Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 November 1939 — Page 28
The Butler { Nhoops It]
Holyveod Servants Hold) First Annual Dinner. ; 1
THE STACE By JAMES, THRASHER Carroll Repeats His Earlier Triumph In 'The White Steed’ at English's
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 17 (. Pre i Jack Benny buttoned his own waist=} { |coat, Myrna Loy fixed the hooks-| and-eyes on her evening gown, and| every other star in movieland got along without a servant last night.| : It was the night of the first an-| ‘|nual ‘dinner-dance ‘of = Hollywood{ butlers, maids, chauffeurs and cooks| and it was held in the swankiest |
In “THE WHITE STEED,” now at English’s, we we meet once more the work of Paul Vincent Carroli, that master of jeweled, singing prose, that bubbling Irish index to the soul of Ireland, that consummate playwright who gave us last season’s “Shadow and Substance.” “On the basis of last year’s first acquaintance, it would be hard to, name a contemporary playwright who would have been welcomed” | ‘back more eagerly. And after i last night’s opening, it is clear that the Glasgow schoolmaster has repeated his earlier triumph. Mr. Carroll has worked over the
Matt appears, his paralysis mire acuously cured. He speaks to the mob in their own language, shames and disperses them. And he sends Father Shaughnessy,
material of “Shadow and Substance,” and breathed into it a warmer, happier and more gen- . erally appealing spirit. However, “The White Steed” is no rubber stamp of a first success. Once again we see the wild, free spirit of Ireland rise above the squabble between church and state. But it
history and apparently so close to Mr. Carroll's heart that he can treat it again without repeating himself.
. WITH THE NEW PLAY we see the other side of the medal. The two amusing and pathetic little priests of “Shadow and - Substance,” the humble fathers who loved their parishioners, virtues, vices, football and all—these have been merged, mellowed and ennobled into “The White Steed’s” central character, Canon Matt Lavelle, And. in the place of Canon Skerritt, the austere and overpowering protagonist of “Shadow and Substance,” we have a lesser man, Father Shaughnessy. This Father Shaughnessy is a bigoted, iceblooded, sin-baiting priest who is sent to take over when the kindly Canon Matt is stricken with
Pe tel he organizes vigilante committees to curb drinking and courting outside the parlors decorous confines. He refuses to baptize infants born of mixed marriages or out of wedlock. He discharges Nora Fintry from her position in the town library and dismisses her from the hockey team because she will not give up * the company of men. He invests his “moral police” with such temporal power that eventually he clashes ,with the civil law, represented by a police inspector as bigoted and unyielding in his own way as Father Shaughnessy himself. And all this time the old Canon chafes at his helplessness while he enjoys his tea and his football broadcasts, much to his-young successor’s disgust. And Nora Fintry stands ‘hes ground as one who has learned a woman's independence and dignity in England, and in doing so has learned the secret of that deathless poetry and fire which is Ireland, at least Mr. Carroll's Ireland.
The climax is reached when Father Shaughnessy, his theological patience gone, sends one of his vigilantes to bring in Nora forcibly. Nora's offense is the fact that she has been seen repeatedly in the automobile of a hotel keeper—“and him a married man whose wife ran off and left him.” And the inspector arrives to arrest the priest and his “moral “policeman” for assault and battery on Nora. An angry mob howls outside, protesting the priest's arrest. Suddenly Canon
Woollcott Kidded Where All May Laugh—on Stage:
NEW YORK, Nov. 17 (NEA) ~There is a mournful man standing these nights at the bars dedicated to the larger and the lesser literary lights of the city, sadly inquiring of Whoever will listen to his plaint:
“Why didn't I think of it first?”
