Variety (October 1922)

":" ■■?''■"'■' 1- . *'^ * LEGITIMATE C.H'J ?»■ •' »-^ * ■V-'f., Friday, October 27, 1922 MUSIC BOX REVUE SCENE 1 (Proloflrw)—V*rg«Mt Trvlng. "WllUam Otxioa. SCENE 2 (The Stage)—Olivette. John Walsh, Mm. K«lar BanJcn, Cboru« 0CENE 8 (Curtalna)—Mnrcmret and Dorothy McCarthy. ' BCF::NE 4 <"Up in the Air")—WilUam Gaxton. Char!ott« Orsenwood, Robinson 8CENB B ("Dance Tour Troublea Away")-Fulrbnnk» Twlna. William Seabury. '8CKNE^*«*(Auctlon)—Gaxton. T. Perry HI^Klns. Helen JLyona. Evelyn Ollphant. Hilda FerBUBOn. Amelia Allen, JoB«ph Marquis. Herbert Guff. Mr. Itenk-. Mary ^Brlen. Tfude Marr, Fairbanka Twlna, Rath Brothers. Helen Rich, Era .Soblf. ^owltta. Ruth PaKe. Choru". „ . , ■ HCKNB 7—(nark and Mcrulloujrh. Margaret •'"VlnR. 8CKNB 8 ("iJidy !'f the Evening')—John Steel. Chorus. KCP:NE 9 (gpeclalty)-<harlotie iJreenwood „ . ^ , „ , /^~ KCENK 10 (• Crinoline Daya'^-Orace La Rue. Fairbanks Twins'. Choru!«. SrKNK n (DHnnnK Honeymoon)-Seabury, Olivette. Nt-llio Robertn. Olga Porowki. nia.K. RHti Flor"n " «ar"y Glorlk Oale. l.oul.e Palo, Viola Fraa.M Miriam Ml er. RCKNB 12 (■•badr In Red-)-Oaxt0D. Clark. MoCullough, MUs La Rue. Robinson '^^RrirNR n C-fiatan'B Palace •)-Ml8« Greenwood. Newbold. Rtowittn. Leila RIcnrd. Trudc Ma^r Hilfn ijon. Fraun Ko«kl. Oaxton. Dorothy Brown. John Walsh, Mln Ferguson. Beabury. Chorus. INTERMISSION RfirNF 14 (Red I.«cquer Cage>-Mrs. Uanka, Helen Rich, Margaret McKf>e Ollvetje, Fai?Sa -riln^alga?" Sta'^l.y, Rosemary. MUm- Fraas. Hoop«^. in.rlund. Koskl. '*"hcKNb"5 CThls SuspensT la Terrible." by Paul Gerard Smllh)-Clark. Gaalon. ^'^ciZz-mlsX Kh. F^st, We.t)-8teel. Olrla. S^K \l'(^P-^l^l^'i^liTm^m? Ho^KSe")--Steel and Mlasea I^ Rue. Koekl, RUh. Marr jShie RleaTd RoSemary. Marshall. OUphant. Ferguson. Brown. Hooper. Gard- ner Clau-«sen, O'Brien. Lynn. 4^uiland. Thoreau, Lyons "*'HCKNl.rr9 C'Too Many ^y*';,^-^^1>^'-Z':PTihi sJste?-' OlrU - .=. 8CBNB 20 ("Bring on the Pepper )-McCarthy Sisters, Ulria. E;:EKk 'A /i;Tlf.V'V.Vi:i7S;'"l%rbanl?*Ti\ns^^ AUen. seabury. Eight Dancers. BCKNK 1*3 <Hpe<lalty>— Grace La Hue. .^y } u/MCMk- ')4 <Snp«iallv>— Robinson Ncwbold. _ . .*• .' " SCENE 25 (Sle)--Mi88C8 Green wo od and La Rue and enltrft company;^ -. •Rrnfl.lwav was a-buzz Monday amlilKamated Immigrants ever pro- Broadway was '^ " ^jueed; it had Tommy Gray, iho fore- night. The event of the year was j ^^^^ creator of homely native fun about to be sprung. The second ^^^ own; it had Florence Moore, an "Music Box Revue" was opening.i inspired artiste, who plays on every . It .x««n(.d lit 8-15 and chord of human risibilities; it had It opened. ^^^/f^"f^ f^ *;^^ .^""^ the enthusiasm oC a new theatre It closed at midnight. And the sus- ^^^^ ^^^ ^^.jj j^ ..^j^^ balance," with everybody in the business pulling for Sam and Issy, two of the three square guys that this game brags about. j> * ' , This time tii« show didn't have only to get oVer. It had to cele- brate an anniversary. And any father will tell you. after he has borne a child in suffering and tra- vail, that the first year is the easiest and a birth is a cinch as against a first birthdfiy. when the neighbors begin to pull cracks about whom the brat looks like and how bright he is. Take that from a happy father of three kids and a dozen shows. Let the sharpshooters tell you that Clark and McCuUough, who came out of burlesque and knocked Lon- don kicking, would have "gone" big- ger in their tramp makeups. They would. But they did for years, and nobody gave 'em a tumble. It costs $5.50 for a ringside at the Music Box, and that's a different racket. Let the hard boiled ones say Charlotte Greenwood was smothered and never had a chance. Right, but when she was dripping with gravy and soppy with hokum yells at $2, New York wouldn't have her—never would have her. Let them deplore the fact that Grace La Rue didn't stop the show. She stopped it at the Palace, al- ways. But the Palace couldn't hold her. People who pay $11 to see an opening keep their hands on their lavallleres—or somewhere—and If one goes on eleven as well as one went at $1.10, one is still winner on the night. Sam Forrest stage the "book." Sam is a wizard for dramatic show.