I Dare Say – Movies offer stage excellent example (10-26-41)

The Pittsburgh Press (October 26, 1941)

Parry

I DARE SAY —
Movies offer stage excellent example

Films as good in Podunk as in New York – but plays, well…
By Florence Fisher Parry

Now this may prove to be a disagreeable column, as most columns are when they declare a peeve; but an honest confession will be good for my soul today, and let who will turn elsewhere for sweetness and light.

Lately I have seen a number of magnificent films: One was Sergeant York, as real as rain, as bold as battle, and as American as Indian corn. Another was The Maltese Falcon, tough and tight and good. Another was Suspicion, which I hope you will see shortly, for it is one of the best suspense movies I can remember ever seeing, the best work by far of that master director, Alfred Hitchcock. Another was The Little Foxes, as neat a trick of transference from theater to screen as was The Children’s Hour.

Everything about these pictures clicked. They exhibited a beautiful synchronization of all the elements that go into the making of good camera. And all these pictures have been, will be, seen by a hundred million Americans of every level, of every economic, cultural and social level. Some will pay 50¢ or 60¢ each to see them; some will pay 10¢; yet, to all, these pictures will remain the same, as perfect prints in a little Hill theater as they were at the time of their most deluxe premier showing.

When I see pictures like these, and then when I go to the theater and see for the second (and sometimes third) time, some of our last year’s hits, and observe how they have fallen apart since their first presentation. I begin to wonder why the theaters’ devotees continue to be willing to pay $4.40 for a second year’s performance when for one-tenth the amount they could see a reprint of a picture made three years ago and be sure that it had not been worn thin and shabby by time.


Shipworn

This year in New York, there are an unusual number of holdovers from last year. One of these is Lady in the Dark. True, its star, Gertrude Lawrence, a star so brilliant that nothing can tarnish her radiance, continues as its central motivation; but I find her this year surrounded by almost an entirely new cast – to be exact, four new leading men. This marvelous musical poem is still well worth seeing, but to us who saw it last year, it is simply not the same show.

Pal Joey was held over in Manhattan this year, and structurally it is the same shrewd bold theater it was last year; but practically every important member of the cast gone out of it but Vivienne Segal.

Even the plays that remain there intact with no, or at least few, cast changes, are wearing a bit thin in performance value. I have seen some of these for the second time: Ethel Barrymore in The Corn is Green; Rose Franken’s lovely comedy, Claudia; that inimitable murder farce, Arsenic and Old Lace, and the gorgeous and indefatigable Ethel Merman in Panama Hattie. But they all have become a little shopworn. They are simply not as good as they were. The companies need a rest.

If this is so now, into what condition can we assume these attractions will fall by the time they reach Pittsburgh on their belated gilt-edge tours?

Often a play comes to town with the original cast intact. This was the case of The Native Son, There Shall Be No Night, The Doctor’s Dilemma, and we understand it will be the New York company of Claudia that we will see, a break for which I am profoundly grateful.

Ed Wynn brought to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago as fresh and talented a show as he had in New York. Frankly, on the other hand,. it seemed to me that Al Jolson’s show had fallen apart a little. We certainly have a right to demand of Panama Hattie when, if ever, it comes to Pittsburgh, a renovated Panama Hattie.


Road casts okay

Naturally there exists a great prejudice in favor of those who create the roles, but repeatedly I have seen in second companies more adroit performances than obtained in the original. Let us be hopeful, then, for the cast of Life With Father.

No, my quarrel is not with second companies, but with the shoddiness which sometimes overtakes original companies when they have either played too long and grown shopworn, or indulged in too many replacements.

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