St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 50

"W- i -w- '-'-jMu-! v-iW A'Af i -i 1 If i i 4 1 i Mil It iV 1 Alt I i iJ I I I -4 I ii I i i 4. pwwm. i i 171 i l. ttu4 lJ kit i I it i i PI 1 I Katharine Hepburn Takes Comedy Hit to Broadway "The Philadelphia Story," by Philip Barry, Ready for New York After Sensational Tour Throush Other Cities of the East. iaidcMtiijLiWijTjiiijtiwwfert( I I I KM, I v- Jj if sit NEW YORK, March 15.

Special to the Post-Dispatch. HE Theater Guild will present Philadelphia Story," at the the fourth production of its i Shubert Theater on Tuesday evenin? is reads the Guilds dignified announcement to tne press, but much more is involved than just another of the Guild's very proper premieres, -which Manhattan has come not to regard so highly ja SINCE this is a yer for Westerns in the movies, it is just as well to have a good one now, to set a standard. That one is "Stagecoach," at Loewi Theater, which shows what can be done when the combined artistic inspirations of producer, director and screenplay writer are used to the full extent. Walter Wanger produced it, John Ford directed it and Ford's author-collaborator, Dudley Nichols, did the screenplay. "Stagecoach" tmerges a a carefully cast, splendidly played and photographically beautiful picture.

Its plot is only what we have come to call the "Grand Hotel" type of thing, with some native and geographical variations, but It holds an audience in its speil for an hour and a half. The time is the lVvs. the dift-mce covered gome 230 miles between Tonto, and Lordsburg, N. and the persons of the drama are those any moviegoer might expect. Claire Trevor is the scarlet woman just run out of town, Thomas Mitchell the drunken physician also clearing out, John Carradine a gallant gambler, John Wayne a young escaped convict.

lierton Churchill the absconding banker, Donald Meek whisky drummer with the face of a parson, Louise Piatt the young army officers wife racing to be with her husband before the stork catches up with her. Threat of danger comes in the news that the old Apache raider, fleiornmo, is on the warpath again. A United States cavalry escort has to be withdrawn at the first way station and the stagecoach goes on 'one. Slowly and without straining the narrative, Ford and Nichols develop the peril and tension necessary to make the adventure a thrilling cine. Amusing incidents affecting the passengers, the birth of the baby at the second way station, romance between Miss Trevor and Wayne, help to keep interest at a high level even before any danger signals are seen.

SYDNEY BUSCH EARL SHERRY AND HERMAN WALD MAN, THREE PRINCIPALS IN "LOYALTIES," LITTLE THEATER PLAY OF THE WEEK. LITTLE THEATER REVIVES GALSWORTHY'S 'LOYALTIES' Brahms' First Symphony For Final 'Pop' Concert Brahms' First Symphony, played in its entirety, is the main feature of the program announced for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's closing "pop" concert at the Opera House at 4 o'clock next Sunday afternoon. Vladimir Golschmann will conduct. Also listed for the occasion are the Wedding March from Rimsky-Korsakoffs "Le Coq d'Or," Johann Strauss' "Perpetuum Mobile," and the Prelude and Love Death from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." The orchestra, now on tour of Southern cities, is idle today in New Orleans, following its concert there last night.

It has been to Oxford, Memphis, Birmingham, Montevallo and Montgomery, and will go on through Houston, Waco, Fort Worth, Denton and Longview, and Fayettevillc, Ark. recent years. What's up for Tuesday night is Katharine Hepburn's return to Broadway, after five years and much tossing of bricks, and the odds seem to be in the little girl's favor this time. For "The Philadelphia Story" has been knocking 'em dead, as they say in the trade, in its five-and-a-half weeks' tryout tour. "The Philadelphia Story" is the first straight comedy that Philip Barry, author of "Holiday" and "Paris Bound" has written in the last decade, which in itself heightens the interest.

