Life — July 28, 1921 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

Thoughts on a Scenario (After Seeing an Improved Version of a Story of Adventure by One R. L. S.) HATCHA think they wished on me this time? Macbeth—you know—Shakespeare. Those old guys always need a lot of jazzing up, but I'll tell the world that I’m the lad to do it. Sure I read the book. I always do to get the main idea: The show starts off with three witches —three, get me? Well, that won’t be so when you see the real thing. We’re gonna have nine witches—bewitching witches, hey, boy?—from the Follies. Y’ see, these witches get Macbeth crazy about the ouija board, and he gets King Duncan up in his castle and croaks him. In the book his wife is worse than he is. Well, our public ain’t going to stand for little Muriel Marshmallow—sure, she’s in on it—getting mixed up with any hard- boiled part. We'll make Lady Macbeth a simple little girl-wife that tries to make her husband go straight but sticks to him when he doesn’t. Scotch lassie—get me?—“Hoot, mon, the auld gentleman has long white whiskers just like papa’s. Dinna bump him off.” Shakespeare doesn’t use any dialect at all, but I guess he didn’t know much about local color. Here’s something. Macbeth is sup- posed to take a drink before he kills the king. Say, a Scotchman wouldn’t even notice one little drink. And doesn’t he get to seeing things? It ain’t made the most of—just a bloody dagger—pbut I'll see the animal men about that. Great chances for comedy. . And after the murder, I’ll have Mac- beth say to the king’s son, “Hoots, hoots, your ain feyther, too.” That makes everybody suspect them, so they jump out of the window onto their horses, and then we can have a swell chase, see? Oh, I got ideas to burn. Banquo’s ghost comes in at a banquet and Mac- beth, he says, “Take any shape but that!” so the ghost does—get the comedy ?— takes ten or twelve, and there’s no pleas- ing Macbeth with any of ’em. Sure, we could get in a chase there, too. It’d be swell with an elephant and Macbeth in breezy kilts on the sky-line. But I ain’t told you my best one. Y’know they just come in and tell Mac- beth that the queen’s dead, in the book. Well, just remember about Malcolm’s men bringing in the branches and dump- ing ’em in front of the castle. Lady Mac- beth, she gets sort 0’ crazy from worry- ing about the way her husband’s been acting up, and she jumps off the battle- Kennel Man: She: A one-man dog! ments. Killed? I ask you! She lands in that pile of brush and it breaks her fall like a feather bed. It stuns her a little, but it makes her_all right in the head, too. Well, after the battle—got another grand chase there, too, ending up in a regular Bill Hart mix-up, with Macbeth and Macduff going to it—Macduff, he comes along and finds Lady Macbeth lying there. Of course he’ thinks she’s dead and registers sorrow, takes off hat, kneels down, and then she opens her eyes. Bingo! They were childhood sweet- hearts, you see, and Macduff he says, “T love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie las- sie,” and Lady Macbeth smiles sort 0’ pitiful and says, “In the days of Auld Lang Syne.” Local color again, y’see, and it all ends I can assure you, Madam, he’s a one-man‘ dog. Oh, then he’d never do for me. with a great close-up—Macduff and Lady Macbeth walking off into a big white moon, and Macduff saying, “Tis a braw, bricht nicht in the Hie- lands, but I guess the moon won’t tell.” Oh, boy! Won't that knock ’em dead? H. 8. Stuckey. The Toiler ¢ OW is your new hired man?” “Well,” replied Farmer Jones, “he broke two hoe handles yesterday.” “Working so hard?” “No, leaning on ’em.” « E: What would you do if I should steal a kiss? Sue: It all depends on whom you steal it from. -_ comicbooks.com