Judge, 1921-10-22 · page 21 of 36
Judge — October 22, 1921 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a theater critic's review of recent Broadway productions, not a political cartoon. The page features photographs and sketches of actors from four plays, with brief critical commentary. The critic dismisses "Blue Lagoon" as tedious despite its exotic South Seas setting, sarcastically suggesting it needs star Ann Pennington to succeed. "Only 38" is called sentimental hokum with an artificial lead performance. "The White-Headed Boy" by Irish playwright Lennox Robinson receives genuine praise as "worth seeing." The final jab at "Blood and Sand"—comparing the theater's nearby bar favorably to a chophouse's "near-beer"—is likely a Prohibition-era joke about weak alcohol substitutes. The sketches show performers in costume and character, documenting 1920s Broadway entertainment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Dorothy Drew in the “Greenwich Village Follies,” Shubert Theatre. But enough of this. Let us take a snap- shot look at a few of the plays lately revealed on Broadway. 1. This “Blue Lagoon,” a dramatization of De Vere Stackpoole’s novel of the same name. The program and advertise- ments announce that the piece de résistance is ‘the big wind.” I am not certain, after seeing the play, whether this re- fers to the storm scene in the last act or to the dia- logue in all four acts. A tale set in the South Sea islands against a fancy background of palms, blue sea and yellow sand, it needs Ann Pennington to make it go. As it stands, it is a tedious thing: the story of a young man in B.V.D.’s and a young girl in seaweed panties who grow up on a deserted island and learn the lesson of creation from nature. Tarzanne, the grotesque, in Benda mask, “Green- wich Village Follies,” Shubert Theatre. 2. “Only 38,” by A. E. Thomas. A sentimental opus about a minis- ter’s widow with two children who gets a belated sniff at the joys of life. The play is a tournament in hokum and is tiresome stuff. Miss Mary Ryan is as artificial in the leading role as the play itself. 3. “The White-Headed Boy,” by 21 Violet Heming and Otto Kruger in “Sonya” at the 48th Street Theatre. Lennox Robinson, the best of the young Irish dramatists. A play worth seeing. 4. “Blood and Sand,” by Thomas Cushing out of our old friend Belasco. Otis Skinner in the lead. The near-beer served in Browne’s chop house next door to the theater is not so bad. comicbooks.com