The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 52

STAGE, SCREEN AND MUSIC Mfr Iffiilabelpftia jlnqnirer SUNDAY. JANUARY 13. 1946 a 1 6 i tv i V' if i I JL K- pi'' CAMERA ANGLES xLost Weekend7 Absorbing And Unhackneyed Picture Vivid Screen Study of Alcoholism Stark and Startling Masterpiece By Mildred Martin Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett have literally accomplished the impossible in bringing Charles Jackson's "The Lost Weekend" to the screen. Like so many other readers of Mr. Jackson's terrifying case history of a hopeless alcoholic, your correspondent eyed production announcements of the novel with skepticism, not to say frank disbelief.

We just didn't think it could be done; further, we thought if any one were reckless enough to try he would be inviting the lightning. i it A te j- Jjli Hi 'NO MORE, PLEASE' Jane Wyman tries to get Ray Milland to stop drinking in "The Lost Weekend," at the Boyd Wednesday. THEY HAVE COMEDY ROLES IN NEW OPERETTA Leo Chalzel (left) apparently ranks over Curt Bois for Betty Kearv's attention in "Polonaise," opening tomorrow at the Forrest. It has music by Chopin. THE PLAYBILL Polonaise' Opens; "Three Shows Hold THE CALL BOY'S CHAT The Magnificent Yankee' Fine Role for Mr.

Calhern By Linton Martin Unquestionably it required courage and conviction on the part of playwright and producer to make a full-length footlight figure of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. For, great American and a great jurist though that long-lived member of the United States Supreme Court most certainly was, nobody could claim for him either in his public or his private life the playhouse appeal of, say, the protagonist of Robert Sherwood's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois," or the Thomas Jefferson in Sidney-Kingsley's "The Patriots." SHE HOPES THE BOY FRIEND WONT LEAVE TOWN Martha O'Driscoll doesn't know that Alan Curtis is one of those bad men in Daltons Ride Again," Western at the Stanton. It's also at the Earle today. An operetta joins three continuing shows this week. "POLONAISE," starring Jan Kie-pura and Marta Eggerth, comes to the Forrest tomorrow direct frfom Broadway.

With music by Chopin and Bronislaw Kaper, it tells the story of Thaddeus who tried to free his native Poland a century and a half ago. The book is by Gottfried Reinhardt' and Anthony Veiller. dances by David Li-chine and sets by Howard Bay. The supporting cast is headed by Leo Chalzel, Betty Kean and Curt Bois. "BORN YESTERDAY," comedy written and directed by Garson Kanin, opened last night and continues for two weeks at the Locust St.

Judy Holliday replaced Jean Arthur, who withdrew because of illness. Paul Douglas and Gary Merrill are in the cast. The review will appear in tomorrow's Inquirer. "THE DUCHESS MISBEHAVES," musical travesty on the life of Goya, plays its first full week at the Shu-bert. Music is by Dr.

Frank Black, book and lyrics by Gladys Shelley, and dances by George Tapps, who heads the cast with Jackie Gleason, Audrev Christie. Paula Laurence. LOUIS CALHERN as "The Magnificent Yankee" (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes) plays a second and last week at the Walnut. "APPLE OF HIS EYE," starring Walter Huston, opens Jan. 21 at the Walnut, prior to Broadway.

By Kenyon Nicholson and Charles Robinson, it is described as a May-December romance. "ROSE-MARIE." Friml operetta, will be revived at the Forrest for two weeks beginning 28. with Le-har's "THE MERRY WIDOW" being given Feb. 4-5-6. Lavery has disdained to make much dramatic capital of them.