Barry was represented on Broadway earlier this season by "Here Come th. Clowns," a philosophical piece which brought forth some high praise, some condemnation and which departed just about the time the town got together on calling it "Here Come the Clowns," instead of "Here Comes the Clowns," as it was originally and somewhat ungramatically tagged. In "The Philadelphia Story," Barry takes his audience to a smart suburban section of PhiladelphiaRadnor, to be exact to the somewhat beautifully mad household of the Lords, where everything seems to be just about as cock-eyed as circumstances -will permit. Tracy Lord, played by Miss Hepburn, is about to be married, for the second time, to a young and promising pundit of the coal mines, who has worked himself up from nowhere to a position of importance. He is, of course, almost an unknown in society circles and the family objects.

Meanwhile Tracy's father i3 in the midst of an affair with a well-known actress and her mother's early life in Germantown comes in for some questioning when two newspaper men, assigned to cover the social angles of smart Philadelphia for a national magazine, get busy on the story of the engagement. With these opportunities, Barry brings forth his epi grams and witticisms on the order of the day and presents, in shadowy disguise, several prominent figures of real life, such as a nationally known publisher and woman photographer. "The Philadelphia Story" has been applauded from the time of its opening in New Haven, Conn, on Feb. 16 until now. Written specifically for Miss Hepburn, it ha? had to undergo few changes in that time.

Contract commitments allowed it only two weeks in Philadelphia and when the company packed up to go to Washington, the treasurer was pleased to rc-port the comedy had broken 15-year-old house records at the Chestnut make only mild efforts to help him recover his money. Included among the house guests are Ronald and Mable Dancy, newly-married young couple (Earl Sherry and Dolores McBratney), Margaret Orme, a society girl (Sydney Busch) and Gen. Canynge (Leo Lederer). Convinced through circumstantial evidence that Dancy has committed the theft, De Levis agrees to keep silent only if Dancy's friends will sponsor his membership into the exclusive London clubs to which he has aspired. When later he is blackballed, De Levis decides to bring suit in court against Dancy.

The course of the play, having proceeded after the Winsor house party to the card room of a London club and to the Dancys' flat, moves on then to the attorney's office, and finally back again to the Dancys' living room for its climax. Philip D. Collins, Raymond Spindler, George Ober, Robert Troeger, Elmo Joseph, Edward Oresman, Dale Douglas, Jay Holmes, Herbert Macklin, Eugene Banks, Russell King and William Bramman are others in the cast. EUGENIA WILSON, WHO PLAYS PEARL, THE CHILD WIFE, IN "TOBACCO ROAD," AT THE AMERICAN THEATER. Fifth Visit From Lesters Of Georgia BACK for its seventh week and its fifth engagement locally, "Tobacco Road" arrives at the American Theater tonight.

John Barton is Jeeter Lester, as he has been on the last two occasions, in the drama of life among the sharecroppers of Georgia. Other familiar players will be Patricia Quinn as Sister Bessie, Dick Lee as Henry Peabody, Lillian Ardeli as the grandmother and Walter Ayers as the banker. Newcomers are Sara Perry, former St. Louis actress, as Ada, Jeeter's wife, Norman Budd, from the Mercury Theater's presentation of "Julius Caesar," as Dude Lester, William Dorme as Love Bensey, the coal-chute worker, Eugenia Wilson as his child wife, Sheila Brent as Ellie May and Alan Jason as Captain Tim. The company is the only one on tour this season and is on its way to the San Francisco World's Fair.

