"Oh, Mary!" at the Lyceum Theatre

Cole Escola in "Oh, Mary!"
(The Lyceum Theatre, 2024)

Last month, my wife and I took a whirlwind, twenty-four hour journey to New York City. The past several years, since the quarantine, we have tried to get back at least once a year. Life is too short and we have the miles.

Why now? For my birthday she got me tickets to see Oh, Mary! Cole Escola’s outrageous, ahistorical comedy, centering on the character of Mary Todd Lincoln. I have had a fascination with this show (and Escola) since it opened Off-Broadway earlier this year, a fascination bordering on obsession.

Clips of the show and interviews with its creator had popped up on my socials, and I followed the show as it went from the Lucille Lortel to the Lyceum, a Broadway upgrade for an absurd, profane and deeply queer little drag show.

I was shocked when I received her gift – I hadn’t thought to actually see it! A limited summer run had been expanded into November (and just announced, through January) and anyway, I was thrilled. My love takes me to the best places.

We’d fly in Saturday night, stay in Times Square, see a Sunday matinee and pop out again that night. I worried that on a Sunday matinee there may be an understudy (spoiler, there was not) and things being how they are, we were both concerned about the dependability of air travel, but there were no unpleasant surprises there, either.

I have never stayed in the Times Square district before, my spouse is always very good at finding places in interesting and much less absurd Manhattan neighborhoods. But it’s not like the 1970s, our room was immaculate and stylish (and tiny, of course, who cares) set high above the chaos.

Riding along on a carousel!

We dropped our bags in our room, freshened up and sought out The Rum House for cocktails, live jazz, and the most expensive dish of mixed nuts. The band was lively and engaging, a trio of men all somewhat older than myself, piano, trumpet and washboard, that last doubled as the singer, a scruffy ringer for Bobcat Goldthwait with beard and pork pie hat. The drinks were creamy and excellent, she watched the crowd and I kept an eye on the passersby on 47th Street.

No one smokes. I watched maybe a hundred people pass by the window, none of them were smoking, it really is amazing.

The next morning we were able to lie about a while and relax and talk (there is no one I would rather do nothing at all with) before having brunch at the hotel and taking a walk up and out of Times Square and into Central Park.

There are those who refer to NYC as an urban hellscape, but all I could see were families playing, folks running or biking, musicians and magicians, all on a bright beautiful late summer day.

There was a meadow, too, like a natural, untended meadow we found, one that has been recently established, and walked through. It did my heart good.

We had a moment of crisis waiting for a ride on the Central Park Carousel when I casually mentioned that Trump owns it – I don’t remember where I heard that – so she did some research and found that thought Trump Organization had once paid for maintenance of the carousel, following the events of January 6, the city broke all financial ties with the former president.

We took a delightful spin on the carousel.

Caption: Romeo & Juliet, 1995

The Lyceum is the oldest, continuously operating Broadway theater, designed in the Beaux-Arts style, which basically means its very fancy, ornately decorated and very fussy. The lobby and staircases feature photographs of the many storied entertainers who have played that stage over the past 120 years – but also, if you are paying attention, you will notice there are also currently photos of Cole Escola starring in fictional productions of Doubt, Fun Home, Romeo and Juliet, and many others. Captions attributed to the artist explain how each of these shows were complete economic and critical disasters.

Several of these photos were also on display above urinals in the gentlemen’s toilet.

Oh, Mary! Is about a frustrated former cabaret singer trapped in a loveless marriage to a closeted man who happens to be Abraham Lincoln and she the sixteenth First Lady of the United States of America.

When Seth Myers asked them about how much research they had done to write the script, Escola replied, “I did less than no research. I actively forgot things I knew about Mary Todd Lincoln.”

They went on to stress that the show is a comedy, and that they wanted it to be accessible to everyone, that there are no “in-jokes” about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, though there is one big “in-joke” where the audience discovers the identity of the acting tutor Lincoln has hired to occupy his manic spouse.

Post-show cheeseburger.

Cleveland playwright Thomas P. Cullinan wrote another chamber play about the life of Mary Todd. Mrs. Lincoln premiered at the Cleveland Play House in 1968 and, like this newer play, was also held over six months due to its enormous popularity. That is where the similarity ends, however, as Mrs. Lincoln (starring Evie McElroy in the eponymous role) is a psychological drama about the years after the assassination when the historical Mrs. Lincoln was institutionalized.