We hear of the wrath he aroused by his opposition to Theodore Roosevelt over the Great Northern case and the Sherman Anti-Trust Law soon after his arrival in Washington. Much later there are allusions to Rosika Schwimmer and pacifism and other incidents and individuals. We meet such factual figures as the novelist, Owen Wister, the chronically complaining Henry Adams, and Justice Louis Brandeis, who generally agreed with the opinions of "The Great Dissenter." But the play presents nothing in the way of actual and authenic dramatic conflict approaching or approximating the famous feud of Jefferson and Hamilton that gave fire and fuel to "The Patriots," or the political upheaval and National crisis that gave body, breadth, background "Abe Lincoln In Illinois." Such vital lack of dramatic material is missed in "The Magnificent Yankee," though Mr. Lavery amuses us with his hero's eager and alert eye for feminine charm, when, at the age of 90, he sighs, "Oh! to be only 80 again," and there is an engaging touch in the succession of bright young Harvard secretaries. But in its quiet and leisurely way, "The Magnificent Yankee" has undeniable and rewarding charm and flavor.

OLLY WOO hi Reviezv By Carl Schroeder Most fortunately, we were quit, quit wrong. For not only have the various watch and ward societies failed to declare the picture scheduled to open at the Boyd on Wednesday either out of screen bounds or dubious as entertainment, but the Messrs. Wilder and Brackett have wrought a stark, startling masterpiece, surgically honest, compassionate, at once frighteninRly realistic and brilliantly Working togather on the screenplay, the producer-director team has wound up with a picture that has something straightforward to say about insatiable alcoholic thirst. They have said it in completely cinematic terms, without moralizing, without fear, without any attempt to soften Mr. Jackson's story of five frightful days in the life of a man for whom "one drink is too much, a hundred not enough." Impressive Presentation After "The Lost Weekend" you are likely to find the usual screen "drunks' considerably lest, than hilarious and.

for a time at least, most pictures, however star-studded or fancy, of primary grade caliber by comparison. One might say this is the greatest horror picture of all time. "The Lost Weekend" is certainly that as it follows the wavering footsteps of Don Birnam from Dar to disordered apartment to a dreadful night in Bellevue's alcoholic ward and finally, into his own delirium in which he witnesses a gruesome battle between a mouse and a bat. But "The Lost Weekend" is far more than a horror picture. It is a comprehensive study of weakness, frustration and despair.

Shunning sensationalism, it lays bare a man's tortured soul; cutting with surgical cleanliness, it creates understanding for the shame of a basically decent person made helpless by a habit which, out of all control, has become a hideous illness. Relentlessly Realistic To Don Birnam alcohol is "drink at night, medicine in the morning." And so, having slyly, escaped the planned healthy week-end in the country with his brother and stolen the cleaning woman's pay, he steps on the same old merry-go-round which whirls him faster as day and night become one burning nightmare of getting enough liquor to drug his nerves, dull his trapped, muddled mind. The real and the unreal close in together as. Don babbles of the novel he has never written, the girl he loves but forwhose sake he still is unable to forswear liquor. When his money gives out he cadges drinks at Nat's Bar; steals a woman's purse in a night club, intimidates a liquor store clerk into giving him a bottle of rye.

One of the most painful episodes shows him making the rounds of the Third ave. loan shops clutching the typewriter he hopes to pawn only to find them all closed because of Yom Kippur; while in another, he steals his girl's leopard coat to exchange for the gun he had pawned years efore. No Arty Affectation This, as may easily be seen, is not the material from which the ordinary motion picture is made. It is completely, honestly, toweringly adult in conception and in the way it has been handled. Neither artiness nor affectation have found any place in the direction of Mr.

Wilder who, with great wisdom, has focused uncompromisingly, almost roughly, upon deglam-orized sets, authentic New York backgrounds, and, most importantly, upon players who magnificently know exactly what is required of them and do a little better than they ever have before in fulfilling Mr. Wilder's and the story's requirements. It isn't being too flattering or gaudy to hail Ray Milland's performance as Don Birnam as quite the finest, unquestionably the most difficult, of this or any previous screen year. Ray Milland's Acting Mr. Milland's extraordinary, intelligent, moving, subtly shaded characterization is as vitally important to "The Lost Weekend" as the superbly written script or the guiding hands of Director Wilder and Producer Brackett.

