The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 16, 1927, Page 11

CO ee ee OHO OO OHNO EERE REDO OO OEE Ee On the Screen Cena ade ineatneen eine inetiestnettinetinetnetieeietnadl “Metropolis” “Fools! Let the machines starve!” Thus the mechanical woman of Me- tropolis impels the. workmen for- ward in their attack on the machine room. -In these and other fiery words she arouses them, lights the ‘spark which sets aflame their inar- ticulate, oppressive sense of dissatis- faction. Carrying her on their shoulders, they rushed into the machine rooms and attacked with blind fury the sym- bols of their servitude; tearing, cleav- ing, distorting those monsters in whose service they, too, had become mere mechanisms. * * * But wait—it was the mechanical woman who taught the workers there to break their chains. The real wom- an whose form and features she bore, lay a prisoner in the chemist’s labor- atory, agonized at the thoughts of, what the evil impersonator was do- ing among her followers. She had taught them love, and trust in Christ, whose religion she was re-awakening after hundreds of years of disregard by mankind. For the moral of this picture is that effi- ciency, to be effective, must be uni- ted with love. The soulless mechani- eal woman works only havoc, revolu- tion, destruction and despair. * a + Yet, when one sees the workers’ boxlike homes, ground, contrasted with the wonder city of the owners of wealth equally far above ground, one is again im- pelled to ask, “Surely this is revolu- tionary propaganda?” In the machine room are the piti- less machines, each with its human automatum, These men worked in two endless, ten hour shifts. Going to, their work, fresh and strong and coming from it with limp, dead bod- ies, herded into the elevators like cattle, the elevators which connected the underground machine room with their homes still further down. This was their whole ilfe—save for the Catacombs where once a day they met in secret to worship Mary, tea- cher of a new interest—religion. Up, above, the sons of the wealthy en- joyed themselves in stupendous sky- . Scrapers, with gorgeous roof gardens, all eonnected by wide aerial boule- vards and aeroplane systems. And the evil genius of all this glory and all this distress is Masterman, cold, hard and unfeeling where workers are concerned. nS * * But the burgeois mind is clever and can turn even such material to its own uses. We see the mechanical woman, complete except for a soul, and made in the form of Mary be- eause of her influence over the work- ers, turn against her master. Instead of teaching duty and submission, she suddenly turns to teaching revolt— destruction, for this is a bourgeois conception of revolution. Thus we find the workers’ destroying the ma- chines, forgetting in their fury that by so doing they cause their own homes to be flooded—the houses where the children still remain, It is the real Mary, escaped, and Masterman’s son, Eric, sympathizer of the workers, who rescues the chil- dren. Thus they gain forgiveness for Masterman (thru a peculiar method of reasoning, which credits the father with some of the merit for his son’s act) and place Eric in a position to bring together Worker and Master in a clasp of love and class collabora- tion, truly worthy of President Green, A “Condescending Savior,” And so the propagandist cleverly achieves a triple purpose. He raises aloft the white standard of religion, beloved of all good conservatives. At the same time, he proves to the en- thusiastic middle-class audience that worker and boss must go hand in hand for perpetual peace on earth in industry. More subtle stil, ‘he con a deep down under- . ry RUDOLPH SCHILDKRAUT % Will be seen in “The King of Kings,” Cecil de Mille’s newest screen production opening Tuesday at the Gaiety Theatre. vinces the fearful that revolution is all they ever thought it—not a strike for freedom of an .oppressed class, but a destructive, disastrous scheme, and the product of a soulless intellect. Dream City and Burrows. In spite of all this, every class eonscious worker, every person who likes a good movie and every one with a real interest in art_should see this picture. The startingly, beauti- ful dream city above ground elicited spontaneous applause from a hard boiled New York audience. The standardized tenements below ground, the stupendous, pitiless machines which control everything—all are the product of an unusual imagination, with remarkable technique of ~pro- duction. The many devices by which Master- man watches over his workers and the complete automatization of his whole system is almost inconceivable. As for acting, Brigitte Helm in the role of the two Marys, stands way above all the others. Mary was a quiet, sweet virgin, reminiscent of the Modanna. The mechanical be- ing was lewd, bold and excitable. And altho the producers make of the pic-_ ture a piece of obvious bourgeois propaganda, there symbolical, realistic setting from which a real revolutionist may draw much value. BEATRICE A. ==Screen Notes== A new picturization of “Camille,” from Dumas’ famous novel, with Nor- ma Talmadge in the title role, will be presented at the Globe theatre next Thursday night. Mme. Fred de Gressac made the screen version, and Fred Niblo directed the production. MYERS. “The Stolen Bride,” an - original stery by Carey Wilson, is scheduled for production by, First National with Mary Astor, Lloyd Hughes and Lucien Prival in the cast. The premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s production of “The King of Kings,” by Jeanie McPherson, will take place next Tuesday, at the’ Gaiety Theatre. Dr. Hugo Riesenfeld is in charge of the presentation. Eddie