Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 August 1938 — Page 15
THURSDAY, AUG. 11.
1938 _
Novelist Sinclair Lewis Enters Second Week as
ER
Of Fascist-Hating 'It Can't Ha
By JAMES
Actor and Fault Finder
Author Studies Mechanics of Play as He Acts Part |
Doremus Jessup in ppen Here.’
THRASHER
EL Times Staff Writer _ COHASSET, Mass.—By the time this reaches print, Sinclair Lewis will be in the second week of a triumphant acting career.
Taking to the boards of Cohasset’s Town Hall as star of his play, “It Can’t Happen Here,” Mr. Lewis found himself nominated by acciama-
- tion as the summer’s most popular actor. This was during the week of July 25. After an ensuing week filled by a previous commitment, the play and its author-actor have been brought back for six more performances by the South Shore Players. :
Missed Actual Performance
My brief visit here fell between these two eventful weeks. Mr. Lewis’ actual performance, faintly praised by metropolitan critics, was denied me. But there was a threehour rehearsal that perhaps revealed more of Sinclair Lewis, artist, than interviews or criticisms. The creative artist is famous for an understandable feeling of infallibility regarding his creations. From Beethoven's refusal to alter his opera, “Fidelio,” to Willy Pogany’s squabble with Constance Bennett over her portrait, history books and newspapers are full of illustrations that the creator is true to his inspiration and resistant to change. Mr. Lewis’ behavior in rehearsal, accordingly, was all the more remarkable. *
Rewrites Stage Version
“It Can't Happen Here,” as dramatized by John C. Moffitt gnd Mr. Lewis from the latter's novel, was done slightly more than two years _ago by the Federal Theater companies, including the Indignapolis troupe. During the past winter Mr. Lewis went into seclusion with Alexander Dean, the South) Shore Players’ managing director, and rewrote the play. In that version it was done a fortnight ago, with the author as star. But when the play again went into rehearsal, the pruning was continued. For the most part, Mr. Lewis sat as meekly as a cub reporter while the city editor copyreads his story. Now and then there would be a prief discussion, with Mr. Lewis sure of the essential meaning and Mr. Dean equally sure of the dramatic necessity. But, in each case, the author capitulated. Not Satisfied With Original
Now it is evident, to even the casual reader of Mr. Lewis’ books, that he is not an uncertain or compromising man. The reason for “his current amenable behavior obviously arises from his knowledge that he is not yet a skilled play"wright. He was dissatisfied with the original stage version of “It Can't Happen Here,” for reasons evident to anyone who saw it. It was cumbersome and discursive. Today you wouldn't know it. Mr. Dean has assisted the author in adding fluidity and pace. There has been meticulous attention to stage “phusiness.” Speeches have been _ pruned to the core of their essential meaning. Seeks to Improve Writing
Mr. Lewis, he would have you know, is not playing Doremus Jessup, the Vermont editor who stands out against fascism, because he thought its original failure could be traced to the performance. He's doing Jessup to learn, at close range, what is the matter with this play and his stage writing in general. He always has felt that “It Can't Happen Here” was more suited to - film than stage treatment. In fact, - if you'll recall, the movie rights were purchased before the book was finished. Bui its subject matter was such that a timorous Hollywood, with an ‘eye to the world market, wouldn’t touch it. So it became a play. Today Mr. Lewis is not too interested in his thesis of possible dictatorship in America. In fact, he made a point in saying, though not to this writer, that his book was pure fiction. However, Huey Long was alive at the time of its first writing. America, Mr. Lewis felt, was much nearer a state of tolerating dictatorship than it is today. Ac- - tually, he believes implicitly in his play’s title (something that the play’s characters do not). Only in oppressed countries where the lower classes have had no vpjce in government will a dictator be condoned, in Mr. Lewis’ opinion.
Today the actor-playwright dis-|
misses Mayor Hague as a “small town mayor.” Off the record, he may be a little weary of his opus anent our hypothetical fasicsm. But he is interested in playwriting, and strongly. Mr. Lewis, who has considered himself chiefly as a storyteller in the past, wants to try his hand in a new literary field. Toward this end he is taking unofficial lessons at Cohasset.
Suggests Changes Himself
Seeing him in rehearsal, you scarcely could fail to’ be impreSsed by an innate and apparently growing feeling of proper dramatic procedure. He suggests many of the changed himself. - Throughout the three hours there were many swift revisions, the substitution of a word
for a phrase or an entire sentence. |.
The play was beginning move, and it is certain that Mr. Lewis will tackle his next job of stage writing with a much surer hand.
