Life — April 2, 1925 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

22 Ziegfeld Resurgent 'HROUGH the inscrutable working of Fate, the comedy sketches which were originally a part of J. P. McEvoy’s The Comic Supplement” (foundered off Newark, N. J., 1925) have been inserted into the new edition of ing the show funnier than it has been since— well, since W. C. Fields was in it before. Given an act like “A Back Porch,” with Miss Ray Dooley, the Baby Peggy of the spoken drama, to work with him (if you can call it working with), and W. C. Fields is just about as grand as a comedian could possibly be. We ask for nothing better in this life. Incidentally, we are happy to be able to report for once that, in direct competition with an English revue sketch, our own dear land comes off so far ahead as to be almost in- sulting, This sketch of Mr. Field’s, “A Back Porch. challenges comparison at every point with a similar idea in the sainted Charlot’s Revue, a scene in which a man tries to snatch a few minutes’ sleep in the face of domestic inter- ruptions. The American version, in the writing, business, setting and costuming. stands out like “The Miracle” in comparison with “Ben Hur.” 'HE costuming, in particular, takes a couple of good long jumps ahead of anything that has ever been done in a revue before. This, too, is a salvaged feature from “The Comic Supplement” and is the work of John Held, Jr.. the artist. Even if you didn’t sce the credit to Mr. Held on the pro- gram, you would know that he designed the ladies’ costumes, because of the three inches of open space between the top of the stockings and the—whatever they are. Just as to- day you can always spot a Rubens or Botticelli girl, art students of the future will learn to recognize those three able inches as the sure mark of a genuine Held. ine W E don’t want to devote too much attention to the pic- torial side of the new Follies, when we need the whole page to talk about Mr. Fields and Miss Dooley, but, as a part of the remarkable revolutionary note in the “Comic Supplement” additions, Norman-Bel Geddes’ sets are master- pieces. Inserted in the conventional surroundings of the old Follies’ scenery, they make it look like a street-drop in an olio. If “The Comic Supplement,” with Fields, Dooley, McEvoy, Held and Geddes, was all like the bits that have been saved for the Follies it would have been better to close the old Follies and bring “The Comic Supplement” in. None of this should be construed as a retraction of our stand on Will Rog He is still with the show and still moves in an orbit of his own CREFPZO OT content with rejuvenating the Follies within an inch of its life, Mr. Ziegfeld crashes into Columbus Circle with “Louie the 14th” in such a riot of color that the color- riot squad from the West Fifty-fourth St. Station had to be called out. It is one of the most satisfactory shows to look at that we remember ever having seen. Along about the middle of the second act you get a little tired of looking, and shortly after that you stop looking entirely, but that is the fault of the limited capacity of the human eye. As one who has to try very hard to laugh at drunken scenes, even Mr. Leon Errol's, and as one to whom “Sally” was one of the unfunniest shows in the world, we must admit that Mr. Errol in “Louie the 14th” induced several loud snorts and quite a number of minor ones, While the book is obtrusively unimportant and a great deal of the talk pretty tiresome, we got gr satisfaction out of the idea of an Alpine guide's taking parties up into the rocks and losing them there, to be called for later in the week. Mr. Errol’s impatient “Oh, shut up!” to the pitiful and distant yodels for help was worth a great deal to us, prob- ably because of that old cruel streak which we try so hard to fight down, We must, however, protest against the direction in “Louie the 14th" which makes a large male chorus of doughboys (led by the pleasing and rich-voiced Mr. Fender) sing two encores to a song about “Homeland” with panying gestures indicative in slow succession of heartache. tenderness, nostalgia and Friihlingserwachen, The gestures were similar to those utilized by Miss Julia Hoyt in “The Virgin of Bethulia.” and while they may have been all right for a-beautiful woman under stress of devotional emotion, they are not suited to the popular conception of what the A. E. F. was like, even after the armistice. If the boys must do something with their hands and arms while they sing, a good snappy series of setting-up exercises would fit into the picture better. And surely the boys would look much happier doing them. Whatever faults “Louie the 14th” may have, it can always be said of it, as is said no fewer than eighteen times of the rocky farm in “Desire Under the Elms"—“Purty, ain't it?” Robert Benchley. ccom- comicbooks.com