In the Realm of the Stage and Screen

“Legitimately” speaking there was not much doing this past week. Besides “New Faces,” a musical revue, Harry Wagstaff’s comedy “The Perfumed Lady” and P. T. Barnum’s “The Drunkard,” the latter being kidded by the actors and audience at a beer hall on Fifty-fifth street, nothing of any moment happened. As a matter of fact there are but twenty-eight stage productions available to theatergoers and by tonight the field will be reduced when “Four Saints in Three Acts,” “Peace On Earth” and “Richard of Bordeaux” leave these present. However, in the realms of the cinema there is a juicier report.

CINEMA FARE JUICY

Leading the list by a comfortable margin is “The House of Rothschild” starring George Arliss, now showing at the Astor Theatre. This should be on your “must” list.

At Music Hall a picturization of “George White’s Scandals” is the feature attraction. It is a tuneful and colorful film in which Jimmie Durante, Rudy Vallee, Alice Faye, Cliff Edwards and Gregory Ratoff dance, sing, joke and generally scamper through a real musical treat. Ray Henderson and Jack Yellen did the music and Irving Caesar supplied the lyrics and many of the gags.

“Good Dame” is the title of feature at the Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March lead the fun. As the title indicates it is a comedy and not hard to listen to and see. The stage show is a segment out of the recent Earl Carroll “Vanities.”

Al Jolson in “Wonder Bar” continues for its week at the Strand, Business is holding up. Mr. Jolson has been in constant attendance at the theatre not because he likes to see himself act. It so happens that the comedian has a financial interest in the film and is to share in the gross.

OTHER FILM ATTRACTIONS

Down at the Acme Theatre on Fourteenth street “Palestine–As It Is Today” with Cantor Rosenblatt moves out and tomorrow “Rubicon” or “The Strike Breaker,” a picture from Soviet Russia moves in…. The Capitol is showing Lee Tracy in a passable thing called “The Show Off” which ran as play through an entire season. On the stage of the Capitol, Jimmy Durante, Polly Moran and Lou Holtz may be seen four times daily….

NEW FACES

Although the title of this musical which opened at Fulton the other night sounds as though it were a book on beauty culture, “New Faces” is a better than average revue. Presented by Charles Dillingham and directed in part by Elsie Janis it reminds me of a similar venture put on by the Theatre Guild many years ago. New Faces is a simple, fast paced, brightly directed, agreeable spectacle. There are many amusing skits, much good dancing, some tuneful voices and a great deal of good natured spoofing. It is all done on a modest scale with a cast that although not well known, is competent.

POOR JED HARRIS

One of the ablest and most successful producers in the theatre Jed Harris, a young Jewish gentleman, seems doomed to be a perpetual target for writers in search of a character. When a rather sensational book appeared some time ago, a roaring whisper swept up and down Broadway, intimating that Hecht’s main character had a strange resemblance to Harris. Now comes an announcement that a play by Bruce Gould and Beatrice Blackmar entitled “The Terrible Turk” is on its way to New York. The play is said to concern itself almost entirely with the career of Jed himself.

FROM THE PRESS RELEASES

Another burlesque house is to open in the city. The Central Theatre on Broadway and Forty-sixth street has been taken over by Edward Madden, Max Rudnick and Joseph Quittner, who have rechristened it “The Columbia,” and will, beginning March 24, put on a stock company of burlesque.

This afternoon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Clare Tree Major Children’s Theatre Company will give “Cinderella,” At the same theatre next Tuesday evening Victor Chenkin, Russian singer, will give a song recital.

The latest Nazi play, “The Shattered Lamp,” by Leslie Reade, which Hyman Adler is sponsoring, will open next Tuesday night at the Maxine Elliott Theatre instead of at The Ambassador as previously announced.