“It Can't Happen Here,” in its}
original dramatization, was not published. But the present revision, when all the telescoping of scenes is complete, will be issued in book form for amateur productions. The “reasons for this are commercial; Mr. Lewis insists that he has not written as a propagandist, and his play is not being released to amateurs primarily to disseminate a warning against possible dictator-
ship. Failed Under WPA
The fact seems to be that the |
_ professional theater would not want “It Can’t Happen Here” unless it could have Mr. Lewis. The play
SWIM—DANCE
was not successful under the WPA ‘aegis, but it has been shown here that it is a great drawing card with its author as a star. < During the first engagement, the entire week was sold out by 10 a. m, of night would find 50 or more persons begging the box-office for standing room. Critics who came to Cohasset to review the first performance included Brooks Atkinson, George Jean Nathan and. John Mason Brown. > As the week progressed, Richard Hoover tells me, the star gained ease and confidence upon the stage. He was good enough, at least, to draw an offer from a professional producer for a three months” tour in his revised play. Mr. Lewis turned it down because he was “too busy.” More ‘definite information is lacking at .present, but it is known that a new work is under way. Form or subject matter have not been disclosed. It wouldn't be too surprising, however, if it turned out to be a play.
Promises Title To Be Unaltered
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 11 (U. P.)— Flooded with letters from members of the British Bronte Society, producer Samuel Goldwyn said today he would not change the title of “Wuthering Heights,” the Emily Bronte hook, if he makes it into a movie. Mr. Goldwyn’s| sales organization asked students of Miss Bronte's works if they would object to a change in the title of the book. Members of the Bronte Society immediately went into action individually and as an organization, protesting any change in the title of “Wuthering Heights.” Confronted by the numerous protests, Mr. Goldwyn said he had no intention of changing the title when
4 | the film is made.
KAY STEWART IN ‘FRESHMAN YEAR’
Times Special : | HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 11.—Pretty Kay Stewart left Northwestern University last fall to go to college in the movies. Now she has a role in “Freshman Year.” The pert little coed, former head cheer leader at Northwestern, was spotted by Hollywood through her spectacular acrobatic stunts at the Purples’ big football games. Miss Stewart has a straight role in “Freshman Year,” in which she appears with Dixie Dunbar, William Lundigan, Constance Moore, Ernest Truex and Stanley Hughes.
opening day. Each |
| THE
ACTING IN OWN PLAY.
A singular portrait of Sinclair Lewis (above) as Doremus Jessup, the smal-town editor of “It Can’t Happen Here,” is given by James Thrasher in the adjoining story, written from Cohasset, Mass, where Mr. Lewis is acting in a stage version of his anti-Fascist novel.
IN NEW YORK —s ceonce ros
8 8 =
"Even in Hollywood, Broadwayite
Can't Fight off
Longing to Get Back to New York.
“Don’t get us wrong, the more.
where we have traveled, on this side of the days out and we fret about getting back. We really are a
am’s Chamber of Commerce. Of course, we should have felt at home in Bagdad-on-the-Cellu-loid that lies close by the Pacific. For if there is any distant place where the Broadwayite should feel at home it would be Hollywood. . The same faces that are familfar at Sardi’s off Shubert Alley appear in the Brown Derby on Vine St. : And a Times Squarer should have no trouble working up his own Old Home Week on Beverly Blvd. » 8 ”
EVERTHELESS, nostalgia shows its symptoms y the die-hard New Yorker even the film colony. They retire too early out there, whereas the hours in this town between the rivers lie somewhere between a. m. and a. m. The climate (California papers, please copy) is even and healthful. But don’t try to sell a favorable weather chart to the loyal Gothamite. Here, we feel downright uncomfortable when the temperature maintains an even and balmy level. And true enough, when we settled down to an evening in the Trocodero,’ we could have pretended that we were in the Club Versailles on 50th St. and Lexington Ave. because the decorations are similar and the crowd is, too. But we sat there fidgeting and hoping that our safari to Hollywood would soon be over. ” 8 8
ON'T ask us for a drawn-out explanation because we would not know. Nor are we the only Manhattanite who feels that way
LAST DAY GARY COOPER Shirley
Carole LombaraNOW and Forever Tempnis Mickey Rooney “Down The Stretch”
' EW. YORK, Aug. 11.—As one of our colleagues is wont to say, we love Hollywood,” but we love New York Our lingering malady is homesickness. It besets us every-
Atlantic or the other. Two credit to’ Goth-
A
about being away from home. Just ‘ask any Broadway expatriate in Hollywood if he would like to come back! We asked many. The answer was all in the affirmative. And what we miss while we're gone isn’t tangibly expressed. Not our firesides, nor the skylifie, nor City Hall,
Just New York. Take our case, for example. We disembarked from our American airliner near dusk and a few hours later, we joyfully entered Sherman Billingsley’s. oasis, the Stork Club— which seems to be the first place the “professional” New Yorker heads for, after a trip. Familiar faces nodded in salutation, as they have for years, and the hospitable Sherman was ready at the receiving line near the doorway. The dance band was continuing a tune in the middle of which we departed, we are sure, several weeks before, and the waiters were looking as bored as ever. Nothing changed and nothing altered. No overwhelming salutes. Positively nothing new. And yet the pectoral warmed to the occasion. good to get back.