Plain Dealer critic Peter Bellamy was effusive, calling Mrs. Lincoln, "an absorbing, engrossing and literate play" adding that" nobody could portray the mercurial Mrs. Lincoln with more theatrical effect that Evie McElroy. Her performance is a truly great one."

In his review for the Cleveland Press, Tony Mastroianni called Mrs. Lincoln, “an evening of theater that is both entertaining and informative.” And it is informative, indeed. It is a challenge balancing the forward momentum of a plot with facts.

From Mrs. Lincoln:

MARY: I’d as soon dine with Billy Herndon as with that man!
SALLY: Now who’s Billy Herndon?
MARY: My husband’s law partner.

Escola said they didn’t want to be writing jokes thinking “that’ll get a laugh because that’s where she was born!” Or because that's her husband’s law partner! I get it now. Of course, Cullinan was not writing an historical comic play ... but I have, or I have tried to. And mine are all a bit too heady.

From These Are the Times:

VOICE: Looks like you’re quite a baseball fan!

CHILD: You see this letter “C” on my cap? That stands for Cleveland, and it’s a logo I can be proud of!

VOICE: And HOW!

Cringe. I'm working on that.

The fictional protagonist of Oh, Mary! fares much better than Cullinan’s factual one, achieving her dreams of returning to the cabaret stage, though, who knows? Maybe she has also gone mad. But what a way to go!

My wife and I were both also delighted with Conrad Ricamora, who plays Lincoln starting at an eleven and going higher from there. The entire ensemble is a master class in comic tropes and timing. I'm so glad I got to see this show.

GUESS THE SHOW: 

A. "The character of Mrs. Lincoln is at once tragic, funny, pathetic and unbalanced."

B. "An acting style that’s as expressionistic as a silent movie or opera ... while at the same time imposing an almost balletic control over gesture and pose."

C. "There were times when a movement or intonation reminded me of the late Ruth Feather ..."

Sources:

"Mrs. Lincoln's Torment Staged" by Peter Bellamy, The Plain Dealer, 11/2/1968

"Mrs. Lincoln's Fascinates Through Fresh Viewpoint" by Tony Mastroianni, The Cleveland Press, 11/2/1968

Late Night With Seth Meyers, May 7, 2024 (NBC)
Cleveland Arts Prize, Thomas P. Cullinan (Literature, 1971)
"What Makes ‘Oh, Mary!’ One of the Best Summer Comedies in Years" by Jesse Green, The New York Times, 7/11/1968

Guess The Show:

A. Mrs. Lincoln (Mastroianni)

B. Oh, Mary! (Green)

C. Mrs. Lincoln (Bellamy)

Winsor French

 

While we were all sleeping ... Cleveland picked up and moved away to other cities.
- Winsor French

There was a time when people, certain people, were paid to write. Winsor French (December 24, 1904 - March 6, 1973) was one such person. French was the society columnist for the Cleveland Press, intermittently, for almost forty years.

His story is sad and small, it took me over two years, on and off, to read Out and About with Winsor French by James M. Wood, because, frankly, I found his life tedious. Or perhaps just Wood's telling of it.

My main interest in this man, was, of course, that I hoped to take in more Cleveland history. But French was not nearly as enamored in the city during it's heyday as he was when it was vanishing before his eyes.

He'd leave the place, in fact, by the onset of World War II, choosing instead New York City and Hollywood, hoping to write that novel, that play, or anything of significance. However, he much preferred socializing to writing, and unlike some, he seem to accomplish do both.

French wanted to be like his close companions, Cole Porter and his wife Linda, philanthropist Leonard Hanna (whose gift of stock in the fledgling "Internal Business Machines" enabled the columnist to live in a manner he preferred) or the man who might honestly be described as his life partner, nightclub pianist Roger Stearns, but the best he could manage was to write about them, and how beautiful it was to live a life of opulent gaeity.

Much of his work involved being in Not-Cleveland, traveling to report on the conditions in Post-War Europe, and somehow managing to share only the company of seriously wealthy people for whom the war had been some kind of thankfully well rid-of inconvenience.

By the 1950s, French had become what so many of us find ourselves, the Resigned Clevelander. Lamenting the loss of something special, he spent his last two decades either writing about the Cleveland that had been, or banging the drum for people to return to downtown to indulge in what little excitement remained.

He lived downtown Cleveland, from an apartment on Playhouse Square with a view of his beloved Hanna Theatre, to a tony nest on racy Short Vincent, and even digs in ill-fated Erieview. But even he eventually left the city, another single man occupying a highrise apartment in Lakewood's Gold Coast.