«<, but as far as anyone knows this is his first time out at revue directing. It isn't his best work. George V. Hobart and Walter Catlett wrote the nearest to an outstanding comedy sketch, but it was an old idea, bur- lesquing a stock melodrama, and it didn't raise a cheer, though it de- veloped the one rememberable line in the entertainment, "Clever peo- ple these Chinese." Taul Gerard Smith'.s Mex skit was inherently funny and had more plums to the minute than any other fraction, but it needed a dozen like it to com- pete as a laughing bill. However, the punch came in the display. Before it all hung a bead- ed drop, runner, wings and borders, black and «iluer, the most marvel- ous thing of its sort eyer seen any- where. It killed everything that worked against it, but it was a hit in itself. Then came the changes of lights and scenes and costumes in bewildering profusion. It all had the Hassard Short touch—traps for elevators and for lights, scenes go- ing down into and coming out of the mysterious regions below, and the diamond scene, which rose and plied and grew until it.>i ensemble was a hypnotizing shimmer of dia- monds that blinded. In Miss La Rue's crinoline song the entire ground cloth came up with her until she was twenty feet in air and the huge thing made a skirt. There were variants of the transformations, the trick break- aways, mirror effects, a scene on tlie hf.usptops that w:is i>ractical, etc.. ad infinitum. Clark and MrCullough made good, though they mi.'^.^td their recent I.,ondon triumphs by some distance. Steel had two great song.'^ and went as gratifyingly as ever in hi.s career. The little Fairbanks Twins and the McCartiiy Sisters easily scored. Miss La Hue was frigid and artistic. Miss CJreenwood ' icked material. r..lly Gaxton ran away with every- thing he touched. Robinson New- bold, out of place and miscast, was a total loss. Amelia Alien, tontor- tionist dancer, was a not. A dozen young girls with lovely voices tciok individual honors. • But the outstanding star this sea- son is Irving Berlin. His lyrics and beyond his whole past of glories. brought It back to greatness when- ever any of the less inspired ele- ments detoured it. Irving is mel- lowing. He is still tkte single- handed master of syncopes and jazz and plain Jingles to extraordinary rhymes and tunes, but he is de- veloping as a sentimentalist, as a poet, a composer rather than a song writer. '^ The well wishers spend no sleep- less nights over the future of the new "Music Box Revue." It has again done the impossible. Lait. pense was over! A year ago the Music Box and Its first revue had opened and a new champion had been crowned. This was the first time out since then for the theatrical hero, the young Apollo who had downed all the old and entrenched, as well as the young and ambitious. Could he repeat? He had to, but could he? He did. Like every champion, he was cau- tious. He fought the fight that his canny managers, who had watched him and trained him and coached him for a solid year, had instructed him to follow. The big punch of the Music Box had been class—and class, as spelled by diamonds this year as against the notoii-^ pearls of 1921, was the slogan for 1922. This reviewer, after a year, is still out of breath from the adjectives he spouted over the first of the Mu- sic Box shows. He can only add this season that all he said goes double, and triple, and quadruple. From a standpoint of glittering gorgeousness, dizzy display, prodigal producing, unrestrained and inde- scribable pageantry, regal riot. In- sidious intoxication and hectic hys- teria of skimming the seven seas of all their spectacular sensations, the "Music Box Revue" as shown this time has again made history. They /say it cost Sam H. Harris and Irving Berlin something approximating $225,000 to ring up the curtain. The curtain looked as though it might have cost that. The only marvel is how they bought so much for so little. Last season, between the gasps and the raves, the insiders were aFl:ing "How can they pay