ANNOTATED BROADWAY OF THE 30s CHALLENGE DAY THREE

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:08pm

I bought a number of issues of Broadway Amusement Magazine, a weekly handout from the months of Nov 1932 to March 1933 and thought it might be fun to post a page or two each night in a thread and annotate with all the info I know off my head about that page's contents. So let's give it a try.

PLEASE join in and add whatever you know or correct anything I suggest.

Updated On: 4/10/09 at 11:08 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:25pm

This is New York Amusments, a free give-away from the early 1930s. In this issue, the feature was Music in the Air at the Alvin Theater. The star was Natalie Hall. The show was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Natalie Hall also starred in musicals and operettas in London, principally "A Night at the Savoy" which was a mega-spectacular at Drury Lane.

The show was produced by a woman, Peggy Fears, which was rather unusual for the time (the only others I know of were Ina Claire, Teressa Helburn of the Theater Guild, Katherine Cornell and Lynn Fontaine) for a run of about 350 perf. which was a big hit back then.

The show was a follow up to "The Cat and the Fiddle" which was a smash it, also in the euro-operetta genre.

If memory serves me, young Vivian Vance (of "I LOve Lucy" fame) was in the chorus.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:35pm

Okay, working down the left page,

The ABBEY PLayers - didn't Orson Welles get involved with them as a teen?

DINNER AT EIGHT was written mostly by Edna Furber, who wrote "SHow Boat" and was re-written brilliantly by George S Kaufman, who, of all his great accomplishments, will always be remembered as "the other man" in Mary Astor's divorce. Her husband found Mary's diary and read long passages in court where she talked about, well... let's just say George's curtain - which apparently was vey big, never came down.

Updated On: 4/7/09 at 11:35 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:36pm

George S Kaufman - Dinner at Eight
and Nine
and Ten...

Updated On: 4/7/09 at 11:36 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:41pm

THE DUBARRY - was a musical about the mistress of a European Royal personage. The show began in Germany. When it was translated into English and played in London, they brought over the German star, the beautiful Annie Alhers. She committed suicide during the run of the show by jumping out her hotel window. Apparently she was lonely as she spoke no English and a great number of Brits were still PO'd about the Zeppelin bombings in WWI..

Updated On: 4/7/09 at 11:41 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/7/09 at 11:53pm

Moving on....

"FLYING COLORS" starred Charles Butterworth (a fey little man),Clifton Webb (a fey leading man), Tamara Geva (a man-eating ballerina) and Patsy Kelly (a woman-eating comedienne - see Tallulah Bankhead).

Also in the show were Vilma and Buddy "Pa Clampett" Ebson, a brother-and-sister-act a la the Astaires with more rubbery legs and less dancing talent, and young Imogene Coca. Can you imagine what the after-show parties were like with this group?

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 1:29am

anyone else want to comment on the pages so far?

Updated On: 4/8/09 at 01:29 AM

[scott68]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 1:39am

I swear I don't mean this in a mean way, but you said that you thought it might be fun to post a page or two each night for comment (which I think is a fabulous idea, no joke), and then posted five pages? I would give people a chance to respond (or at least breathe) between pages!

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 1:48am

Believe it or not, all of that is re the first page.

And I only did the left side!

[leefowler]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 1:53am

Please don't stop, this is all fascinating to me!

How big is your collection? You've posted some incredible stuff here.

[scott68]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 1:57am

Wow, that's phenomenal. I didn't mean to be rude, I just have no experience with the publication in question. If anyone has any insight, please contribute! I don't have any experience with/knowledge of this era, and it's such a great topic to explore.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 2:03am

(trying to start up your contribution) "MUSIC IN THE AIR" didn't they just revive this show........?

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 10:31am

Here's the first page again and let's start on the right hand side.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 10:38am

AUTUMN CROSUS - Dorothy Gish. Ww, the Gish sisters, D. and Lillian. It's amazing to think that Lillian outlived everyone in the film business. Think about it: she was in "Birth of a Nation" in 1915, one of the first feature-length films and she was in "The Whales of August" in 1987, 72 years later. She basically buried every movie star ever born.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 10:51am

THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN - here's a neat idea for a play.

SPOILER ALERT*********A family helped a starving artist and he repaid them with paintings. Now he's dead and the paintings are worth a fortune. Too bad the family of cretins have been using them to light the fireplace. HOWEVER their none-too-bright maid has a cache of paintings and everyone wants them. She turns out to be the artist's widow.END SPOILER ALERT********

The play is always listed as "Sidney Howard's Comedy Hit" but he just re-wrote it. It is a comedy by Rene Fauchois. It was actually written in French, translated by the great Emlyn Williams (I met him a few times. Fascinating fellow.) and put up in London to great success and then transferred to America where Howard was engaged to remove the twee.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 2:30pm

TWENTIETH CENTURY was a big hit for Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (husband of Helen Hayes and father of James "Book em Dano" MacArthur from "Hawaii 5-O").

It was the last big hit for Moffatt Johnston, who starred as Oscar Jaffee and died in the mid 30s.

Eugenie Leontovich, the young woman who played Lily Garland is better remembered in the role Garbo played in the movie version of "Grand Hotel."

Interestingly, in a small role was William Frawley. It's interesting that Fred and Ethel Mertz were both working on Broadway at the same time (see "Flying Colors.")

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 2:31pm

Last photo was Bill Frawley in 1933 and this is Viv Vance, same period

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 7:14pm

GAY DIVORCE is covered in my mega post at:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=955158#3440952

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 7:30pm

OF THEE I SING won the Pulitzer. It's one of the first shows to have a hardbound libretto published in a beautiful red, white and blue cover. My favorite nugget from the story is that the Vice President, Alexander Throttlebottom was so unknown, the only way he could get into the White House was on the tour. He was played by the wonderful Victor Moore, who made a career out of playing idiots. The president was played Arturo Antonio Gaxiola ooooops, sorry William Gaxton

Updated On: 4/8/09 at 07:30 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 7:46pm

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 7:53pm

TAKE A CHANCE with the Merm, Jack "Tin Woodsman" Haley and Jack Whiting.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 11:04pm

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/8/09 at 11:08pm

Imagine going to a theater and seeing Lunt & Fontaine AND Noel Coward all live on stage. Wow.

And three dollars to see Fred Astaire sing "Night and Day."

Of course, three bucks back then was 50 bucks of buying power by today's standards.

[bwaybabe2]

Posted: 4/9/09 at 4:34am

allofmylife...I also find your posts from Broadway and actors past fascinating! :)
The Christmas card from the Gaxtons is a treasure. And I find the sketchings from the Broadway theatre guide really cool, and typical of that day, are they not? Nowdays almost everything is computer generated
Also, particularly find the "ads" so unique! Imagine if we could still get in to see a show for that price! Not going to happen!
Keep them coming!

[Tom's Cat]

Posted: 4/9/09 at 10:19am

I have a Playbill for "Flying Colors" and I was so surprised to find out that it was a musical starring Clifton Webb. I love Webb's films but I couldn't imagine him in a musical. Do you no if he'd done other musicals? Any idea of the quality of his singing? I'm just having a problem wrapping my mind around it!

(You have an absolutely fascinating collection of theatrical memorabilia. How long have you been collecting?)