St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 66

The Screen Broadway Bites a Few Green Onesi But, Hopes Only 'The Wookey" Appears to Be A Hit Bumper Crop Coming Later. NEW TORK, Sept. 2i (AP). TirLili Atlantic woast ceauquai lcio ui i iia.Ke-ueueve has been a pretty grim spot these last few weeks, with the hearti of hopeful players, producers and playwrights breaking all over the Great White Way as the 1941-42 season gets under sail. Of six new openings so far, the most likely prospect for commer- cial success seems to be that thumbs-up tear-jerker, "The Wookev" Mi mm fi -sjafMCiMK.

jMJpeea' mummmmmmmaM -r---: 4-. 1 fagMtwmMiiaMMa iiiiiiniwinn'iniiiiiiiniiiwiiiiniiniriiiiiuiri in raw VS COMING NEXT TO LOEW'S Xf A THEATER BE GOOD," FILM BASED ON THL GEORGE A GERSHWIN STAGE MUSICAL V1 V-' 1 1 FOR PRINCIPALS. ANN SOTH- 'r 1 ERN AND ROBERT YOUNG. -f n- ff: r- x- XL I i. i nnmnrnn mmm' group heard from, were by no 1 even though, the critics, magazine means unanimous in acclaiming as litt Brennan's ideas about a Cockney family coping with death from the London skies.

"The Distant City," starring by Sinclair Lewis and opens Oct The Old-Time Religiorii Maybe It's Propaganda 'Sergeant Story of War Hero, Accents Struggles of the Spirit. By Coivin McPherson IF they had called it The Conversion of Alvin Tork" and said it was from the novel by Harold Bell Wright, it would not have been surprising at all. For "Sergeant York," which is a true story, is full of the moving of the spirit that characterized the novels of the one-time Missouri minister. And if it does not view World War I exactly in the light of getting right with the Almighty, it still is an example of how a man, a Tennessee mountaineer, straightens things out in his own mind. As such, the story of a backwoods hell-raiser brought to his knees, the picture at the Missouri Theater is deeply moving, full of human understanding and highly satisfactory for audience consumption.

Simple faith always overwhelms us everyday cynics, even if only by its pathetic simpliciy. And "Sergeant York," moving on simple faith, has plenty of church services, plenty of singing of "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder," "Sweet Bye and Bye" and "Old-Time Religion." Alvin York, the young scalawag, resists the call for a time, with his carousing and sinning, but when the Lord really wants him, that's another thing. He sends a thunderbolt and knocks Alvin's rifle right out of his hand and leaves it a twisted piece of metal, lying on the ground beside Alvin and his mule. From that night on, Alvin York is among the redeemed. For more than an hour, Gary Cooper, as York, is seen only in sagging overalls and tattered hat, saying "that air" and "much obleeged" and such like.

Maybe the picture-makers overdo the pastoral angle a little, for sometimes Alvin York seems a little simple-minded as well as of plain belief. Nothing, however, could be more convincing than his hard-labor, blood-sweating attempt to get enough money to buy a little piece of bottom land, only to lose it. Along with this, Margaret Wycherly's portrayal of Mother York rings as true as preachin'. It is astonishing, by the way, how many of the really memorable scenes center around Ma York the family meal at which she prays, "Oh, God, bless these vittels we got and help us to be beholden to no one." The farewell when Alvin goes off to war and his return, are particularly hers. And there is that scene on a hillside, when Alvin's sister asks, "Maw, what are they fightin' fer?" and Ma York replies, "I don't rightly know, child, I don't rightly know." Of course, "Sergeant York" has its hour with the military.

Its comedy of training camp and an especially choice meeting of Broadway hillbilly, George Tobias, and Cumberland hillbilly, Gary Cooper. And that remarkable feat, whereby York was able, almost single-handed, to wipe out 25 German machine-gunners and capture 132 prisoners, is recreated in great detail and breathless action. It is still not pleasant or inspiring and York, a conscientious objector when drafted, says of it later, "I ain't proud of what happened over there. What we done in France was Bomepin' we had to do." Maybe I'm fooled. Maybe this Is propaganda of a very clever and dangerous sort.

But if it is, they'd better burn "Ben Hur," take "The Shepherd of the Hills" off the library shelves and bar Sunday school papers from the mails. They're all positively subversive. AwA Thov ORGANIZED FOR RITA HAY- jf yiX. WORTH AND FRED ASTAIRE. IS tK4 5 THE IMMEDIATE AMBASSADOR I BOOKING.

