We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Cliica^o Communique . . .
\y[ISS MAE WEST and the dim-out -^'-^ arrived in the Windy City at about the same time. Miss West brought with her a very bad play called "Catherine Was Great," a loutish, lumber-ng attempt at the lascivious which might be called a burlesque show for women only.
The brown-out brought with it some really first class histrionics on the part of the guys who run the saloons. To a man, from the managers of the plushy places down to the West Madison Street bouncers, they are putting on a sorrowful scene far surpassing anything achieved by the various defunct opera companies that have tried to make a go of it at the Civic Opera House. There has been a great weeping, and a wailing, and a wringing of hands, since the dim-out and the curfew began to take their toll of the carefree and merry. The 5100 Club is now said to be down to its last Irish tenor, while the 606 Club — home of maidens who frolic around in as few beads as Mayor Kelly will allow— is stripping itself of strippers. Only the Panther Room of the Hotel Sherman, which specializes in loud bands for the prom-trotting and jitterbug crowd, seems to be holding its own. The kids get tired of drinking cokes, wear themselves out on the dance floor, and go home early without any prompting from Ernie Byfield — or Mr. Byrnes.
However, for the benefit of those Kansas City bon vivants who call Joe Sherman's Garrick Lounge "home" when they're in Chicago, it must be reported that Joe's place is just as smoky as ever, and just about as noisy. There is now the added attraction of Joe running up and down behind the bar blowing a policeman's whistle at 11:4? p.m. That's the only way he can make himself heard above the band.
Getting back to the drama, the Shubert boys were in town the other day and rescued the Great Northern Theatre from a series of peep shows that began with "Maid in the Ozarks" and ended, none
too soon, with a dull and dirty little number called "Unexpected Honeymoon." Henceforth the theater will operate under the Shubert banner and house chiefly operettas and musical revues requiring a large stage. The first attraction will be a Theatre Guild show — "Sing Out Sweet Land."
As "Sweet Land" and "One Touch of Venus" move in — Eddie Dowling, Laurette Taylor and the fine play, "The Glass Menagerie," are deserting the Loop for Broadway. This is the production which Ashton Stevens called "the best play in fifty years." We think New York will like it, too.
And, oh yes, Mr. Burton Holmes — complete with goatee — is in his umptieth season as a travel lecturer, talking this year on "Guatemala" and "Mexico" — in technicolor. Burton has had his wings clipped by the war, but he still fills Orchestra Hall two or three times a week with those who can't get enough of the travelog shorts at the movies. If you must entertain Aunt Minnie while you're in Chicago, Burton is a safe bet.
Combating the dim-out over at the huge Stevens Hotel is another special revue staged by Anthony Nelle. This will be his last show before leaving town for his yearly duties with the St. Louis Municipal Opera. Mr. Nelle's productions in the magnificent Boulevard Room, which at one time was a lonely place where the waiters