Indianapolis Times, Volume 38, Number 135, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 September 1926 — Page 9

SEPT. 11, 1926

NEW PLAYS SEEM no BE WRITTEN FOR BOX OFFICE Young Playwrights, Having Tried One Extreme, Face About. • By flie XEA Play Jury NEW YORK. Sept. 11.—They have been teaching the young Idea to shoot at box-office receipts. And the apt students are proving no mean marksman. Rut the curse of formula hangs over their efforts. In a theatrical season so young that it still believes in Santa Claus, the rifts displayed seem to please the children of the theater, but the practiced eye detects another season's toys made over. After all. the young playwright must eat. and having tried serious diet and gained little weight lie cannot entire’-- l>e blamed if* lie turns th i<n -it * •• fare. T' - th e jj Martin Flavin, who gov • - theater that haunting, nig'tmarlsh, yet compassionate Study of inherited Insanity, ‘Children df the Moon.” His newest piece, just presented to Broadway, startled this young realist's devoted following, for it is anof the "up-ln-Peggy's-room-get-garter” farces wherein a young man with a rounderish past weds, settles down upon his honeya moon, only to discover that a door of his hotel room opens upon that of Peggy, a blonde movie queen he had trotted'about with in days agone. Flavin, giving all due credit, lias done the froth extremely well ir. bits, particularly those sections where the film actress is called upon to "regis ter" for public effect and return to' her slangy self thereafteri Marion Coakley, who has appeared about these parts as a perpetual ingenue, is the movie gal. But just where one is ready to surrender to the author’s freshness, he condescends to lines distressingly trite. The point that ivorries this department is shat, with a dozen of these capable young writers catching on to the formula for writing "sure-fire" plays, will there not be so many j successes that some of them will fail in spite of it? Thus the New York season got away with a piece entitled “Loose Ankles," which seems definitely to have caught on. Although it is said that Sam Janney, its author, had the piece written four years ago and failed to market it, bringing it out now after much rewriting, nevertheless it seems strangely like the offspring of a mating between “Cradle Snatchers" and "Is Zat So.” * * ♦ The daddy of alKthe formultsts is. perhaps, Owen Davis, and since his latest Is said to be his 147th play, he certainly should have all the of the trade at hand. What proved puzzling about this Da is that he produced an "Ice Bound” and is entrusted with the transcription of some of the season’s most important productions, while turning out the season’s most blqod curdling melodrama and a mystery play such as "The Donovan Affair," for insta’. • Mystery melodrama is always sure Are and even so befuddled a concoction as "The Ghost Train," which puffed in last week from merry England with A1 Woods at the throttle, seems likely to remain at this station most of the winter. ‘‘The Donovan Affair" is vastly better in construction. It follows the accepted formula of a murder at a dinner party with all the guests accused and the program not, "please don’t tell the solution.” Davis is a deft craftsman and his play ranks among the best of fills school. * • * Finally there is a Broadway "dis covery” this week, whose pictures will be in the theatrical magazines before long and of whom there will bo much talk. She is Dorothy Burgees, who appears in a thin, f-sgile and very pleasant corned' - . "The AdorablLiar." Miss Burg"' first hove in sigh 4 when Helen Hayes left the cast of ‘‘Dancing Mothers" and she became the ingenue. She is charming, quite young, and as girlish as her age, and this jury likes her considerably better than Helen Hayes who. after all, may be growing up since she has achieved success with Barrie plays. ffc’The Adorable Liar” concerns a Bier-romantic miss who tells many es about imagined lovers and who finally gets a saxophone player to her room for a. midnight supper only to find a Florida, posse outside ready to lynch him while she, herself, becomes most squeamish at this denoument to her own daring.

FAIRBANKS’ ‘BLACK PIRATE’ AT CIRCLE (Continued From Page 8) organ novelty hy Lester Huff will be other program features. The organ recital to be given at 12:30 o’clock noon Sunday by Lester Huff will consist of the following program. First Movement. "Ballet Egyptian - ’.. Luigini "Serenado ' Drigro "Down South" Middleton Popular Song* From Popular Show*. Selection* From "La Boheme ”... .Puccini I. .|. .J. BUCK JONES I> T RACING PICTURE AT ISIS Eight mischievous youngsters ranging from four to fourteen years of age share honors with Buck Jones who is starred in "The Flying HorseIman” to be shown at the Isis the rflrst half of next week. ! Jones Is cast as Mark Wlnt6n a poWDoy engaged in the task of training his horse, White Eagle, for a free-for-all rodeo race which offers a M os $20,000. He falls in with Vp eight kids belonging to Happy s>e, a derelict, and with their aid out generals his rival, Bert Ridley, wins the love of June Savary, daughter of a ranch owner, and rides White Eagle to victory after a series of excising adventures In which

Artist on First Program

Mii ,jfki

Miss Kathleen Bunibaugh On the first program of the new season broadcast by The Indianapolis Times Friday night over WFB.U from the Severin was Miss Kathleen Bunibaugh, an artist who was popular with radio listeners last season.