ITS SCORE IS BY V.A. I THAT SKILLED TUNESMITH, COLE PORTER. I VA'Atf ''f I-i it v. i i- is-r5 convincing Author Frederick Haa- 21. SOMETIME in October "a Play" (that's really the title) by Edna Ferber and George S.

Kaufman will make its Manhattan bow, with Diana Barrymore and TTii cVi Mflrlnwp in tVia i rules. Talullah Bankhead will delve in- to triangle trouble in "Clash I Night," authored by Clifford Odets and Carmen Miranda will abandon I Hollywood for the time being to join uisen ana jonnson in "Sons O' Fun." Boston is being splashed by a miniature aquacade these nights as the novel musical comedy, "Viva O'Brien!" smooths out for a New York opening Oct. 9. Fay Wray is the star of "Mr. Big," said to be suggested by the exploits of Thomas Dewey, which moves into New York Tuesday after a Boston tryout.

"Best Foot Forward," with Rose, mary Lane, a musical in which, as in "Hellzapoppin," audience and cast will mingle, will be an event of next Wednesday. One of the best signs of a broadening audience on Broadway is in the number of productions which have weathered the heat of summer and still are playing to full houses. These include Lillian Hellman's "Watch On the Rhine," with Paul Lukas, Mady Christians and Lucille Watson; "The Corn Is Green," with Ethel Barrymore, Thelma Schnee and Richard Waring; that gorgeous horror farce, "Arsenie and Old "Claudia" "Life With Father," "My Sister Eileen," "Panama Hattie," "It Happens on Ice," and, of course, the reopened "Lady in the Dark," starring Gertrude Lawrence. The battle for production booms on the Broadway front. DETAILED report on "The Distant City," which is probably unnecessary at this late date, is that Gladys George was just led astray by her enthusiasm, that's all.

It will be recalled that Miss George, during rehearsal, said, "The play has hope and great courage and perhaps you might say a message for every man and woman. And then this play has everything for an actress. It runs through all the emotions. It's magnificent." Looking back at it now, one would say that a publicity man, producer, couldn't have done better. Or worse.

Miss George as Mom Quigley in "The Distant City" was the aged ruin of a streetwalker and the mother of a hulking, somewhat slow-witted son whose father was not the man his mother married. In simpler terms, and direct contradiction, the role just wasn't magnificent at all. HURRY! VALUE AT' BIG William S. Hart Gladys George, was cut up so vig- orously by reviewers after its opening last Monday night that it expired agony 48 hours later, aft er only two performances. Not even popular Frank Craven 4-t i was able to noia wgeww v-lage Green," which closes tonight.

"Brother Cain," an opus none of the critics took to when first Introduced, is being worked over and will try, try again as "Blue Coal." "The More the Merrier" and "Cuckoos on the Hearth," both much ado about mystery, seem to be holding their own after two weeks. However, good entertainment Is scheduled for what promises to be a big Broadway season the liveliest, veterans of 1917-18 on the theater front have predicted, since that hit-torn and bygone era. Most of the familiar faces of the legitimate headliners are back in town, wearing their summer theater sun-tans and studying new lines and new patter. Missing: for the moment are the Lunts, on tour with "There Shall Be No Night," and Katharine Cor nell. doincr some turns out of town in "The Doctor's Dilemma' and sporting a sensational pomp adour.

Also unaccounted for at this writing are two playwrights, Wil liam Saroyan and Thornton Wilder, both rumored to have finished new plays. Occupied France is the locale of Maxwell Anderson's "Candle in the Wind," in which Helen Hayes will open Oct. 12. She will portray an American actress. Noel Coward will stick to the eternal humor found in domestic vexations in "Blythe Spirit," a current hit in London which opens here in November, starring Peggy Wood and Clifton Webb.

In it the wonder boy dabbles with the occult as a novelty and studiously ignores the war. "Macbeth" straight "no fancy business," according to advance publicity will be the vehicle of Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson the same month. This production is scheduled for just 10 weeks in New York and will spend the remainder of the season on tour. Cornelia Otis Skinner, usually seen in monologues, will be on the stage with lots of other thespians for a change when she takes the leading role in "Theatre," a dramatization of Somerset Maugham's best seller, opening in Chicago on Monday and in New York Nov. 15.