out?" They hadn't seen anything. They should take a slant at this over- head, this "nut" arid this weekly pay; oil, and ask some more sensible questions. The money, like the lights, at the Muslfc Box, come from somewhere—nobody knows where— but they come. The wise Johns will tell you, with all tlve grave and oracular diclum of their breed, that the show "lacks comedy." Yes—it does. That is Uie same croak that has been raised about every Ziegfeld "Follies" for some 17 years, arid, somehow. Flo has managed to get by, and the same ravens ar-j the ni«t to make the sharks on Fortv-.se<iond street rich fighting for seats fo Ziggys annual openings'. The Music Box is shy of laughs. No one will proclaim that more frankly than the owners of it. A searching scenario of just why and where could be uprcad over columns. But—what of it? This show will play to $5.50 top for a solid year. That's all the laugh anybody wants. This show HAS to play to $5.50 for a solid year. The theatre Is limited. The show is the most cost- ly In all the chronicles of the in- dustry. The 1921 company is tour- ing. Surely, the management can- not have two road revues out in the few cities where entertainment of such magnitude can live at once, and surely it cannot produce two such superlatives in one season here. Therefore this one must live the year out where it was born. Miracles are all very fine after they happen— and last year's was one. But when humans are up against the sheer —*>€ce«slty of creating a miracle, that is another thing. And any show that can live a year at $5.50 within an apple's throw of the "Follies" at - $4.40, must be a miracle. It seems that lightning struck twice In the same spot, with all the odds against recurring miracles! The show not only lacks comedy, Jt lacks humor. Last year It had Willie Collier, one of the geniuses of American satire and wit; It hopd Bam Bernard, probably the greatest THE LAST WARNING Joala Bunce W. L. Romaine Gene Irene Homer Robert Bunco Clarence Derwent Arthur McHu«rb ^..WUliam CourtleiKh Richard Quailo ..Cbarlea Trowbridge Tomftiy VaM :. .Victor Bwcroft Mike Rmdy ....Dcrt IB. Chapman Evelynda Hendon Marlon Lord Dolly Lymkon Ann Mason Harvey Carleton.... Albert Barrett Tyler Wilklna James Hughes Barbara Morgan ^...Ann Wlnslow Jeffrey* John W. Moore Mac John Hall Joseph Byrne Dewey Robinson Apootaneous comedian this nation of his tunes, typical of him and yet Another one of those mystery out- bursts, as spooky as "The Bat"— only battier. And, despite common sense, the three known dimensions, every axiom of sanity and every maxim of reason, looks like a con- tender for the money at the Klaw. The venture his 'in inside history worth the telling. It Is presented by "Mlndlin and Goldreyer," and the world will tell - you those names mean nothing to anyone. Mindlin Is one of the men who was inter- ested in the "Medical Review of Re- views" at the time it espoused "Damaged Goods," and thus got the virus of show business Into his blood, where it burst forth in the secondary stage here in association wifh Mike Goldreyer. Tl^ough it may be repeated In thje paragranh, as it was stated in the preceding one, that the name means nothing, the man—or rather the boy —does. Thousands in the profession know him, though maybe not a dozen know his name. He was. un- til quite recently, A. H. Woods' fac- totum, a sort of inspired office boy who ran Al and Martin Herman and confidently tipped Sammy Shipman on how to rewrite his plays, and spoke familiarly of Lee and Jake— at home. The way he got the idea, the start and the final'consummation of his ambition to blossom as a producer on his own. would make George Jessell's "Troubles" seem the smooth tale of a peaceful existence., But he did It. He saw his name over "a show on Broadway," in a first class house, and he has a chance to own a piece of a hit, moreover. A piece is right. They say a hundred peo- ple are in on "The Last Warning"— the bankroll came in by nickels and dimes. But Mr. Michael Goldreyer is very likely,to write his check for the next one, and may yet live to threaten Klaw with Erlanger or manage