HOLLYWOOD CIGARS
After searching the country for real French cigars for Island,” the Warner Bros. property department finally found nine o them rignt in Hollywood. ’
AMBASSADOR [437 LORETTA YOUNG-JOEL McCREA f op BLIND MICE” Were You Born’
Anna May Wong When 15%¢ GINIA
R. MONTGOMERY- C "YELLOW JACKET: "root Ken Maynard “TWO-GUN MAN"
cockles It was
LAST DAY Nel
TOMORROW
"THE TEXANS"
LAST DAY
a BIiiBM)D
Bergen: She's in love with him, Charlie.
Charlie: It
might have been you, if you
weren't tongue-tied.
Borg: | Charlie: |
never could find the right
words.
could. You should have let
me tell her.
Bergen: I'm getting pretty sick of you saging everything I want to.
YOU'LL
THRILL TO A NEW
CHARLIE McCARTHY/ FOR THE FIRST TIME...HE ACTS... BESIDES JUST ACTING UP/
INTRODUCTION
with EDGAR BERGEN and “CHARLIE McCARTHY" ADOLPHE MENJOU
AND
REA LEEDS
‘GEORGE MURPHY Rita JOHNSON . Ann SHERIDAN
Eve ARDEN .
Ernest COSSART
Tr Tg
DIANAPOLIS TIMES
nor Central Park, nor what you will.’
“Devil’s |
Racing Set ~ Being Built
Holl ywood Reconstructs 'Gasoline Alley.’ |
Times Special - HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 11.—One of the most colorful sections of the famous Indianapolis Speedway — Gasoline Alley—is rising on the lot of 20th Century-Fox studios. The set, which will be used in an as yet untitled auto racing story, is composed of the various garages used by drivers in the Memorial Day race. : Everything is complete, even to the signs which hang in each garage and which every driver knows by heart. They read: “No smoking. If this place burns today, where will you work tomorrow?” From Joe Thorne, millionaire sportsman who had four cars in the race this year, Associate Producer Jerry Hoffman has secured the quartet of racers, complete equipment for building and repairing motors, a racing shell and frame and the work benches Thorne used at the Hoosier track. To insure realism in the setting, Director Otto Brower filmed not only the 1938 race but remained there several weeks taking pictures of the track and its surroundings. Young Thorne in addition to acting as technical adviser will also be in the picture in a featured role, his first appearance in the movies.
Lotte Lehmann Home Is Usurped
NEW YORK, Aug. 11 (U. P).— Lotte Lehmann, Metropolitan Opera star, who arrived: on the liner Champlain yesterday with her three stepsons, has fled Vienna because they were half Jewish., The singer carried with her a tiny flower pot of Vienna earth anda sprig of clover. She said it was all she had left from her country home which was usurped by a German Army officer.
LOEW'S Last Day —
=—=ny
N ichols, Do rse y
Units Are Signed| Times Special ri : ROCHESTER, Aug. 11.—Two nationally known dance orchestras
have been secured “for one-night stands at the Fairview Hotel Gar-.
dens on Lake Manitou here. . On Aug. 20 Red Nichols and his Pennies will play. a one-night engagement at the local ballroom. Ten days later on Aug. 30 Tommy Dorsey will provide the dance music in
——— PAGES his only Indiana appearance’ this summer. i RRTE - Dusty. Roades, a Hoosier ban
‘leader, who is currently featured
at the dance spot, was once a member of Red Nichols and his Syncopating Five Orchestra, at that time one of Indiana’s most popular dance. aggregations.
The Best-Loved Family in F
DOUGLAS WIGGIN'S | GLORIOUS NOVEL \ OF AMERICAN \\ GIRLHOOD 4
CHAS. BOYER, HEDY
‘STARTS TOMORI AIR-CONDITIONED CO
LAMARR
iction Has
®
«
Moved to Our Screen! 5 i :
The deep-down springs of human love
that make vou laugh and cry...
‘MOTHER CAREY
5|
CHICKENS
=) oe
ANNE SHIRLEY - RUBY KEELER - FAY BAINTER WALTER BRENNAN - JAMES ELLISON
FRANK ALBERTSON - ALMA KRUGER- VIRGINIA WEIDLER
APOLLO}
ALWAYS COMFORTABLY COOL
a ——
“THE CROWD ROARS" FOR EDWARD ARNOLD AND FRANK MORGAN !
Radio's Romeo, Frank Morgan is hilarioust Edward Amold turns in a memerably dramatic performance! What a cast for this grand story by the author of “Navy Blue and Gold”.
YS = 4 RF | yt
pnp ————————— eer
FORT
EDWARD
RS
FRANK
MAUREEN : : : 7 ; is nad : ARNOLD + MORGAN - O'SULLIVAN - GARGAN . LIONEL STANDER +JANE WYMAN : NAT PENDLETON Oppenheimer - Directed by Richard Thorps J AN M-G-M PICTURE + Produced by Sam Zimbelist
ALGIERS”, Plus “CITY STREETS”
wR a,
WILLIAM
| By PLUS THRILLING MYSTERY ~~ "EXTORTION''
11] the
DEVIL'S PARTY
WESTLAKE
§ Chuck Haug Orchestra
25¢ TILL6 P.M. o AFTER GP. M.