Evening Star Newspaper, June 13, 1926, Page 61

Part 3—12 Pages "CORINNE GRIFFITH, Central = TPATSY RUTH ews and Comment By W. H. Landvoigt. HE best strawberries are not always found at the bottom of the box, and, for that matter, the same is true of potatoes in a sack It therefore, according to the nature of things that the pic- tures doled out to exhibitors at the cloce of a season are not al- is, ways what their clients are expecting, and sometimes they are precisely desire. The week's screen fare, however, has No record-breakers came to light, but one what those clients least been a bit above the average. or more of the attractions at the big photoplay houses were quite en- jovable. It was as it should be. The wash-day dinuer, if served four days out of the week, would soon disgruntle the best of husbands and send the other boarders out hunting for a new boarding house. So with the picture diet. show, but as burned meat and thin, watery soup would upset a lodger if ture junk that seems to accumulate in a produce; served too oiten, Automobiles | | There are all sorts of tastes to please in a moving picture hands, in spite of the cry “onward and upward goes our art,” has tired | many a patient audience recently. Some of the “features” scemed like mis- takes that ought to have been sent to the trash pile; others like experi- ments when the experimenters were completely out of the mood. A Greater Moviée Scason is near at hand. It is less than two months before August will asher it in. And when it comes it is not going to be all peaches and cream. For the first time, brazenly, as it were, the pictures considered as really worthwhile are going to come with the label of and an admission price far in advance of what the casual movie fan usually carcs to pay. There scems to be no particular reason for this beyond the jact that the movie is borrowing a few tricks irom the decadent theater. and the movie men think they nceed more money, in spite of their reported big carnings, ut the process of classiiving and grading the movie houses is unmistakably to begin. “The intcllectuals demand it.” Hence it is going to be good | ess to keep the rank and file in good humor while the experiment is being tried, at least in the carly stages. * ok kK = I_\' all probability, the widely heralded “prologues,” or “presentations, will be employed to bolster up the poorer movie material, although some “near great” superspecials may need them to carry out the illusion. We shall have the “famous” but ambitious non-proiessional soprano; the perry song-and-dance couples, the jazz bands and the instrumental soloist, not as “cxtra, added, special attractions.” but as sparkling elements of the prologue or presentation. It sounds bigger, and the movie, despite the denseness of its silence. loves the loud pedal in_its publicity. We may have even terpsichorean loveliness and agility, if not grace, to make us feel we have had a good some-kind-of-a-show. whether the picture excites cnthusiasm or not. But we still have the right to hope that some of the pictures will be good, even ) ever, is a very good time to turn loose the good ones, that the ordinary fan may become accustomed to the fare he may expect in the future. It were Dbetter not to unload all the junk between scasons—Greater Movie Seasons. * ok kK oad show” | | they are not “bigger and better.” This, how- ND., lest we he not aware just how thoroughly the movie is sizing its | patrons up, give a thought to a news note of today that some fellow has invented a device to measure your laughter. This keen analysis of vour habits § Ito ve a useiul end. 11 you yell and get hysterical over ome of the “shorts" yvou will get more of the shorts, and, perhaps, less of the sizable pictures. Water always finds its level, and the same is trie of the movie fan's virtue of toleration. You are to be measured for your entertainment. Clever idea, isn't it? * % HEN danger is impending it is very human to hope. And this is also a good time for hoping that the coming transformations in the show business will not eliminate from our motion picture houses the really ex- cellent music that has been played by some of the orchestras. In this, as in cverything else connected with Filmland, we have had to take the bit- ter with the sweet, sounds with symphonies and so on. The orchestra, which used to he an indispensable adjunct of the theater, but which has more or less dicappearcd in that realm, has gradually forced itself into the movie houses, because that agony hox of humanity—the piano—as played was heginning to get on the nerves of even the hardened ‘movie fans. But, after brilliant flashes for a season or two, the orchestra seems likely to be banished there. No one imagines for a moment that the spirit of economy which is enveloping even movie is going