a Barrymore. He may never again have the courage to plant an uffknown and unheard-of leading woman on the big alley—and put her over; to do a play by an author like Thomas L. Fallon, based on a story by Wads- ^orth Camp, staged by Clifford, Brooke—and have everybody ask in turn about each of them, "Who Is he?"; to grandiloquently call him- self "Mingold Productions, Inc." (get the "productions). Only a youth, with the dreams and the enthusiasm of inexperience and the savor of the game sniffed through the crack of a real manager's door could naively do such things. Ann Mason was the discovery. MiA Mason was unknown to Broad- way, but this reviewer knows the backwoods, and identified her—she played last season in the road com- pany of "The Acquittal." and before that shone in stock. She has a voice reminiscent of Marjorie Ram- beau's, dramatic power that Is a gift antl technique that only the hard years and the thousand parts of a career in rep can endow. She got her chance where on any wise sheet-writer's book it wouldn't have looked like a 1 In 100 possibility— and her future is settled. Whether the piece is here by Christmas or not; she will be. And so will the piece, most likely. It is a screeching horror of murder, poisoned perfume, ghosts, high vol- tage plots, diabolical Intricacies— and a lot of entertainment, never- theless. It deals with a haunted theatre Instead oX the conventional haunted home. The story cannot be coherently re- cited, because it isn't that kind of a story. I3ut, as nearly as a normal ,mind may grasp It, it develops that an actor-manager five years ago was taken sick and disappeared at the climax of his greatest hit, "The Snare." Before a physician can be called he is gone—and his body never turns up. As this play opens, a former de- tective, who has conveniently turned manager, has leased the old house, Which hn.s been vacant all the five years, and has the scheme of re- viving the old hit In the old theatre. Then things begin happening and never stop. He hires the director and surviving members of the orig- inal cast. The leading man is mur- dered and his understudy drugged. The leading lady is hounded and terrorized. Everyone Is mysterious- ly attacked. Sandbags crash down i>n rehearsals, lights go out at un- canny moments—oh, It's nil creepy and woozy and lovely. The last act is the first act of the revival, and the action is halted to drag out the'fiends (this play has two, it being a first-class thriller) and th« exposure and the happy ending. The illusion is carried to the ex- tent of distributing programs of the play within the play between scenes, having prop police In all the aisles and actors in the audi- ence. There is no little Ingenuity, and let It not be understood from the raillery in this report that it is an abfnird presentation. It is abstird from any standpoint of serious analysis, but as a box o^ace offering it is rather likely to go along, and has as good a chance as did "The Cat and the Canary" and "Whisper- ing Wires" and other perversions of "The Bat." It's only chance of miss- ing attention Is that the ma^rket is grewing a trifle glutted with these banal fairy yarns. But if "On the Stairs" can still sneak along on 63d street, "The Last Warning" should step high on 4$th»^ . . Lait. THE FOOL Mr«. Henry Gilliam Maudrf Truax "Dllly" Gilliam Rea Martin Mrs. Thornbury Edith Shayne Mr. tearnaby George Wright Mrs. Tlce , T,iman Kemble "Jerry" Goodklnd Lowell .Sherman Rev. Everett Wadham Arthur Elliot Clare Jewett Pamela Oaythorne Ooorgo F. Goodklnd Henry Stephenson "Charlie" Penfleld Robert Cummlngr* Daniel Gilchrist ..James Klrkwo^d A Poor Man Frank Sylvester A Servant George Le 8olr Max Stedtman...\... v....... Geoffrey Stein Joo Hcnnis Rollo Lloyd Umanskl ....Fredrlk Vogedlng "Grubby" Arthur EMIott Mack .' Prank Sylvester Mary Margaret SafTa Sothern Pearl Hennle: Adrlenne Morrison Misa Lcvlnson Wanda Laurence .'<:.