Cantor’s next starring ve- hicle for Paramount will be “The Girl Friend,” based on the musical comedy of that. name. Harry Langdon will be the screen feature at Moss’ Broadway in his latest comedy, “Long Pants,” begin- ning Monday. “Lovers,” the $Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer drama of Spain will be the screen program at the Capitol Theatre beginning today, Ramon Novarro and Alice Terry play the leading parts, is much in its” Yiddish Jazz New Work by Ossip ) Dymow Resembles Lawson’s “Loud Loud Speaker” Reviewed By A. B. MAGIL The jazz play has come to Second Avenue. The jazz rhythm has learned to talk in Yiddish, dance in Yiddish, wisecrack in Yiddish. A boisterous, “harum-skarum play, called rather enigmatically ‘Human Dust,” is being produced by Maurice Schwartz at his Yiddish Art Theatre. It is the latest work of Ossip Dy- mow, who has ben writing plays and short stories for the past twenty-five years and is old enough to know better than to behave in this brash, nose-thumbing fashion. He has simply thrown dignity to the winds and written something that is speedy, laughing and impudent. The jazz blare, the jazz inanity, the jazz pathos—in, Yiddish—On Second Avenue! “Human Dust” belongs with John Howard Lawson’s “Proces- sional” and “Loud Speaker.” It ts @n attempt to express the American seene in simple, dynamic terms—the terms of the animated cartoon. It .is jazz made visual and kinetic, dis- pensing with melancholy, meditation, analysis, interpretation and all the other austere, complex approaches toward tangible simplicities. In plays like “Loud Speaker” and “Hu- man Dust” the externals of our life are generalized and~-expressed riot- ously, with the vehement precision of the machine age. They go far toward the creation of a new dram- atic genre, in which a completely conventionalized, banal plot forms the skeleton for syncopated varta- tions with saxophonic laughter. More Tabloid. Drama. The story of “Human Dust” is thoroughly tabloid. Offhand I don’t remember the details, but they can be found in any issue of the Graphic. This conventionalization of plot is an important development (a flash- back-to the old folk drama?), since it gives the author complete free- ‘dom for manipulating his materials ‘as he pleases and at the same time “becomes a travesty on itself. Ossip Dymow has written his play with broad, splashing, boisterous strokes. Considering that he is a “foreigner,” his feel for American city life is uncanny. The play Charlestons and Black Bottoms breathlessly through three dizzy acts and eleven lopsided seenes—and the lines are genuinely funny. “Human Dust” may be said to have a hero and a heroine just as a néwspaper story Has its gaudy protagonists, but essentially, by its technique and ‘its. ultimate effect, it marks a definite step toward mass drama. Maurice Schwartz has directed the play shrewdly and joyously and, with Celia Adler and Bina Abramowitz, carries off the chief acting honors. The rest of the cast, however, does clever and spirited work. f Broadway Briefs Jed Harris’s next production will be a new play by Bartlett Cormack titled “The Racket.” It will open in Atlantie City the first week i in Junev Thurston, the magician, supported by a troupe of fifty; Yogis, Far East fakirs, incidental dancers and singers, will occupy the Central Theatre be- gining Monday evening for an In- definite engagement. George Jessel returns for a two weeks engagement in “The Jazz Sing- er,” opening on Monday evening, at the Century Theatre. The cast also ineludes Sam Jaffe, Joseph Schoen- gold, Lillian Taiz, Edward Arnold, and Dorothy Raymond. | | “eT EN CHANDLER Will have an important role in Milne’s “Mr. Pim Passes By,” being revived by the Theatre Gui at the Garrick Monday night. “New York Exchange” by Peter Glenny headed by Alison Skipworth and Sidney Shields is coming te the Bronx Opera House for a week’s en gagement beginning Monday evening. The supporting cast includes: Leyla Le Noire, Edward Keane, Robert Ver- non, Harry Minjir, Doris Underwood, Helen Mitchel and George LeSoir. “Father Walks Out,” by Grace Liv- ingston Furniss, will be produced here by Mary Forrest on April 25. George Alison, Truly Shattuck and Harold Vermilyea will be in the cast. Bach’s B minor Mass will have its first performance in New York on Thursday evening at Carnegie Hall, when it will be sung by the Oratorto Society under the direction of Albert Stoessel, with a chorus of 250. The soloists will be Mildred Faas, so prano; Mabel Beddoe; ~ contralto; Lewis James, tenor; and Horace Stevens, bass. Robert Goldsand, Viennese pianist, at his second recital at Town Hall Tuesday evening, will include in his program: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, Bach; Sonata in C major, opus 24, Weber; Variations on a Hungar- ian Air, Brahms, a group by Schu- bert; Strauss’ “Persian March;” Hu- moresque, Reger; Punch and Judy Shew, Goossens, and Rhapsodie, No. XII, Liszt. “Cavalleria Rusticana,” followed by “Pagliacci,” conducted by the Crea- tore, will be given at the Knights of Columbus Auditorium, tonight, under the direction of Francis P. Loubet, head of the Fine Arts Grand Opera Company. “Ill Trovatore,” will be given tomorrow night; N. Val Peavey, conducting and.“Rigoletto”. on April 24th, ‘ Irma Dubova, Russian soprano, will appear in recital at Aeolian Hall Tuesday Evening. The last of the three concerts by the International Composers’ Guild will take place this Sunday night at Aeolian Hall. In place of Leopold Stokowski who is unable to conduct, the concert will be directed by Artur Rodzinski. ’ Caryl Oakes, violinist, will give a recital Thursday evening at Aeolian Hall. om