: The question is a legitimate one, for the sorrowing lad spent weeks digging up minutiae concerning Alexander Woollcott for a magazine
article with the inward thought that the matter had been satisfactorily closed, : And yet today the most successful play in town has been conjured right from the elements he ' mixed in his magazine piece and playwrights Moss Hart and George 8. Kaufman will reap a harvest. That the writer should not have geen a play in the Tabulous Woollcott is, perhaps, not remarkable. Neither did the opportunist Messrs. Hart and Kaufman until they read the magazine piece and. got io thinking about “The Man Who Came. to Dinner.” This is their Mr, Woollcott, although they have given him the nameé of Sheridan Whiteside, and added a few whimsies of their own to the natural accumulation of whimsy that is Mr. Woollcott him-
self. : Monty Wooley plays Mr. Woollcott and so capitally that his performance has started anew the maze of legends in which Mr. Wooll-
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apoplectic with protests, packing off to the bishop to complain. : + We
AND SO ENDS: the play, or part of it. But there is another story, that of Nora and Denis Dillon, the young schoolmaster who is a servile coward except when drink boils up his suppressed courage. . And this is the part from which the play takes its title and renders the symbol apt. Far “The White Steed” of Irish legend was that on which Niam carried off Ossian, the son of Finn, to the Land of Youth. And when Ossian comes back to Ireland after 300 years to find his father, the heroes are all dead and little black men swarm the land. It is not difficult to see that Nora is the youthful, deathless Niam, and Denis the Ossian whoin she lifts to the white steed’s back. Nor that Father Shaughnessy and his cohorts represent “the little black men,” for Nora tells him so herself, One doesn’t wonder that this play, sight unseen, blew up a tempest of indignation in Ireland, remembering the fury over Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World,” which now seems pretty innocuous. But it does seem strange that the liberal and intensely Irish Abbey Theater turned it down. For Mr. Carroll is too intelligent a man and too shrewd a playwright to be unfair or spitefully irreverent. Had it not been for the present war, however, “The White Steed” was to have played London and Dublin. Instead, the American “road” is seeing it, for which thanks be. 8 so 8
THE PRESENT CAST plays it in a spirited and full-blooded manner. There are several minor characters delightfully drawn and excellently played. However, it is not hard to imagine a troupe doing fuller justice to Mr, Carroll’s magnificent play. There was nothing in the least half-hearted about last “night's audience’s reception. To Whitford Kane, who is the Canon Matt; Gertrude Flynn, the Nora; Tom Bate, as Father Shaughnessy; William Cragin, who plays Denis, and the others went hearty and extended applause. Mr. Cragin, as you may know, is a native of the Morgan County hamlet of Brooklyn, and his fel-low-townsmen have every reason to be proud of him. His Denis was handsome and appealing, his voice had a ring of authority and his conception of -the part- was sincere and well studied: Unfortunately, last night's house was decidedly on the skimpy side, which is a pity for all who love the theater. My urgent advice ‘would be to run, not walk, to English’'s to see “The White Steed” before it departs our town late Saturday night. V
cott moves. You can't any literary gathering place without hearing -the play, or its protagonist discussed. So numerous are the stories concerning Mr. Woollcott that one begins to wonder whether he has lived one life or seven, Mr, Woollcott is one of the few figures on the literary horizon. bulky enough to inspire these stories. His physical appearance is striking. His body is huge, his forehead is broad aud high, but the rest of his face is small. His curved nose set between thick-rimmed glasses gives him the aspect of a startled owl. Mr, Woollcott became a writer in college and developed there the distinctive florid but fluent style that is now at its zenith. He got a job on the New York Times after graduation, but his reportorial sense was isthe essay vein. So badly beaten was his paper on the important ‘Rosenthal murder, which he supposedly was covering, that he was made dramatic critic. Another story is that the editor thought his style was wasted in the lifeless molds of the news column.
the easy step to oracle, gathering friends as he rolled along. And yet it is these friends who have coined
‘Edna, Ferber used to describe him as “Two characters out of Dickens.”
“Just a dreamer—with a good sense of double entry bookkeeping.”
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conscience, and Pinocchio.
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 17 (NEA) — Somewhere between sharply critical deliberation of Walt Disney and the {impatience of distributors who want to begin eollecting on a second fulllength animated feature, skips an unconcerned Pinocchio—the puppet who was brought to life by the Blue Fairy. : His future is assured now, his destiny drawn on- hundreds of thousands of sheets of celluloid. His friends are all about him, tou— Gepetto, the woodcarver; Figaro, the kitten; Jiminy Cricket, and a goldfish - named Cleo. And his enemies—Monstro, the whale; Stromboli, the evil puppet master; the ruffian cat, Giddy, and the sly fox, J. Worthington Foulfellow.
Picture Near Completion
Of course there’s no telling when Mr. Disney, the perfectionist, may reject or revise something. But considering the fact that he already has scrapped a total of five months’ work on the picture, the betting is that Mr. Disney now has just about what he wants. “Pinocchio” probably will be released about Feb. 15. The cost will be a little more than $1,500,000. Occasionally the big mouse-and-duck man, in a burst of optimism, declares that his organization is geared to the production of an animated feature every six or eight months. But it doesn’t work out that way. “Snow White,” of course, was a technically experimental venture by a staff of 600. “Pinocchio” preyet it will have been two years in the factory, and the payroll now numbers more than 1100.