- •Channlng Pollock has wmtcn and the Selwyns produced the most serlovis play of the season, in fact of a number of seasons at the Times Square Monday, Oct., 23. "The Fool" created a deep impres- sion. The Selwyns removed from the same boards "The Exciters." something of a comedy novelty carrying on to fair business in order to present what they consider Pol- lock's biggest effort. To quite a portion of the first nighters (and they were not the usual butterfly bunch that dotes on premieres). "The Fool" afforded some very stir- ring moments. Whether play-goers will adopt the new drama In the fine spirit of It3 author would*be a dif- ficult prediction. A violent difference of managerial opinlbn caused "The Fool" in script form to change sponsors. A. H. Woods had the play and the first call to produce it. as has been so of a number of Pollock's c^j-amas in the past but advised the play- wright to take it elsewhere shortly after it was given a try-out at the coast this summer. The western performances no doubt led James Kirkwood to step out of the pictui.'e field to again appear before the foot- lights. His selection for the cen- tral character in "The Fool" is ad- mirable. The play treats of the vital fac- tors in the drama of every day news —capital and labor in the back- ground of the church. Therie is a mine strike, with the owners at- tempting to grind down the workers but with the men winning in the end because of being right. There is a demonstration of healing by faitl^ of a little cripple girl, quite effec- tively brought out through her prayer. The main points are however sub- jective to the theme of the play, an idea not so plainly dealt with by an American playwright. Daniel Gilchrist is- willing and does give up the material things to try to live like Christ. The disclosure of his purpose comes in a church scene that is the first act and is to be described as one of the finest bits of writing in a generation. .Gil- christ as the assisting rector has aroused the enmity of tho powers in the congregation throu6|i his ser- mons championing; the sld<r of the downtrodden and particularly the miners who walked out. He has broken with his fiancee who re- fused to consider his gospel of liv- ing simply and doing the work of helping the poverty stricken. In the face of knowing he Ui to be invited to leave the church, ho is inspired with the thought of turn- ing his life to the purpose of living like Christ. A figure, mystical, al- legorical perhaps, ai>#ear8 at the door. It is a poor man to whom Gil- christ has given his overcoat. The force of the shadowy visitor's dlrec- iion to follow the inspiration and its elTect upon the young churchman wrings out the query: "In God's name who are you?" The an.'=«wrr: "I am a Jew" sent down the curtain. The effectiveness and logic of the scene was electric. In the other three acts Mr. Pol- lock did not achieve equal effective- ness, nor is that to be expected from the treatment of the weighty topics. Yet in ail scenes thrre was Interest, at times gripping, and there was opportunity for excellent char- acterizations. In a drawing room scene into whl< h were projected for a few moments a commi'ieo from t^e miners, the l)ils stood out strongly. An East Side scene was tacked on the claim he was not what he pretended to be and that he har* bored women of the streets, and It waa there ttle bealinir of the crippled girl was visualised. And In the end the capitalist who waa trustee for the Inheritance of Gilchrist and Who argued against the young man's course and called him a fool, wondered who was the failure, Gilchrist or his son who had become wrecked in health. In that scene Gilchrist again states his creed, that a man's Job is doing his bit as he sees it. In answer to the capitalist's comment there would be very little progreiss in the world if all men thought as did the Christ- like man, the latter declared that sacrifice Is the great thing, that }t is world-aged, thftt saints and scientists throughout history have been called fools and made to suffer by those who did ftot understand. Kirkwood Is the gentle yet strong Gilchrist. The role counts as the most> important ever intrusted hini.. His voice Is splendidly pitched for it and his playing is to be con- sidered extraordinary In light ot his long