Although he carries the chief acting burden, Mr. Milland is given every ounce of the support he deserves by a thoughtfully chosen cast. Jane Wyman, who plays Don's troubled sweetheart, is a revelation in her first dramatic role after her unbroken succession of featherweight comedy parts. Equally good are Philip Terry, Don's brother; Howard da Silva as Nat: Frank Faylen, tough male nurse at Bellevue; and Doris Dowl-ing, screen, newcomer, who puts flavor and pathos into her brief appearances as the tarnished Gloria who makes Nat's her professional headquarters. HOLLYWOOD, Jan.

12. MOVIE-MAKING AND POLITICS are odd bedfellows One Albert Dekker, an excellent screen villain, is also an Assemblyman for the State of California He made himself unpopular for a time by declaring that a man couldn't live on the money paid him to work on California's problems, but he's still at it The latest development lor Mr. Dekker is that he is working in an important FILM TIMES TODAY Movie Bills Now Showing; Future Films ALDINE "Kiss and Tell," comedy, with Shirley Temple. Jerome Courtland, Walter Abel. Robert Benchley.

2.30. 4.20, 6.10, 8.05, 10. ARCADIA "Northwest Passage. revival, with Spencer Tracy, Robert Young. Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey.

2.30, 5, 7.30, 10. BOYD "They Were Expendable," war drama, with Robert Montgomery. John Wayne and Donna Reed. 2.25. 4.55, 7.25.

10. CAPITOL 'Born for Trouble in the Big revival, with Van Johnson and Faye Emerson. 2.40. 4.30, 6.20. 8.15, 10.05.

EARLE (Today only) "The Daltons Ride Again." 2.10. 3.40, 5.10. 6.45, 8.20, 10. (Daily) "Sing Your Way Home." comedy with music, with Jack Haley, Marcy McGuire, Glenn Vernon. Anne Jeffreys.

Earl Carroll's "yanities" on stage. FOX "Leave Her to Heaven. melodrama, with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde. Jeanne Crain. Vincent Price.

2.05, 4. 6, 7,55, 10. KARLTON "The Stork Club." musical comedy, with Betty Hutton, Barry Fitzgerald. Don DeFore. 2.15.

4.10, 6.05. 8.05. 10.05. KEITH'S "Johnny mystery, with George Raft, Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso. Hoagv Car-michael.

2.45. 4.40, 6.25, 8.10. 10. MASTBAUM "San' Antonio." Western, with Errol Flynh, Alexis Smith, S. Z.

Sakall and Victor Francen. 2.55, 5.20, 7.40, 10. Birds," revival, with Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, Jack Holt. John Sutton. 2.15, 3.50.

5.30, 7.05, 8.40, 10.15, all night. STANLEY "The Spanish Main," pirate melodrama, with Paul Hen-reid, Maureen O'Hara and Walter Slezak. 2.25, 4.20, 6.10, 8.05, 10., STANTON "The Daltons Ride Again," Western, with Alan Curtis, Martha O'Driscoll, Kent Taylor, Lon Chaney, Noah Beery, Jr. 2.10. 3.40, 5.10, 6.45, 8.20, 10.

STUDIO "The Black Swan," revival, with Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara. George Sanders. 2, 5. 8. 11.

Also "Buffalo Bill," revival, with Joel McCrea, Linda Darnell, Thomas, Mitchell. TRANS-LUX Newsreels, shorts hour-long bill, starting at 2. TOMORROW NEWS "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford," revival, with Jean 'Arthur. William Powell, James Gleason.

Eric Blore. WEDNESDAY BOYD "The Lost Weekend," drama, with Ray Milland. Jane Wyman, Philip Terry. Howard da Silva and Doris Dowling. STANLEY "What Next, Corporal comedy, with Robert Walker, Keenan Wynn.