Two Others Are Planned
“Bambi,” which was to have been completed early this year, will be seen, probably, in 1542; In between will come the classical fantasy, still untitled, comprising a group of animated interpretations of selections played by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Symphony. “Pinocchio” won't have much singing, although the picture opens with Jiminy Cricket warbling, “When You Wish: Upon a Star.” The .amiable insect uses the voice of Cliff Edwards. Walter Catlett has done the talking for the villainous fox, and Evelyn Venable is the voice of the Blue Fairy. Pinocchio’s lines are spoken | by Dickie Jones. Figaro, the kitfen, is as voiceless and ingratiating as Dopey ' the
and was four years in the making}:
sented relatively few new problems,|.
Pinocchio, the wooden puppet brought to life, will be the star of the second full-length Walt Disney feature. Stars are, left to right, Figaro, the silent cat; Cléo, the goldfish; Jiminy Cricket, the puppet’s
dwarf. Like Dopey, too, hel prob. ably steal the show. A new color development for this picture is called “blend.” Remember, for example, how Snow White's arms were a solid monotone, and looked flat? The arms of the beauteous Blue Fairy will assume roundness through shading applied on} the other side of the celluloid sheets —the side nearest the camera. Incidentally, the Blue Fairy’s face won't flicker as Snow White's did. Sketches Are Filmed I have just seen some “Pinocchio” sequences, photographed in black and white from the original drawings, and several color tests. Both provide new evidence of the meticulous caution used in making such a feature, From the. animators’ pencil sketches, the complete picture is shot—along with dialog and sound effects—so that Mr. Disney and his editors can criticize it. When they have refined it as far as possible in. that medium, the sketches are cleaned up so that the figures can be are on the celluloid sheets, or “ce ge . Throughout the picture, key scenes are completely painted with minute variations, then photographed and projected as color tests. For example, I saw seven slightly different treatments of fhe scene in
Actor Is Given Right to Marry
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 17 (U. P.).— Dana Andrews had an okay today from Samuel Goldwyn, who yanked him from a gas station pump and made him an actor, to go ahead and get married. Mr. ‘Goldwyn saw “Mr. Andrews putting fuel into the Goldwyn limousine out in San Fernando Valley and told him to call at the studio next day. : That was a year ago and since then Mr. Andrews has been on the studio payroll learning to become an actor. Farmed cut to the Pasadena Community Playhouse for training, he fell in love with his leading lady there, Mary Todd. Mr. Goldwyn’s contract forbade the young actor marrying without ‘permission. Mr. Goldwyn assigned his first movie role in “The Westerner.” After ‘the marriage today they will honeymoon on the Arizona location where Mr. Andrews will go to work with
Gary Cooper anid other stars.
which the wood carver finishes painting the face of Pinocchio and then picks him up and walks away.
bright colors, another palex{ one would mse dark shadows behind the figures, another ‘light shadows, third no shadows. ‘been made of hundreds of scenes. The labor involved is staggering even to think about—P. H.
One test would be in rather
a Such tests have
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ballroom in town—at the Biltmore, The only phoney in the crowd was ‘|the guest of honor, Arthur Treacher, who portrays a butler on the screen ‘and employs his own off] the screen. :
{men and women who have an AA} 8 |blue book rating at the service en“|trances. of the elite homes of the} film colony. . tables where their employers usually eat, and whooped it up mildly until 1 a. m.—everyone had the night off,
wood’s domestics,” F. Till, chauffeur for Harold Lloyd, and president of the Staff Service Bureau, “and we're celebrating.”
mal,” but the men and women who usually wear livery and uniforms went the limit. More than half the males were in Tuxedos, and there were half a dozen tails. Every maid and cook wore the slinkiest of eve-
that some Holywood film: queens | lent a dress or two from their high-
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"This famous team has played with Pryor’s Band and just completed a long engagement with Vincent * Lopes" They have played leading the- - atres, hotels and night clubs, and last summer were featured at N. Y. World's Fair. ‘Joey plays the accordion (he is considered one of Amgrica’s greatest players) and Mildred plays the violin, Both of thefa sing as well. Don’t fail to hear them—any night every night—in the . BRONZE ROOM.
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