Sophie Tucker is scheduled to feature a strip-tease in "High Kickers," which will open Oct. 26 with George Jessel also in the cast. Sam Byrd, best known for his roles in "Tobacco Road" and "Of Mice and Men," will present "Good Neighbor, which will be directed CE. 0707 OPTICAL SERVICE And Still the Wonder T.TwrTTrjTT a TTiav Grew eonfidentlv sav to anv respective Film in New Movie HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 27 (AP).

Oi NE of the highlights of a very fine picture, "One Foot in Heaven," is the showing within the film of a 24-year-old movie. To some this may appear as a Hollywood device to call attention to the good the movies do, perhaps even as an effort to answer some of the things! derogatory being said about the industry these days. But it isn't. When Hartzell Spence wrote this biography of his father, a Middlewestern Methodist minister, one of the incidents was the father's objection to the mov ies. William Spence held they were a bad influence on his son's manners and morals, so to give young Hartzell an object lesson, father took his son to the movie to show him exactly where the harm lay.

Fortunately for the boy, the movie was a good one, a William S. Hart picture, which had as many moral values as a sermon. It was therefore necessary as part of the plot to include a Hart picture. The one chosen from the many Hart owns is "The Silent made in 1917. In -this, Two-Gun Bill brings to justice a culprit whose black heart and hideous ways caused him to burn down a church.

And the Rev. Spence, who came to scoff, remained to applaud. So will you, if you were a Hart fan, to see him on the screen again, even if only briefly. Hart, in contented retirement on his ranch in nearby Newhall, wrote the Warner studio that he could not, in view of the good purpose to which his film was being put, make a charge for the use of his film. The studio took Bill at his word, knowing that he is well off.

A moviegoer, "You'll like 'Sergeant he finds himself less sure in the case of "Citizen Kane," the Fox Theater feature. This first screen effort of Orson Welles is of such vast difference to other pictures, in subject material, in treatment, in technique, in cast and in performance that the best advice perhaps is, "See what you think." The picture starts in as eerie a mood as "The Cat and the Canary" silent, dark and foreboding. In a swift survey of gates, fences, "No Trespassing" signs, monkeys, golf courses, drawbridges and the like, it attempts to tell us that Charles Foster Kane, "the greatest newspaper tycoon of this or any generation" is a man about whom the world knows volumes and yet really knows nothing at all. Kane dies, calling out one word, "Rosebud!" And then, in a blaring 15-minute newsreel review, titled "News on the March," we survey the career of this publisher who had "1941's biggest, strangest this man who married the President's niece, who got us into the Spanish-American War, who campaigned with Teddy Roosevelt, who gathered "the loot of the world" in art treasures, who was denied a political career by a scandal, who passed his last hours in a lonely castle on an artificial mountain in Florida, After this "News on the March" is run off, a reporter sets out to get "an angle" -on Kane, the inside story of his life, the meaning of "Rosebud!" The reporter has to obtain different facts from different persons, so the narrative backs up a half dozen times to take a new lead. Ultimately the evidence is all in, the picture finished and we know what "Rosebud!" meant in the life of Kane.

In fact, "Rosebud!" explains the whole man. As director of the picture, as well as co-author, producer and star, Beethoven 'Eroica1 On Sympony's Opening Program BEETHOVEN'S "Eroica" Symphony will be the major work on the opening program of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's season, to be given Friday afternoon, Oct. 31, and Saturday eve- mng, Nov. 1, at the Opera House.

Conductor Vladimir Golschmann, who is expected here next week after having spent the summer in the East, has selected also the Overture and Allegro of Francois Couperin, late seventeenth century French composer; an Overture by Eric Delamarrer, American composer; excerpts from Debussy's Le Martyre de St. Sebastian" and Bach's Toccata in Major as other selections for the first concerts, which, according to custom, will be all-orchestraL Delamarter's Overture will be played in St. Louis for the first time. The composer was born in Lansing, in 1880 and is con sidered an outstanding member of the Chicago group of composers, which includes John Alden Carpenter and David Van Vactor. For many years Delamarter was assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony and conductor of the Chicago Civic Orchestra.

