Judge — October 18, 1930 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE © ALTE GEORGE J wo of the thi theatre are th with the Joe Cook doesn’t open up his shows carlier in the season and that George Kaufman does not write more After seven weeks of dud tl and just as rees. atregoi boys were on the point of call- cement slong ing it quits and sui that sent us any ¢ ny mans tickets, and George on successive evenings and made the showshop once abitable. Of and Dandy", I Of George's, “ time”, written in co Moss Hart, type. In the first pl satirical farce th Joe's piece, told you last Once in a Life- ration with Tl now muss up a little “Fine week. » it is the funniest t has hit the town since Kaufman's and Lardner’s “June Moon”. = Although you'd think that using Hollywood backside upon which to exercise a slat was pretty le business at this late day, Kauf- n and his partner have turned out ething as fresh as a daisy. Sug- gesting in its basic theme ‘Merton of the Movies”, their play nevertheless is so rich in dialogic originalit with observant digs at the film imbeciles and so beautifully staged by Kaufman himself that the man who can't shake a mea s humors must be not only a congenital idiot but a devoted movie fan. I myself, the notorious sourball, sat there and laughed so steadily that everyone thought it must be a couple of other fellows from Fort Wayne. Telling the plot of a farce is much like telling the plot of a poem. The more li ly you tell it, however good the farce or poem may be, the worse and sillier the farce or poem seems. So, in justice to “Once in a Lifetime” I'll not attempt it. Suffice it to say that it is grand entertainment—despite a dis- mally serious and indignant denunci- ation of the film industry exuded by Kaufman, as actor, along toward ten o'clock—and that it is worth every cent you'll doubtless still be swindled out of by ticket speculators to see it. juicy rib over 0 With the exception of Kaufman, who is as rotten an actor as he is a tal- ented playwright and dircetor, the y is an admirable one down to the smallest role, “ # « Now: that they've made a play out of “Frankie and Johnnie’, all that stands between the stage and the whole hog are plays made from “'Twas Christmas in the Harem” and the literature on the walls of the gents’ room in the old Grand Union Hotel. True cnough, the retort discourte in the former has « ed by Laurence rporated into his dramat “A Farewell to Arms’ . sand y been es at the share of latter has ly found its way into the theatre, so the probably be taken off the plays. they'll doubtless come if we give them time. “Frankie and Johnnie’, the job of Dr. John M. Kirkland, was recently dripped onto the stage of the Republic ‘Theatre and presented itself another laundered hoped by rold-miners to be pay dirt. + on view a considerable would But along anyway, s simply dose of what is aspirin playwriting When the piece was shown out of town, the cops raided it and since then considerable down has b indulged in. As the affair now stands, it has the air of a parson massaging a choir girl behind the org It is a loud ballyhoo, full of ¢ th all the girls inside the tent fully clothed. ve several times before writ- ten, if we ing to have dirty plays, let's have them. When we do have them, I'll deliver the appropriate lecture pro and con, as the case may merit. But in the meantime let us pro- test against these fake-smut jobs. They aren't ditty; they are simply dull. as between dirt and dul- All let- this at- filed under the «’s some cabinet our titude will be d ly of hypocrisy. ACI Es NATHAN left, although Hoover takes up an awful lot of room. space Axins has Ze reformed. — Lord 4 Balderdash, sipping his café noir on the terrasse of the Villa Goldtisch on the Cote dAzur, the while the Duchess of Holstein-Piesporter idly strums Czerny on a harpsichord the iconoclastic Lady Mignon West chester-Dorchester reads Baudelaire aloud to Lord Noel Pinero, the both heedless of the circumstance that the disillusioned Princess Alexandra Patiomkin has just thrown herself off the cliffs, is apparently no longer the kind of dramatic chow that engages her rapt interest. ‘The old days when Fothergill, the cighteenth footma served Viszinizki caviar on lettuce es perfumed with Nuit d’Amour and Ruinart brut 1911, of Calvados du Pé fraumileh, Wiirzbur,; And gone, te » the and side- cars. are the His drawing- rooms Louis Quinze, Marchion and Earls, and the hot dog in 1. Not entirely, to be sure, for nt Akins. but nt degree. Her latest play. e¢ Greeks Had a Word For It’. contains several familiar refer Dukes and Counts, one to n royalty, enough champagne a battleship, a maid nami soupcon of French, airy al various composers, the cas periodic mention of millions of dol and other such delicatessen from ays, but in the main it abandons old Park Avenue Laura Jean Lib heyism and tries heroically to. setth a trifle homelier. am sorry to ha’ still ences _to lusions t down to something It does not, I for on to report, succeed. Miss Akins’ purpose is to tell us the story of three kept women, and not only to tell us the story but to give us an inkling of their hearts and minds (Continued on page 29) comicbooks.com