Judge — July 23, 1927 — page 21: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JU DGE neE of the four or five thou- sand things that fails to work me up toa high pitch of indignation is the amount of money that the theater ticket brokers charge for seats. It should be understood at the out- set, of course, that there is no particular occasion for me to get mad about it, get all my seats for nothing. But even if I were a paying customer I have grave doubts that I’d stand up on my hind legs and yell when a broker charged me more for my tickets than the price printed on them. It seems to me that the authori- ties, in their recent campaigns against the brokers, have operated with characteristic unfairness, which is a way that the authori- ties always have with them when it comes to the theater. To de- mand that one be able to get one’s tickets at the box-office window and without an advance in price is to demand that one be able to get suit at the Kuppenbaum factory and not be compelled to pay the added price asked by the suit brokers, or, in other words, the retail dealers. In almost all lines of trade there are middle- and the ticket brokers, as at it, middlemen just the same as Gimbel, Saks and Rogers Peet. I'd like noth- ing better than to get my Gillette razor blades, for example, directly from the Gillette shop and not have to lay out twenty or thirty cents more per pack- age for them at the corner drug- store, but it apparently can’t be done, although I'd be willing to buy them in large lots. And so I no more can see why I should be able at any time to buy a dozen tickets for a theater party at the as I one’s are G ‘he SHOWS*® | ¢ by Geanpe Jesm Notham. q ( ita” (Ziegh shindig. *Merry-Go- it sags after Act 1. “Ned McCobb's siderably. “Hit the D for this ou “Spread Eagle" quin's pet play “The Ladder (C “Padlocks of Percy Han one. To be re “Baby Min old farce still amusi “Lombardi, boulevard farce “The Play's the boulevard farce-com “The Squall" “The Bar moments ‘Queen song and di “The comedy of 4 “The Constant W an entertaining 1 “Saturday’ by Maxwell “Mr Pim Passes by A.A. Milne. “Oh, Ke able music “ Peggy-Ann™ taining cong and da: “Abies Trish R Croce is still to be “Honeymoon 1. ventional musical sh ams tudy “A Night in Spain" (Chanin)—Margaret hurst)—Bootlegger _mele- good one. feld)—It will tickle your eye “The Spider"(Musie Box)—Ingenious s* (Little) —Several very (44th St.)—The M. M will entertain you con Belasco)—I can’t eay much (Beck)—A d ne"* (Playhouse)—The Algor Wallack's)—See “The ‘ort)—So bad it b Texas Guinan, head ‘Coban)—Cheap stuff. —Feeble comedy, with one (Casino)—The tunes are Lover" (Empire)—Average ¥, miscast. Thing’ (Mitler)—Diverting edy by Molnar. 48th St.)—Balderdash. obvious melodramatic 0} rassador| ber-stamp (Guild)—An American (Elliott) —Maugharn in less comedy. Booth)—Worthy comedy By" (Golden)—Slight ditto (Imperial) —One of the recommend- Vanderbilt) Moderately nce show. (Republic)—Benedetto from. (Knickerbocker) —Con- Bosom" (Provincetown) — the colored peyeh rst or Belasco Theater window and not have to pay a premium on them in one of the brokers’ places of business. If I compelled to pay a pren on razor blades, why shouldn't I be compelled to pay one on my theater tickets? The theater, however, is and always been the patsy of district federal at- torneys, and almost everybody and everything else. am im my has attorneys, cops, newspapers When anyone’ in authority finds that he has a couple of hours hanging heavily on his hands and there is no one around to play pinochle with, he passes the time by kicking the theater in the pants. He finds fault with the number of exits and_fire-escapes, with the way tickets are disposed of, with the moral quality of the with the Sunday night concerts, with the width of the aisles and passageways, with the shows, age of child actors, with the bare- ness of the girls’ knees, with Abe Erlanger’s bookkeeper, Lee Shu- bert's hat and a hundred other things. If the authorities ever ventured to bother Park and Til- ford Browning, King & Co., the way they bother the theater, would take them forcibly by the ear, lead them out into the back alley and rub their or those gents noses in the dirt. But, for one the theater authorities death, reason or another, managers allow. the to them to If a manager has a good show and finds that, though all he asks for tickets is $ the ticket brokers will gladly pay him a smacker apiece more for them, he permits the authorities to tell him that he has no right to take the extra dollar. If the brokers, (Continued on page 28) pester comicbooks.com