to tolerate a symphony orchestra in the face of prologues and presentations. Movie showman- ship is very clever in the science of elimination, and onc need not he at all surprised to find the average group of jazzmaniacs supplanting the aggr: gations that discourse sweet sounds and soothing symphonies. The in- strumentalist, like the plumber, is rating his services high these days, and the movie showman is cutting down expenses. Let us hope that our present fine orchestral music will not be withdrawn from the lower-grade movie houses when the legitimate theater borrows our best pictures as “road shows.” Even the common people. who can never hope to shine as intellectuals, admire good music—at least sometimes. IT is also human to criticize, and when it is your business to do so the habit becomes irresistible. The mood, however, at this moment runs not to a criticism of what we have, but why we cannot have it always. Mr. William A. Brady, as previously noted in this column, recently made the the dire prediction that within five short vears the speaking stage. which | we Jove to call the theater, will be annihilated. Those who have followed the course of the National Theater Players during the last two seasons have found real pleasure in their offerings. Their plays all have been wholesome and enjovable, now and then varying in type to break the monotony of romance with laughable comedy. thrilling mystery and even spicy farce. They have all heen clean in every detail and excellently well played yme of them have hraved comparison with original productions that cxploited incomparable stars, and laughing and enthusiastic audiences have testified their judgment. Every play has been staged with what the New York press agent cal's “opulence and magnificence.” Indecd. some of them have put the road show te the blush in the matter of staging. if not in costuming. Yet these productions are heing made weckly —and to five but a week --hut unquestionably at a profit to the management, al- though the top price to see them has heen less than half what is charged for a road show. If this can be done here by Manager Steven FElkins Cochran—and it is heing done here—why should the speaking stage disap- pear from the carth, and why cannot the New York producers send us shows somewhere nearly as good at twice the money? show is to he anniliilated in five yvears or not, it behooves Washington to see that Steve Cochran’s shows never grow less, and they will not, if they are given the support they deserve, althougih thus far there is no cause i compliaint on that score. * ok UT lest we forget that the dog days are Greater Movie Season days, let the p: 1z word for the week be devoted to the shadows. ot all the building and constructing in theaters is being done on the proposed new National Press Club structure, Eisewhere in town the regular business is to be suspended for something else. Of course, it is quite right and proper that theaters should brush up once a year, and all of them do, even if they have to do it at night when folks are asleep and there is no chance of drawing an audience. But this vear the activities extend beyond pol- ishing the tack heads in the carpet and shaking the dust out of the draper- ies. Real. honest-to-goodness structural work is at hand, and very soon in &t least two of our local picture palaces big structural alterations will begin__ These houses are perfectly safe now. They don't need strengthen- ing. The hammering and pulling and hauling is to make big stages ready for the proicgues and the presentations and the new kind of entertain- ment that i< to take the place of that of the theater and the screen we have long known. A big change is at hand in the amusement world. The public is or should be very much interested. A Whether the road | | ANNA QNILSSON, Abassador Kitty Doner. WO generations of the Doner fam ily were dancers in England hefore Kitty's mother, Nellie Doner, came to America to become ballet mistress for the Hippodrome and for many of R. H. Rurnside’s productions. In the intervals of her strenuous life Nellie Doner found time to prac- | tice every day with her three little children, Ted, Kitty and Baby Rose. were the envy of the other children they were excused every aft- ernoon at 3, regardless of behavior, in order to appear in the current 1ippo- drome show. | Between acts at the Ilippodrome | they were dragged down in the base- | ment, where the elephants and camels | were peacefully feeding, to practice steps under the vigilant eye of their mother. In the morning they prac ticed in the Kitchen, while helping to get the meals. They practiced in the arvet and in the cellar. Kitty Doner went into vaudeville | when ‘barely in her ‘teens, and got a joh on the Coast with Rock and | Fuiton in “The Candy Shop.” Her in | dividual type