He is now teaching at Northwestern University. Couperin's Overture and Allegro is a work orchestrated by Darius Milhaud, composer-pianist, who will be a St. Louis Symphony guest artist on Jan. 9 and 10. The orchestration of Bach's Toccata, by Leo Weiner, has not been heard here before.

The second concert of the coming series on Nov. 7 and 8 will feature Joseph Szigeti, violinist. Other artists who will appear with the orchestra are Gregor Piati- gorsky, cellist; Artur Rubinstein, pianist; Ida Krehem, pianist; Igor Stravinsky, composer conductor; Vladimir Horowitz, pianist; Scipi-one Guidi, violinist; Ezio Pinza, basso; Rudolph Serkin, pianist; Fritz Kreisler, violinist, and Jar-mila Novotna, soprano. 'My Sister Eileen' Here Next Sunday The cast of "My Sister Eileen," which opens the American Theater season next Sunday night, will be made up of Marcy Wescott, Guy Robertson, Effie Afton, Philip Loeb, King Calder, Edith Gresham, John Kearney, Eddie Hyans Marjorie Dalton, Earl McDonald, Merritt Stone, Larry Sothern, Donald Cameron, Gretchen Davidson and Audrey Trotter. It is, with slight changes, the same that appeared at the Harris Theater in Chicago for eight months.

"My Sister Eileen," adapted by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodo-rov from stories by Ruth McKen-ney, is a comedy about two Ohio girls who go to New Tork search of fame and fortune. Bookings for the American immediately following "My Sister Eileen" are a week for Veloz and Yolanda, noted dance team, beginning Oct. 20, and the Ed Wynn show, "Boys and Girls Together," on Nov. 2. Tracy Gets Studio's Permission to Do Play Spencer Tracy has finally cleared the last obstacle standing in the way of his doing a stage play, a long-time ambition.

His new Metro Goldwyn Mayer contract not only permits him to do a play a year, but specifically provides for a leave-of-absence to fill a stage engagement. In the last two years, lack of time has caused Tracy to turn down several attractive play offers. Don't be surprised, either, if Tracy and Miss Hepburn go hunting for a New York stage vehicle for both of them. If Tracy finds one it will be turnabout, because Miss Hepburn had "Woman of the Year" written with Tracy in mind. So far, most of the talk of Tracy's return to Broadway has been in connection with a Theater Guild revival of Shaw's "The Devil's Disciple," which also was intended for the road.

in 'Man From Cairo1 To Be First Play At Little Theater PLAYS which fall in the modern classic field and selections from recent Broadway lists are combined in the schedule which the Little Theater has announced for its fifteenth season, beginning early in November. The first play, "The Man From Cairo," by Dan Goldberg, was produced in New York in 1938. It is a comedy of romantic intrigue in Budapest, against the background of a smart cafe and cosmopolitan existence. It is characterized as "appealing, lightly written and un-derstandingly wise." The December offering will be Lennox Robinson's "The Far-Off Hills," which the Abbey Theater players of Dublin have most recently presented here. The comedy has long been established as one of the best of modern works.

A. A. Milne's "Michael and Mary," also well known to the, theatrical world, is the third play selected and "Suspect," by Edward Percy and Reginald Denham, will come along in the spring. This is the melodrama in which Pauline Lord appeared at the -American two seasons ago, on her way East to Broadway. A final comedy for spring will be chosen later." Gordon Carter will direct all productions and design settings.

Public readings and try-outs for the first play will be held tomorrow night at the theater, 812 Union boulevard. Tim Holt in Welles Cast Tim Holt, 22-year-old star of Western films, has been picked by Orson Welles for the leading role in "The Magnificent Ambersons," his second screen production. Around Holt's role in "The Magnificent Ambersons" revolves the entire plot of Booth Tarkington's dramatic story of the regeneration of a spoiled and pampered son. "wngi; 11 james newill, municipal opera singer who returns next week with edgar bergen and charlie McCarthy. Opera Casting Nearly Complete WITH the signing of two American-born operatic stars, John Charles Thomas and Dusolina Giannini, for leading roles in "Fal-staff," the list of principals for the fall season of the St.