his life is more than once at stake. "Going Crazy.” a comedy, will be the fun feature. , The mid-week change on Thursday will serve to present "Yellowback," a drama starring Fred Humes, and a Christy comedy entitled “Shore Shy." •I- -I' -IMOVIE OFFERING AT UPTOWN FOR WEEK George Sidney of the "Cohens and Kellys” fame, plays the principal part in "The Prince of Pilsen," which

t POSnTVELY THE GREATEST ENTERr If TAINMENT OF THE YEAR y M WOMEN WILL ADORE AND IMM j§K5 MEN WILL RAVE OVER : WBm |Pfig vO ME NL- MO Df ciTIV^EVOLT AG AW ST * * UML . - Yif O’Brien fyi OLIVE BORDEN l ON OUR STAGE Amazing—fascinating—charming EIGHT AMERICAN || a |,S A I?£laAil aMSA A COLORFUL GIRL HARPISTS ' f FlfiriV Uirn<6 OFFERING IN A GORGEO US , V* IN MARVELOUS MUSICAL REVUE Harp fSnSeillDlC SURROUNDINGS* and Mary Moore, the California )Nightingale OUR SHORT REEL FEATURES NEELY EDWARDS IN I AESOP FABLE I INTERNATIONAL ‘‘TWO DOLLARS, PLEASE” | ‘‘CHARLESTON QUEEN” | NEWS EVENTS THOMPSON’S ’ American Harmonists SOLff GANG kIL

will be shown as the featured attraction at the Uptown Theater the coming week of Sept. 12. The picture will be shown on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The picture is based on the musical comedy by Frank Pixley and Gustav Luders, and was directed by Paul Powell. Beside George Sidney, others who appear in the cast are Anita Stewart, Allan Forrest, Myrtle Stedman. Otis Harlan, Rose) Tapley. \V. Von Bruncken and Wilhelm Von Hardenburg. • . "The Prince of Pilsen" tells of

MOTION PICTURES

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Hans Wagner, a brewer, also Grand Imperial Chief of Cincinnati Lodge 777 of the Loyal Order of Squirrels, who returns to his home in Altheim in Germany, where he is mistaken for a visiting prince. In the regalia of his lodge he cuts a figure at court and returns to his hotel to find a real prince making love to his daughter. An Our Gang comedy, "Shootin’ Injuns”; a news weekly and a Fable are additional subjects. Lewis Stone and Anna Q Nilsson are co-starred in "Too Much Money,”, a society drama of the present day. Tt is a forceful, tell- 1 ing picture. A comedy. "It’s a Pipe.” and "Ectotypes,” a novelty, additional subjects. Hoot Gibson, the comedy western cowboy herp, is featured in "The Man in the Saddle." a fast riding picture filled with action, daring and brawn. An Alberta Vaughn comedy, “The Big Charade”; a news weekly and a Bray cartoon are additional subjects. MUGHTOMISSAND SEE IN NEW FILM (Continued From Page 8) tripped since D. W. Griffith first directed her footsteps. The scenarist completely overlooked the opportunities offered in the presentation of the sinister Roger Prynne. husband of an impossible marriage in England who comes to haunt the lives of Hester and the Reverend Dimmesdale. He appears only in the last moments of the picture. Nor is the good pastor haunted by ghosts and sounds as his' mind begins to collapse under the torture of conscience; nor is the photographic opportunity of a lifetime realized in the flashing of the comet across the skies. These, and much more, are overlooked. And yet it is a beautiful picture; as lovely a group of pictures as the eye could rest upon; well visioned

a series of scenes as one :buld wish. Had the entire picture been turned

KiSSiftf tactual**} \| the love story of a pirate ff Ml it is the kind of picture you have always wanted to see—gor- Iff ■( geous in every detail—it shows to you, even better than you have imagined, the pirate stories about which you have read—Kidd, IS V] Lafitte, Morgan and their roistering crew. || / the adventure of a life time vL Ml Doug, the peer of cinema romance, is a swashbuckling, sword- IM swinging cavalier of the high seas . . . daring, bold, fascinating —an unknown leader of a pirate band who raises the black flag YwL ■j of freebootery and becomes the scourge of the seven seas—the iff MJ noblest pirate who ever plagued the Spanish Main. , Ml every incident of this drama is a momentous event and a delight Ml —the photography, in technicolor, is the most beautiful that has /Jr Ml ever been recorded on celluloid—seeing it is witnessing the birth iB mx of anew era in picture making. with an elaborate musical setting I! Mikhail Stolarevsky For this engagement only the Circle will open at 1:15 Sunday, far is] the feature shown at 1:40, 3:40, 5:35, 7:40 and 9:40. (fli Ml Week days the Circle will open at 11:30, vik ffj the feature shown at 11:45, 1:45, 3:45, 5:45, 7:45 and 9:45. Yff Ml * Topics of the Day—Comedy—News )j Ml ADVANCE ADVANCE fff j|j prices HR jfl9N nP J ;BBj pp prices Ml 1

MUTUAL BURLESQUE THEATRE FORMERLY BROADWAY Under Direction of Mutual Burlesque Association of New York BEGINNING MATINEE TODAY AND ALL WEEK CHATTER BOX GIRLS ANOTHER GOOD SHOW Weekday Matinees, Ladies, 25c

, FEATURING: SAMMY WESTON and BESSIE IRVING with A RED HOT SNAPPY CHORUS of SINGING AND DANCING GIRLS

Charleston Contest—Thursday Night—Open to Local Contestants

over to Seastrom to follow according to the Hawthorne story, there would

'■ HBMr •$ |V TMmmA ft ' '■ WMMM mmaf Ml Mm flEfl jtsgm gwiraaiyaii l |H MmmSi MMBzSSISmMw r jBM& I

perhaps be another tale to tell. . He done well with the story

MOTION PICTURES

AMUSEMENTS

PAGE 9

given him. It just doesn't napp I to be “The Scarlet Letter."

CAST INCLUDES: Ray Clifford Cy Young Roy Sears George Lewis Ella Ross Lorreta Beyes Elsie and Pearl Kuna and a coterie of Youthful, Pretty Shapely <i Graceful DANCERS with RESTLESS FEET on the Illuminated Runway