absence from the speaking stage. The surprising characterization, however, was that of Lowell Sher- man who stepped immediately into the part of the banker's son from "Lawful Larceny" which closed in Boston last Saturday. Sherman studied the role about four days and had but one day's actual rehearsal. Naturally a suave stage personality his "Jerry" in "The Fool" is splendid. It is the kind of chaf.icter to which he has become identified almost al- together. N Henry Stephenson as the banker c'id convincing v.ork, standing out as one of the four leaders in jn. long cast. - -Both Frank Sylvester and Arthur Elliot were assigned two roles each and played their bits with the excellence which always attains to.their playing. Sylvester was first the poor man with the message to the young rector and Inier a down ar.d outer. Elliot made a working minister and ;aicr an old cabby eit behind by the vogue of taxis. Fredrik Vogedlng, a new name on Broadway, commanded attention as a foreigner, who started as a miner and taught himself better things. His fiery denunciation of capitalism featured the drawing room scene. Geoffrey Stein handled a tought bit ' well and Rollo Lloyd did very well as a wronged miner. Pamela Gay- thorne was the feminine lead, not an easy role. Sara Sothern Mon sym- pathy as the crippled girl and Adrlenne Morrison attracted in the part of a woma^ of the streets, Frank Relcher directed the drama, it being his first assignment under the Selwyns. To him Is due real credit. "The Fool" will likely start dis- cussion and coming from «i play- wright who has always^ displayed a senous turn of mind it ifiommands ros;;ect. If plays with such a theme have found a place in the drima in the past "The Fool" dcs^'ves equal attention. "The Servant in the House" is of that class of writing. Ihee. THE FAITHFUL HEART George .Herbert Belmorw Mrs. Gatterscomb...........Dalfty Bc^morn Major Lestrade Llc-nel Papo Blacky Flora Phcffleld Waverly Ango. ..* Tom Nesbitt Ginger Geraldlnc O'Brien .Sergeant-Major Brabaion.. .Edward Poland Private MItcham Peter Carpenter Captain Rackham George Thorpe OuRhteraon .-. .Charles Romanf> Diana Daisy Markham Prltchard I..eon8rd Carey Maid Jean Hawthorne This is an extraordinary example of transplanting English atmosphere to the American stage, and if it proves nothing more it will show again that there are producers in , America who are willing to give a foreign authof a fair chance here without manhandling his script and riddling It with "nifHes" and "locals." Monckton Hoffe, who Is as British as the Nelson monurtient, could not be adapted. But he has been given a falthful4iresentatlon of hi* worthy work in a focetgn country as gen- uinely as he could have asked it at His Majesty's. The producers are Max Marcin and Frederick Stan- hope, and it appears that they are in association with Jules Hurtig. All of these are practical Broad- way-bred showmen. Yet they have "done right by'' Mr. Ho%d. and it is up to him and not to them now to do right by them. Tom Nesbitt, alone, waa imported for tKo cast, obviously demanding an all-English interpretation; it has one, though the players are not all English. The leading woman, Flora Sheineld, Is a typical young Amer- ican actress, but she gave a superb performance through making herself as plausibly British as were the rest of the company, most of whom were Ijondon actors engaged on this side. In the physical presentation the producers were even more punctili- ously bonafldc. It was England in every detail and in every ttrtwUli. because they could always get coat from him. It was there a scene was staged. Gilchrist bel***'^^^- the home of Gilchrist known to tho^ "Sihore I.,eave" rei down and outers as "overcoat hall'' "^». (Jirl I Left Behind .Vie.' and And so the story was honestly told in the same honest vein in which It was written and In the honest surroundings In which it was con- ceived. Ah a story it isnt^ a mriHter|)lece. It has been told a million t.me.s. resembles it: so does ..1" 'i many another tale of a lass who ved a sailor or a soldier—or even a cling man. But it is told with a