in all sincerity that the motion picture is easier and much more fun. Vaudeville is the most difficult branch of the show business. You have but a few minutes in which to do all your stuff and you’ve got to deliver the goods from the instant you step across the footlights. There is no such thing as getting acquainted with vaudeville patrons. Unless you sell yourself in the first few seconds the battle to win recognition is almost insurmountable. This does not hold in musical comedy nor stage nor screen. In these three cases you have a set character to portray and though your lines on your first appear 2 ance may be nothing to set the town talking, you have an opportunity to register as the plot progresses. Musical comedy characters are seldom taken seriously but still they over= come the handicap generally set by vaudeville. The field is much smoother in motion picture work and here an actor has an opportunity to show himself off to the best advantage. Frankly, both Dale and I were rather worried about going into a picture, much as we dreamed of the chance. “Manhattan Parade,” however, has taught us a great deal and if the Fates are kind to us we hope to remain on the screen for many years. If moviegoers accept us as the comic theatrical producers we portray in “Manhattan Parade” it is chiefly because of our training in vaudeville as the variety theatres certainly give you what is known in the vernacular as pace and we have tried to transplant the speed of vaudeville into “Manhattan Parade.” Friends warned us to be sure to slow up when we got into a motion picture studio, but we disregarded their warnings and pumped our material across the screen with the same speed and zest as has been our custom for thirty years. The result, if I may say so myself, is a continual round of laughter with the assistance of such hilarious stars as Winnie Lightner, Charles Butterworth, Bobby Watson, Ruth Hall and others. In fact, take my tip and see “Manhattan Parade” when it comes to $e Theatre.