The New York company is still holding forth and hopes, with the trade of the World's Fair there, to beat the all-time record of "Abie's Irish Rose," which ran for 2532 consecutive performances. "Tobacco Road" now has some 2250 to its credit in New York alone, has been in 39 states and 215 other cities. Among- the Jeeter Lesters in New York have been Henry Hull, James Barton, nephew of John Barton, James Bell and Eddie Garr, Municipal Opera's "Connecticut Yankee" of the summer of 1936, who now is Jeeter. The week following "Tobacco Road" is dark for the American .4" I v. Philip Barry's new comedy, "Th twenty-first subscription season.

s9 Street Opera House. Washington was a sell-out in advance and last two weeks in Boston against competition of Gertrude Lavrence in auuLiiti iuie new piay, nave been triumphant. -o-o- irET Miss Hepburn still has tc I prove nerself on Broadway. Up until she went into motion' pictures, won an Acadf-my prize on "Morning Glory" and became one of movieland's great, the Rialto regarded her as one of itj special pets. Her success before the camera and stories of her eccentricities from the West Coast soured that somewhat and the grand manner in which she returned in "The Lake' in 1934 completed the job.

For it was in The Lake," to force a figure of speech, that she was sunk. The only traces left of the promising young stage actress were several stinging wisecracks, the most-quoted one credited to Dorothy Parker and to the effect that Miss Hepburn "ran the gamut of emotions from A to After that, the young star tied up with the Theater Guild and tiid "Jane Eyre" for the edification of various cities on the road, in 1937. Plans were to bring the piny into New York but after one metropolitan reviewer had gone out of hij way as far as Chicago, as a matter of fact to pan the show, it never appeared in these parti. "The Philadelphia Story" may he the different story. It is reported that Miss Hepburn, who with liar-ry has a financial interest, the stage production, has bought the movie rights for herseif.

Lately some callous writers on the subject of the cinema have suggested that Miss Hepburn's decline from screen favor, despite a highly praiseworthy performance in "Holiday" in 1938, is more or less serious. It appears, therefore, that what happens here Tuesday night and after is highly important to a certain young alumna of B-yn Mawr College. Other meal tickets involved are those of Van Heflin, Nicholas Joy, Vera Allen, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Booth and Forrest Orr. Another 'Stage Door' "Stage Door," the Kdna Fe-her-George S. Kaufman rnrr.edy which the Little Theater St.

Louis presented last week as a laboratory play in "drawing-room style," will be performed this week bv 'he Dramatic Club of the Y. H. W. H. Union bouleiaid and Enright avenue, in conventional manner.

The play will open tonight, to be repeated tomorrow evening and Tuesday evening. ixste work in the basement 1 1 I 3 t. I i 3 5 Taking advantage of the scenic background, Ford ever and again allows his cameras to survey the hoiizons serenely, while the musical score keeps up the spirit of the journey and the horses plunge ahead through the desert. Although the exterior shots were made in Monument Valley in Northern Arizona, and not in the South and Central parts of the state, where the action is laid, no one will quarrel over the substitution. For scenic interest is one of the film's major delights.

When the Apache raid comes, it Is bandied with the fine detail and unhurried realism that is charac teristic of Ford's style in directing And rescue by Uncle Sam's cavalry boys is as thrilling as it ever hat-been. The picture goes on for a little whiie afterward, to clear up matters for Wayne and Miss Trevor, and ends with one of its awe inspiring panoramas, a fine joh all the way along. Concerning Loews second fea ture, "Flirting With Fate," charity bids us be brief. For weeks the word has been going around in St Louis' Film Row that the new Joe E. Brown comedy was particularly obnoxious.

And things like that don't mellow in the can. Cafe Society. LUCIUS BEEBE, generally credited with inventing the term "cafe society," as distinguished from the "400" and "hamburger stand society," was supposed to be in the new film at the Ambassador to which he lent the title, but if he is there, I missed him. I ran across Fred MacMurray quite a lot and that oh-boy, oh-boy, oh-boy blonde c.f his, Madeleine Carroll, but found no Lucius. MacMurray, a newspaper man, nnd Miss Carroll, an heiress, are married in "Cafe Society," under reckless circumstances, but remain married throughout the course of the film and are getting along considerably better at the finish than at the beginning.