Jean Porter. Chill Wills and Hugo Haas. CAPITOL "Crimson Canary." mystery, with Noah Beery, Lois Collier and Danny Morton. FRIDAY EARLE "Snafu," comedy, with Robert Benchley. Vera Vague and Conrad Janis.

Vaughn Monroe and orchestra on stage. KEITH'S "The Dolly Sisters." mu-' sical. with Betty Grable. June Haver, John Payne, S. Z.

Sakali. SATURDAY ARCADIA "Hold That comedy, with Eddie Bracken. Veronica Lake and Albert Dekker. UNDATED FOX "Doll Face," musical comedy. with Vivian Blaine.

Dennis O'Keefe. Perry Como, Carmen Miranda, Martha Stewart. MASTBAUM "My Reputation." drama, with Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent and Lucile Watson. i ALDINE "Vacation From Mar riage," romantic comedy, with Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr. STANTON "Pardon My Past," comedy, with Fred MacMurray, Marguerite Chapman, Akim Ta-miroff, William Demarest, Rita Johnson.

Considering the dramatic or, rather, the essentially undramatic aspects of the subject and the. circumstances Emmet Lavery, as author, has given remarkably sustained interest to episodes covering the last 30 years in the life of Justice Holmes in "The Magnificent Yankee." And Arthur Hopkins has given the drama most persuasive playhouse production, with Louis Calhern perfectly cast in the title role, and Dorothy Gish also admirable as Mrs. Holmes, the only other role of real importance in the play. Acting Is Outstanding In performance and it is for performance that plays are written- the true triumph is that of Mr. Calhern.

For "The Magnificent Yankee" is not properly to be approached or appraised as a play at all. This biographical drama, as was pointed out in discussing it in The Inquirer last Tuesday, is a character study. And as a protracted and detailed character study, of one man who is on the stage virtually all evening, it resolves itself into a sustained monologue for Mr. Calhern. How Mr.

Calhern sustains that monologue, making of Justice Holmes much more than merely a figure spouting words, is truly a triumph of the actor's art. It is a vastly more demanding demonstration of his resourcefulness than was required of him in his two previous roles in this city, as the swaggering Colonel in "Jacobowsky and the Colonel," or as the domineering household head in "Life With Father." Mr. Calhern not only gives us a three-dimensional portrait of Justice Holmes, but his portrayal of the evolution of the Individual, through the fleeting years covering more than three decades as old age advances, goes far. deeper than the changes of makeup in the successive scenes of the play. Laurels for a Listener Discussing acting before authorship may be inverting or reversing the usual order of the cart and the horse.

But somehow it seems logical in the case of "The Magnificent Yankee" because of the sagacity and the discretion, the poise and pace and Mr. Calhern 's performance. While discussing thjis aspect of the play presentation, a very special bouquet must be tossed across the footlights to Dorothy Gish for her portrayal of the devoted wife, Fanny Dixwell Holmes. Not only for the positive part of the portrait, in its assertion of individuality, but particularly for what might be called its negative side, as a good listener. This is certainly the more sensitive and subtle side of Miss Gish's capital characterization.

If Mrs. Holmes ever felt a bit of boredom as her husband volubly expounded his views, his fireside philosophy and his comments about the cases that came before him, Miss Gish never shows or suggests a suspicion of such boredom. That attitude is a good psychological influence for the audience, at times, particularly in some stretches ef interminable talk during the second act. If Miss Gish can listen with such pert patience night after night, there is no reason why the playgoer can't for one evening. More Portrait Than Play If any clashes or conflicts gave exceptional spice of excitement to the long years of Justioe Holmes on 1 the Supreme Court.

Playwright "Tht NEW YORK THEATER Million Dollar Baby' Nev Hit By John Chapman NEW YORK, Jan. 12 Oliver Smith 8nd Paul Feigay, who produced "On the Town," have come up with a musical called "Billion Dollar Babby" which is even better. "Billion Dollar Baby" concerns the era of the speakeasy 20's the time of gangsters and gangster funerals, of Texas Guinan and her silly suckers, of beauty contests at Atlantic City and dance marathons wherever they were staged. It looks upon these things with a not too critical eye, for the authors, Betty Comden. and Adolph Green, are not yet old enough to assay the era of wonderful nonsense with the cold judgment of historians.