and clever dancing made | such a hit she was engaged to appear | with Al Jolson in “Robinson Crusoe, Jr." and “Sinbad.” She was featured |also in *“Dancing Around” and “The Dancing Girl,” in which Ted and Rose also appeared. | " "She 1s now doing a single act In ville called “Twenty Minutes 1 in which she plays a Parisia | roue, a Scotchman, a boy and & girl, becuus Measures Laughs. AUGHS are now being mechani- cally measured by a newly invent. ed maching By utilizing electric audiometers to scientifically discern the volume of laughter accorded individual jokes in a test program, the executives of Timely Films, Inc., producers of Top ics of the Day, are said to have in- augurated a new departure, annexing mechanical science in its most mod- ern form with the motion picture. The experiment was tried out at the Riverside Theater, New York City, before an audience of 2,000 peo- ple. From a trial program of 28 Top. ics the audiometer selected 19 for the “regular release” program by ‘“meas. nring” the amplitude of the audible reaction as a response to each joke. All three went to Public School 47 and | ‘ Xy B JUNE 13, 1926. KTy DONER | (CHARLES I ELINOR FAIR, Metropolitan.. \* Current Attractlons. RKictile Miicaters, Tike Weal *Seventh Doner and Norworth, Lillian Shaw, NATIONATL LiVLCDIYL. KEITH'S EARLE Heav drama. Opens tomorrow cvening vaudeville, | . | Opens this afternoon, | | vaudeville. Opens this aiternoon. Reinhardt at Salzburg. HREE productions by Max Rein hardt, who staged “The Miracle Morris Gest, are included in this X on’'s annual dramatic and music festival i Salzburg. Reinhardt’s home city in the Ausi n Alps, from August 7 to 29, “The Miracle” does mot appear in NATIONAL=" One of Produc Seventh Heaven © John Golden's mof ed productions, “Seventh Heaven, opens tomorrow night at the National, with John Warner in a role quite un- | like any in Which he has been seen heretofore, This play had two solid vears on Rroadway with George Gaul and Helen Menken in the lead parts. Its | success not only helped swell the | John Golden fortune, but it also ele- ed Helen Menken to stardom. | eventh Heaven” has a number of | engrossing qualities, particularly the | who demonstrates that poles and um- brellas are not needed for wire walking. | Surrounding the bill will be the creen numbers, Aesop’s Fables, Top- ics of the Day and the Pathe News pictorial. " i this season’s schedule, Lady Diana EARLE—Lillian Shaw. Manners felt the need of a long res Tdllian Shaw, “the arch enemy of |and Refnhardt was unwilling to pro. gloom,” who Is the chief luminary of { sent “The Miracle” without her in the | the bill this week at the Earle Thea- | role of the Madonna. | ter, is one of the distinctive artists of | For_the dramatic piece de the vaudeville stage, having originated | ance Reinhardt has revived his we |4 type of entertainment which is pecu- | celebrated production of the old Eng- three essentials that any successful |larly all her own. | lish morality play. “Everyvman,” in piay must have, namely, characteriza- | The added offering will be Count | Hugo von Hofmannsthal's version. tion, dialogue and situation. It is | Berni Viei, Hungarian nobleman, | It will be presented in the great open peopled with types of the Paris slums, [who will be assisted by “Ten American | court in front of the Dom or cathedral. and every character in it is made in- | Beauties,” in a pretentious number | In case of rain, it will be given in the dizpensable to the action featuring for the firat time feminine | Festspielhau: The central figures are Diane, a |instrumentalists in music of the type | Sunday evening. August 8. It will he treet waif, and Chico, self-admittedly | created by Paul Whiteman, repeated August 10, 13, 13, 16, 18, 20, most remarkable fellow,” whose | Lopez, Il Specht, Don Bestor |21, 24 ana 2 | profession is that of administering to | the Warings. | The other Reinhardt dramatic pro- |the requirements of the underground | Other numbers In the vaudeville bill |duction will * he Goldonl's —comedy. sewers, Love comes to Diane and |will include Paula, “In a Bird Cage,” | “The Servant of Two Masters.” which Chico, they move to a garret and are |a novelty and « breezy surprise; Ar-[will be given in the Municipal Theater, barely ensconced in what they call |thur Alexander and company in a | where Reinhardt made his debut us their seventh heaven when the red-|comedy skit, und Ann Francis and [an actor over 30 vears ago, August mouthed orators of war start belch- | Wally, “the sunshine girl and boy,” in 27 and 29. ing and Chico is mobilized, which to | “Oh, ITow Can You Say That,” a pot- s 3 Relnhardt also stands re- Diane means the end of her little [ pourri of patter, songs and tricky | sponsible for Mozart's “The Magic world Vi as. | Flute,” to be produced on a mam- Austin