The whole comedy has a brisk pace, a daffiness that at times is most charming, some of the kind of kissing that makes bad boys whistle, some new crystal telephone handsets that I have not seen before and other gadgets worth looking into. Miss Carroll brings forth a genuinely praiseworthy performance as the too-nice aristocrat with a not-too-nice disposition and Al-Jyn-Joslyn, as Sommy, the society rcMtor, is a joy. "Let Us Live" offers contrast by showing the lives of the unfortunate poor. Henry Fonda, a taxi- cab driver, and Maureen O'Sullivan are just about to apply to trie HA for a loan when he is caught in the web of circumstantial evidence and is convicted of murder. Through summer, through winter, Maureen works to get the evidence that will free him.

And does. A new Merrie Melody at the Ambassador has enough original foolishness to be seen for its oyn sake. The batting average of these short subjects has been very good lately nd they are rapidly becoming rivals of the Disney cartoons. I but the Chicago company of "KissiElsah- IH- on Saturday evening. MARIAN ANDERSON, NEGRO CONTRALTO, WHO SINGS AT THE OPERA HOUSE SATURDAY rrc out or JOHN GALSWORTHY'S drama of anti-Semitic prejudice among British aristocrats, called "Loyalties," will begin its run at the Little Theater Wednesday night.

Nine public performances are to be given, through April 8, and two special performances thereafter. The play was seen at the American Theater in January, 1924, with some members of the all-English cast those who had played in it originally in London. All the action occurs in or near London and concerns the code of ethics as viewed by a wealthy and refined young Jew, Ferdinand de Levis, and a group of English aristocrats loyal to each other. Herman. Waldman has the role of De Levis.

The play opens in the large home of Charles Winsor (Leonard VLs-ser) and his wife, Lady Adela (Lenore Griffith). Here, at a house party, De Levis loses a thousand pounds, stolen from his wallet. The other guests and the servants are informed of the theft, but because De Levis is of a different social cast and race, they Vronsky-Babin Two-Piano Team At The Principia ITYA VRONSKY and Victor Babin, Russian duo-pianists, will make their St. Louis debut Friday evening in Howard Hall, The Principia, and will repeat their pro gram on the Principia campus at The two young artists, one born in Kiev, the other in Moscow, made their American debut in New York two years ago and now are on their second transcontinental tour. Both are students of Artur Schnabel and met while studying in Berlin.

With their marriage, each gave up a promising career as solo artist. Babin is a composer and in addition to a piano concerto, has written and published various songs and arrangements for two pianos. On the program at The Principia is one of his two-piano arrangements of the Polovtsian Dances from Borodin's "Prince Igor" and one of his original compositions. The complete program: Five Waltzes, Op. 39 Brahms Sonata inD Mozart Fantasia, Op.

5 Rachmaninoff Scaramouche Darius Milhaud Silhouette Arensky Etude: Veloce Victor Babin Cradle Song from "Sadko" Rimsky-Korsakoff Polovtsian Dances Borodin-Babin M-G-M to Produce 'It Can't Happen Here' In Forthcoming Season FTER serving for several years lias an example of suppression by Hollywood, Sinclair Lewis novel, "It Can't Happen Here." pic turing what might happen in the United States under a dictatorship. is to be mmed during the forth coming movie season by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, according to an aimuuncemem made at a company saies meeting Chicago several days ago. Change in the studio's attitude is laid to the fact that Hollywood now is considering such subjects timely for the domestic market and that it no longer fears reprisals Dy tne totalitarian countries, since tne loreign market has dwindled considerably in the last year, any way. xne vvarner Bros, studio, -with several anti-Nazi films on its production schedule, is rushing to the market first with "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," which it will release about April 15. The screenplay was adapted Irom the story by Leon G.

its members to trial. MAGAZINE ST. LOUIS The Week's Shows On the Stag AMERICAN "Tobacco Road" opens week's return engagement tonight, with John Barton in leading role. Matinees Wednesday and Saturday. LITTLE THEATER John Galsworthy's "Loyalties" begins 10-performance run Wednesday night.