But it does look upon them humorously, and in it are some fetching people. Passing the Bouquets Mitzi Green, as Texas Guinan, is quite remarkable as a comedienne. David Burns is an engaging caricature of the Larry Fay type of mob ster-in-business, and Joan McCrack- en, who dances enchantingly, wisely avoids all the opportunities of being cute as the heroine. The supporting company is amiable, and includes Danny Daniels and Shirley Van, who are excellent dance specialists, and Robert Chisholm, whose portrayal of a stuffed shirt is always accurate and amusing. The success of "Billion Dollar Baby," however, does not lie with its principals or, possibly, with its authors, good as they are.

Oliver Smith, who made the sets; Jerome Robbins, who devised the dances and staged the musical numbers, and George Abbott, who directed the whole show, are the real stars. Together they have assembled and routined an evening of song and dance which is swift and smart and which never tries to bowl you over with 10 tons of scenery and two tons of Powers' models. Not Conventional Yarn The music is by Morton Gould. I have never cared for his sirupy. over-orchestrated arrangements for the radio, but in the case of "Bil lions Dollar Baby" I am on his side.

The story has something to do with a girl from Staten Island who almost becomes Miss America in Atlantic City, and who gets swept into the world of mobsters, speakeasy night clubs and wealthy idiots. It is not, praise be, a conventional yarn, either, for Miss McCracken marries the wrong man at the end and is left wondering what to do next. role in California. a Paramount special He told the studio that he had to leave a week early for Sacramento, the capitol. to find a place to live.

The producer wouldn't let him off, but instead loaned him a trailer in order to keep him working until Jan. 7 With the legislature convened again, Dekker has solemnly promised to keep things hot' on the housing situation bill. A YOUNG MAN TO WATCH on the Warner lot is Arthur Kennedy, one of the last Hollywood actors to emerge from uniform Before going into the service he did an IN STAGE SHOW Chris Raymond is an Earl Carroll "Vanities" Girl at the Earle. i important acting job in ''Devotion," which will be at long last released in a few weeks Now he has been given a top assignment in "The Sentence," which will mark Ann Sheridan's return to the screen. ANOTHER EX-SERVICE MAN who gets a good break after two years as a Marine is Robert Ryan, last seen opposite Ginger Rogers in "Tender Comrade" Ryan has just been cast for the romantic lead opposite Joan Bennett in "Desirable Woman." to be filmed at RKO He says it doesn't hurNhis feelings to portray a Coast Guard lieutenant in the film, considering the fact that the work of the Coast Guard saved many a Marine's life during the rough landings in the South Pacific.

SM ARTY-PANTS bobby-soxers who make life miserable for moviegoers by talking back to the screen are a considerable pain to anyone trying to enjoy a picture, particularly when there are not too many pictures worth trying to enjoy The other night at a theater in Hollywood a lad of 18 began to sob heroically during one of Ingrid Bergman's most dramatic scenes in "The Bells of St. Mary's" A lady sitting in front of the big boy turned around, slapped his face severely and exclaimed, "Now young man. go home and learn to mind your manners!" He went. TRYING TO KEEP UP with the announcement of new pictures, titles of which are changed, is a tough job. However, Van Johnson is now slated to star in "The Risen Soldier," based on an article by Archbishop Francis J.

Spellman One of the funniest scenes in the Bins Crosby-Bob Hope "Road to Utopia." due for release suddenly, shows Bing and Bob fishing in the Arctic Circle through a hole in tne ice out oi which poos a man who assists with the baiting. SITUATIONS: More than a hundred of one big executive's pals Continued on Fage 18, Column NEW LEADING LADY OF COMEDY Judy Holliday has replaced Jean Arthur, who is ill, in "Born Yesterday," at the Locust St. i.