Strong, the author, has| The photoplay will be the Willlam | moth scale in the Festspielhaus written a gripping second act, which | Fox film version of the stage play, | Stead of the Municipal Theater, Au- has become famous as a softener of | “Harly to Wed,” by Evelyn Campbeil, | gust 12, 17, 19, 25 and 29, The hard hearts. It is in this act that |and featurlng Matt Moore, Kathryn |celebrated scenic artist, Alfred Roller, Chico tears himself away from his | Perry and ZaSu Pitts. The story con- | has designed the settings. sweethearl's arms to join his regl- | cerns a young married couple who at- ment, heard marching by in the [tempt fo bluff their way to high so- | streets helow. The entire action is |cial places, with eruel and unusual re- laid hetween the declaration of war |sults, The action abounds in laugh land the armistice, and the conven-|to which Julia Swayne Gordon, Ar- tional happy ending is tempered by |thur Housman and others generously a deeply tragid note. contribute. The piece is studded with unusual | Alexander Arons will be heard in a types, and like as not the National | medley of song hits from Victor Her- Players may not do a hetter produc- |bert's “The Red Mill.” tion this season KEITH'S—Doner and Norworth. At B. I. Keith's Theater this week the headline honors will be shared by I Miss Kitty Doner, male impersonator, and Jack Norworth, song comedian. Miss Doner is offerin “Twenty Minutes in Paris” in which she is assisted at the piano by Jack Carroll. Jack Norworth, long u favorite in Washington, is appearing with Dorothy, Adelphi a comedy sKit, ius Weinburg, also entertain with songs. Featured will be the funsters, Joe Morris and Winnie Baldwin, in a_new sketch, “Call It What You Like Others are Ann Suter, a Washington girl, who offers songs sung in her own eccentric way: Albertina Rasch, the dancer and terpsichorean authority, who presents her ballet arranged with_the European comedians, Zozo and Kiki; Galetti and Kokin, who will present what is claimed to be the only dancing monkey, “Umtala’ Rubini and Rosa in “Tunes and Trim mings,” and the Brazilian, Miacahua, n resist 1d | Vincent and include productions “Klederma “Ariadno at Naxos." Mo- The Atduction From the Sa. raglio,” a ballet program given by the Vienna Opera, and concerts hy Fritz Kreisler, Richard Mayer, Maria Ivogun and the Rose Quartet of Johann annual Spring production of the Em- ory Plavers, Thursday and Friday nights, in the Sunday school audito- rium of Emory M. Church at Brightwood. The first of the plays, “T vst- ing Place,” deals with the happenings in a secluded corridor of a fashionable resort hotel when three n.cmbers of a family select the spot as fdeal for tete- a-tetes with outside parties. Included in the cast are I'rances Ashford, Ma garet Randall, Kathryn Randall, Jos- eph A. Keene, John I. White and Charles W. Pretcvman. A company of 11 will present “The Travelers,” a mysiery play picturing the adventures of a party of American tourists in an out-of-the-way portion of Sicily, where queer sounds and strange sights abound. The cast follows: Mary Waesche Keene, Elva Munday, Dor- othy Fowler, Elizabeth France, John Ryerson, Gerald K. Keene, Ramon France, Thomas H. Muhlenberg, Me! vin Smith, Dr. C. E. Ralph and Irving Beckwith, E. Barrett Prettyman ls directing both productions. Pemberton Dancers’ Program. A brilliant program is promised by Stafford Pemberton for the Pember- ton Dancers in their sixth annual re- | cital to be held in the open air at | hevy Chase Lake Thursduy evening. ‘Among the featured numbers will be 4 toe adagio to Edgar Albert's beauti- ful “Love's Greeting.” ‘“The Awaken- » by Gaff, will be interpreted hy Miss Elanora Peake. Shubert's “Mo- ment Musical” will be a special num- ber of the dancers. A fascinating Spanish ballet and . the dance of “Apollo and the Muses” also will be featured. ‘A symphonic ensemble has heen ar- ranged hy Meyer Davis under the di- rection of M. I5. Thompson to accom- pany the dancers, Reserved seats may be obtained at the New Wlllard Hotel. EMORY PLAYERS THURSDAY. “The Trysting Place” and “The Travelers,” two oneaict comedies by Booth Tarkington, will constitute the E. in Harorp Loy, Jivok. | Aporpue Menjou The first performance, | The muslical side of the festival will | Richard | JOAN CRAWEORD, Strand photoplays This Week PALAC Shown this afternoon and evening. METROPOLIT. and evening. RIALTO—“Oh, What a Nurse.” COLUMBIA VoLl AMBASSADOR evening CENTRAL-The Still Alarm." Shown this ait WARDMAN PARK—"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde evening. STRAND—"“Paris.” Shown this afternoon and evening. LINCOLN (Colored)—"For Heaven's Sake." and evening. “Lovey Mar The Volga Boatman.” Shown this aiternoon 1 At the Photoplay Houses This Week. | | Shown this afternoon and evening. “Say It Shown this afte “For Heaven's Sake” Again.” nd evening. 