On the Screen AMBASSADOR "Cafe Society," starring Madeleine Carroll, Fred MacMurray and Shirley Ross; "Let Us Live," featuring Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Sullivan and Ralph Bellamy. FOX "Midnight," starring Claud-ette Colbert and Don Ameche with John Barrymore; "Sudden Money," featuring Charlie Rug-gles and Marjone Rambeau. LOEWS "Stagecoach," featuring Claire Trevor John Wayne, Andy Devine and Thomas Mitchell; "Flirting With Fate," starring Joe E. Brown with Leo Carrillo and Beverly Roberts. MISSOURI "Love Affair," starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, with Maria Ouspenskaya; "Wife, Husband and Friend," starring Warner Baxter and Lor-etfa Young.

ST. LOUIS "Dark Rapture," African film produced by Ar-mand Denis; "Secrets of a Nurse," featuring Edmund Lowe, Helen Mack and Dick Foran. SCREENING ROOM (3143 Olive street I "Merlusse," French film with English translation, featuring Henri Poupon. Three mghts' run, beginning tonight. with Helen Mack saving Dick Foran from the hot seat.

"Love Affair," -which, according to Variety, is doing big business from New York to San Francisco, is still in town, at the Missouri. "Wife, Husband and Friend' is its assistant. Four Weeks of French Films Scheduled for The Screening Room Hf ERLLSSE," a French film ERLUSSE," a written, directed and pro duced by Marcel Pasrnol the author of "Topaze," is the Screening Room feature for three nights beginning tonight. Two short subjects, one of which is entitled "New England, Yesterday and To day, are on the program. The leading role in "Merlusse" is that of a hated professor at a boys' boarding school in Paris and the story one of what happens when he is left in charge of those students who have to remain at the school over the Christmas holiday.

Henri Poupon portrays the teacher, Andre Pollack, Rellys, Thomeray and others are featured actors. A week from tonight, the Screening: Room, which is at 3143 Olive street, will show "The Pearl nf wno aiso plays four roles in the film. Guitry, often described aa the "Noel Coward of France" because of his versatility or, A from the Middle Ages to the present. Historical characters represented include Napoleon I and Napoleon HI, the Empress Josephine and the Empress Eugenie, Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary Tudor of England. "Maverlinp- tri i tioyer-Uanieile Darrieux feature will be revived at the Screening Room for four nighta beginning April 9, and "Un Carnet de Bal" brought back bv popular demand for four nights beginning- April 16.

Marian Anderson Recital Saturday At Opera House A THOUGH including a group of four Negro spirituals as the completing feature on her program at the Opera House next Saturday evening, Marian Anderson, Negro contralto, will sing a variety of songs that ranges from one by the seventeenth century Italian composer, Giacomo Carissimi, to others by her own Finnish accompanist, Kosti Vehanen. Included is the area, "Casta Diva," from "Norma," one of the most famous in all Italian opera. Miss Anderson's complete program: Tutta Raccolta Handel Der Floete Weich Gefuehl Handel A Bruno Vestltt Carissimi An den Mond Schubert I Die Vogel Schubert Ava Maria Schubert i Der Nussbaum Schumann Ich Grolle Nicht Schumann Lullaby Scott i Rivets! Charles Cohen; Deserted Street Vehanen The Girl the Boys All Love (Finnish Humoresque) Vehanen Aria: "Casta Diva" from "Norma" Bellini Negro Spirituals: Sinner, Please doan' let dis Harves' Pass arr. by Burleigh "De Gospel Train" arr. by Burleigh "Tramping" arr.

by Boatr.er "Dere's no Hidin" Place Down Dere" arr by Brown Two New Artists To Be Introduced By Civic Music League Two concert artists new to St. Louis are among those signed by the Civic Music League for its 1939-40 concert series. These are the South American dancer, Ar-, gentinita, who. will appear here next Jan. 16, with her company, I and Robert Virovai, young violin-i ist from the Yugoslav who was introduced to America last -November by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Willi arrive here next Dec.