Louis Grand Opera Association has only one space to be filled, someone for the role of Cavaradossi in "Tosca." Musical Director Laszlo Halasz is now arranging for an outstanding tenor in that appointment. Thomas will sing the title role in "Falstaff," on the night of Nov. 10, at the Opera House, and Miss Giannini will be Mrs. Alice Ford, one of the objects of Falstaff's attentions. Others in the company will be Mack Harrell as Ford, Douglas Beattie as Pistola, Christina Carroll as Nanetta, Sonia Sharnova as Dame Quickly and Hertha Glatz as Mrs.

Page. "Falstaff," second comedy of Giuseppe Verdi and first produced when the great Italian composer was 80 years old, will be sung in English. Grace Moore takes the title role in Puccini's "Tosca," to be presented on Oct. 25, with Carlo Mo-relli as Scarpia, Gerhard Pechner as Sacristan and Beattie as An-gelotti. Principals for the opening production, "Martha," on Oct.

18, are Helen Jepson as Lady Harriet, James Melton as Lionel, Beat-tie as Plunkett, Pechner as Sir Tristram and Hertha Glatz as Nancy. "Tosca" will be sung in Italian, "Martha" in Newcomers the list of principals are Pechner, German bass-baritone, who has 'just been engaged by Metropolitan Opera; Beattie, a Metropolitan Opera basso, since 1938; Harrell, who joined the Metropolitan company last year after winning first place among men in the opera's radio auditions, and Miss Sharnova, Chicago Civic Opera contralto. James Newill to Sing With Bergen-McCarthy James Newill, lyric baritone who had a leading role in "New Orleans," at the opening of the 1941 Municipal Opera season, will be one of the assisting artists when Edgar Bergen, ventriloquist, and hia two charges, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, make their one-night appearance in person at the Opera House on Thursday, Oct. 9. Newill, who has sung with Gus Arnheim's orchestra, on the Burns and Allen radio program and in motion pictures, will be heard in groups of light opera and popular selections.

Another assisting artist is So-lite de Solis, pianist of Italian birth but American citizenship. Count de Solis, holder of 17 Spanish titles, studied in Italy and Germany and has given recitals in London, on the European Continent and in South America. Tickets for Students Te Ladies' Friday Music Club again will distribute a number of free tickets to regular concerts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra to deserving music students more than 14 years of age. Applications, which should include some infor mation as to training, must be made in writing to Mrs.

F. C. Papendick, 3511 Victor street. Welles demonstrates not only an amazing versatility but a bent toward the intentionally grotesque and unlovely. In this one manner, perhaps, his youth betrays him.

He is more concerned with the startling than the sentimental and humorous. The yellowed edges that lend kJLLS. SEE PAGE 6, PART I charm to the manuscript, the fragrance of memory are not to be found in "Citizen Kane." But Welles' direction also makes a whole cast of unfamiliar actors seem important and capable. Joseph Cotten's suave and indulgent portrait of Kane's best friend, Dorothy Comingore's as the shallow and childish second wife, Everett Sloane's as the unctuous financial mana ger all merit being remembered. Overshadowing all performers is Welles himself, really, without question, one of the best actors available to the screen today.

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Wearing apparel returned -iW 1 just damp enough to iron. EPORT on "Ladies in Retirement," at the Ambassador Theater, i will be brief, for its entertainment value depends very greatly 1 on lack of advance information about it. Many theatergoers who saw the play from which the film was taken already know the details, of course, so there's really no secret. Yet if one knows about it in advance, the recital of the facts on the screen may grow tiresome. If not, absorbing always and hair- raising sometimes.

For example, several lady spectators at a preview let out frightened yelps and two or three jumped right out of their dignity. The picture, produced with advice of its stage entrepreneur, is an excellent version of the play. Ida Lupino masters the role that was Flora Robson's and Edith Barrett and Elsa Lanchester serve well as her sisters. Evelyn Keyes, who seems to have climbed more rungs up the ladder than any other player in 1941, is in the cast and Isobel Elsom takes the role she played so handsomely on the stage. "Here Comes Mr.

Jordan," delightful comic fantasy with Robert Montgomery, takes its second week on the same program. At the St. Louis since Wednesday, "The Face Behind the Mask" and "The Invisible Ghost" have afforded thrills for the easily-frightened, at Loew's since Thursday, Clark Gable and Lana Turner have lived as prosperous and colorful citizens of the West, in "Honky Tonk." Movie Time Table on Faje 8, This Section. PAGE 6H x. -w-'w'w jr EVERYDAY MAGAZINE ST.

LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SEPTEMBER 28, 1941.