1oon Shown this aiternoon and evening Her Second Chance.” Shown this afternoon and rioon and evening. Shown tomorrow Shown this afternoon the editor of the newspaper on which he is a reporter. “The Volga Boatman.” Cecil B. De “huck” Reisner directed the pic- Mille's _special production suggested |tUre. Patsy Ruth AMiller playe the by the familiAr Russian folk song, has |runaway heiress, and others in the proved itself the most gripping photo- | “ast are Gayne Whitman, Mathew play offering of the season and by pub. | Betz. Edith Yorke. Dave Torrance, lic demand is being brought back to Fd Kennedy, Eric Johnson. Raymond Crandall's Metropolitan, the house of Wells and Henry Barrowes its first Washington presentation, | The stage presentations under the almost immediately afrer its initia | direction of Mischa Guterson will in- run. and will be shown there this |clude Estelle Murray and Roy Foster week. heginning this afternoon. Jin S iee I ARGt A The Metropolitan Symphony will |\C.'1"d Dance Love Story and (¢ T. | heard in the same musical program |Hunter. ir. and several clever juve- | given during the earlier engagement | Biles in an atmospheric prologie to | of the pleture in the same house. In | the feature picture. ‘e of @ concert overture an orches. | The everture by Al prelude will be played and the | Prehestra, Guterson « sune fmpressive score compiled by (V€ sclections o | Daniel Breeskin for the original run [ A" A cmedy | Wil again be played, together with | News aid uther short the Imperial Male Chorus, who sing | o"nd out the program. “The Song of the Voiga Boatmen,” as | the pictured scenes permit “The Volga Boatman™ was adapted | by Lenore J. Coffee from an original | | story by Konrad Bercovict, essentially tale of love and sacrifice, set against | |a_background of Russian revolution | There is no element of historical | drama. propaganda or political argu | ment, although a revolt of the “hun | mules” of the towpaths and the fields against the persecutions of a domi nant aristocracy is the big element of the story, which also depicts the love | story of the “hoatman” and a princess of the royal blood. The climacteric scenes are tremendously powerful. William Boyd. in the title role, offers a masterplece of character portrayal; and Elinor Fair, as the princess, also is pathetically effective. A vein of comedy is introduced by Julia Fayve and Theodore Kosloff. Other roles are ayed by Robert Kdeson, Victor Var- i und Arthur Rankin. The usual scale of prices will be maintained. Doors will be thrown open 1o the public at 2:30 this after noon. RTALTO—"0h! What a Nurse! Syd Chaplin will be the star at the Rialto this week in his latest comedy, entitled “Oh! What u Nurse!” Syd starts as a newspaper reporter, but it isn't long before he is found disguised as a_bootleg queen and then as a trained nurse, and going through the most wildly Imaginative series of Lo h Lhab | of the day and music by the P The story, which was written Y | Orchestra, under Thomas Joseph Gan- Robert K Sherwood, e Mten.Piv | non, will he added attractions. collaboration with Bertram a gay and_rollicking one, with Syd always in the thick of ridiculous mix- ups with bootleggers, a runaway heir- ess and a scheming ‘matchmaker, not to mention being in hot water with the Rialto Concert nducting. will he Dream the International features will PALACE—"Lovey Mary." Comedy, a strong vein of romance and & touch of pathes are mingled in King Baggot's production for M Goldwyn-Maye n Rice's ral classi which, with Bess late star “Lovey Mary pve and Willi of “Rrown of Hz the featured roles, will he presented this week at Loew's Palace Theater, starting today “Lovey Mary" is the romance of an orphan girl by the woman who wrote “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabhage Patch.’ Bessie Love will he seen in the title role and William Haines as the farm- er hoy who loves her. The cast in- cludes also Mary Alden, Vivia Ogden, Martha Mattox, Eileen Percy, Mary Jane Irving and a new child star, Freddie C Love Tum &ii to love is an leaves her baby, the orphanage, but ides to escape th Mary" is a little orphan asy- . whose craving f mething atistied when a young wom little “Tommy, at who fiercely de. asylum and take by with her when the woman prepares to take the child away. Tak- ing refuge with a quaint little lady about to he married to a spond- ence hushand,” Mary is disclosed, but before further developments occur the mother is fatally injured, Mary 1% given the baby for her own and the is cleared for her to marry her The Sennett comedy, “Wandering Willies”: the Pathe news reel, topic ay It Again.” L s Columbia this week, starting this afternoon, will present Richard Dix_in_his latest Paramount laugh- “(Continued on Third PageN