12. The series will open Nov. 7, at; the Opera House, with a recital by Ezio Pinza, Metropolitan Opera: basso who has been in St. Louis: previously and will be heard in the forthcoming St. Louis Grand Opera production of "Faust" in Following Virovai and Argentinita! come the Minneapolis under the direction of Dimitri Mi- tropoulos next Feb.

20, and a reci-i tal by Artur Rubinstein, outstand-i ing pianist, next March 19. I Julien Bryan to Show 'Inside Nazi Germany' Julien Bryan, noted cameraman and lecturer, will brine hit rinrn- mentary feature picture, "Inside Nazi Germany," to the Opeia House the evening of April 13 for one presentation beginning at 8:20 o'clock. POST DISPATCH, MARCH 25, the Boys Goodbye," Clare Boothe's I satire on the search for a Scarlett O'Hara for the movies, is due to i arrive the night of Easter Sunday, April 9. John Barrymore and his wife, Elaine Barrie, are expected the week of April 24 in "My Dear Children," based to a great extent on Barrymore's owri biography, and negotiations are under way for the Maxwell Anderson musical, "Knick erbocker Holiday," in which Walter Huston is starred, for a week in May. Al Pearce and Company At the Fox Wednesday Al Pearce, radio comedian who broke house records at the Fox Theater when he was here last spring, comes back for a week beginning Wednesday.

The Pearce show features the star himself as Elmer Blurt, the "I hope-I hope-I hope" salesman; Arlene Harris, the highspeed gossip; Andy Andrews, Pearce's singing comedian; Eb and Zeb, the Corn Center artists; the Randall Sisters trio; Vic Hyde, one-man swing band; Lyda Sue, dancer; Everett West and Carl Hoff, who leads the orchestra. 1 SO ARE WASHDAY MISERIES R. MAN, take a good look at your wife. Compare her with the eirl you Crown," another French film writ-along Sat-j ten and directed by Sacha Guitry married. Has her the lovely voice beauty waned? Are her hands red and rough? lias ITH opening days strung along from Wednesday to Sat urday, today finds some new features in the midst of their runs, others barely beginning.

Midnight" and "Sudden Money" WITH opening days strung from Wednesday to of the honeymoon gone shrill? will be at the Fox only through traces the historical course of sevl Tuesday, to be followed on Wednes- en pearls given to Catherine de day by "I'm From Missouri," r.ewMed1Ci by Pope Clement VII and Bob Burns feature, and the stage -covers a period of time stretching The one pregnant cause for this retrogression is the laundry. The washer may have succeeded to the scrub board and to turning the hand wringer, but she is still a toiler at a distasteful job. Will you permit this disaster to continue? Call a Dependable Power Laundry. Save money; get a clean wash; enjoy sterilized apparel and linens and take her away from the basement job. See that this Emblem is on the truck that stops at your door.

It is a sign of reliability, of trustworthiness. Make sure. It is important. show headed by Al Pearce. A light hearted romance in Paris, "Midnight" stars Ciaudette Colbert and Don Ameche nd offers a fair amount of pleasure.

"Sudden Money" repeats too many items from "You Can't Take it With You" and too feebly to be very amusing. "Dark Rapture," at the St. Louis wic i.i,uiy iiuurmsuve ana wen organized travel film which ran at the Renco Screening Room two weeks ago. Its program accom-l paniment is "Secrets of ft another of the death house PAGE 6G iTurrou, former Government opera- AL PEARCE, WHO HEADS THE tive who uncovered the Nazi spy STAGE SHOW OPENING AT THE! ring last year and brought several FOX WEDNESDAY. EVERYDAY iof 1939.