Winsor French retired from his column in 1968. His tenure chronicles the time period of one major American city's entire collapse.

Last night a friend who works up Euclid suggested drinks at Hodge's - it might be the last time this season for cocktails alfresco.

On this late Thursday afternoon the avenue was bustling with walkers. I was reminded of something my sister-in-law from Minnesota said when I was giving her my nickel tour of downtown a year ago. She said, "Wow. Cleveland is like this place where everything already happened."

Passing visitors take selfies with the chandelier (which Winsor would have either loved or entirely hated) and I allow myself to imagine it's still happening.

View from the Old Globe Theatre

Standing at the site of the Midway, observing the Coast Guard station parking lot where the Old Globe Theatre once stood, adjacent to a still, man-made inlet on North Coast Harbor, it is not difficult to imagine why many recalled these Shakespeare performances carrying with them the stench of dead fish.

The Old Globe was at the entrance to The Midway, (which Press columnist Winsor French described, “as honky-tonk as Coney island”) across a watery inlet from several kiddie rides, and across the street from numerous attractions.

From the front door of the Old Globe, you might see:

• Pantheon De La Guerre, featuring relics from European wars both recent and not.
• The World a Million Year’s Ago, a collection of animated dinosaurs.
• Cliff Wilson's Snake Show, including Elmer, the twenty-eight foot, Borneo reticulated python.
• Mammy’s Cabin, providing “real Southern cooking” - and real Southern charm, as this and other establishments were called out by the Call & Post for refusing to serve blacks.
• Midget Circus, which warrants no further description.
• 13 Spook Street, a haunted castle.
• Strange As It Seems, like a freak show, but you, know, educational.

You also might see ... YOURSELF, on an electronic "television" screen! What will they think up next?

Sources:
Meet Me On Lake Erie, Dearie! by John Vacha (Kent State University Press)
CardCow.com

Finding the Old Globe Theatre

Cleveland Press, 1936

Regardless of the time I have spent read or researching about the Old Globe Theatre at the 1936 Great Lakes Exposition, I have never been able to successfully picture where it stood in space, nor what surrounded it. So I contacted historian John Vacha and he agreed to meet me for an informal walking tour.

John arrived more prepared for this journey than I was (though I did bring my copy of Meet Me On Lake Erie, Dearie for him to sign) as he provided a map he found in the Cleveland Press which was much easier to read and follow than others I have seen. We parked on Lakeshore and walked west towards East Ninth.

It has been a beautiful day for walking.

The Olde Globe Theatre

The Main Entrance, the most photogenic entrance, featuring seven grand pylons, was actually a couple blocks south, on the other side of the Public Hall, but that was not our destination. The Expo was divided by East Ninth, with the lion's share of exhibits north of the railroad tracks.

Where the Rock Halls stands was the Firestone exhibit, where now stands the Great Lakes Science Center was the Hall of Progress and Automotive Building. The football stadium stand where once stood, uh, the old football stadium. That was also not my site of interest.

Just north of North Marginal Drive, formerly called "Shore Drive" they had built a tunnel beneath East Ninth for folks to pass unimpeded from the western exhibits to the Midway to the east, and also an entrance north of that right off East Ninth. It is that entrance which would have been the easiest access to the Old Globe Theatre.

clevelandmap.com

With the exception of the creation of North Coast Harbor (see above) the land footprint is nearly the same as that of 78 years ago. Where now rests the World War II submarine, the USS Cod, there had been a World War One sub during the exposition. The Coast Guard had a station right there in 1936 - only several hundred yards to the north, where the Army Corps of Engineers now stands.

By mine and John's best estimate, the Old Globe Theatre, which presented forty-minute abridgements of several of Shakespeare's greatest plays (and also Henry VIII), the very play house where Sam Wanamaker, at the tender age of eighteen, first worked as a professional actor, performing the greatest roles of the canon (Second Citizen, Servant, Guard, Philostrate), inspiring him to one day recreate Shakespeare's Globe on old Bankside, was in fact located where now sits the Coast Guard station parking lot.

Just there, behind the young woman sitting at the water's edge (see her?) reading a book.

"What's she reading?" I asked.

I answered my own question at the same time John did: "Shakespeare."

To be continued.

Lysistrata (2000)

Shannon McNamara, Arthur Grothe

Photo by Anthony Gray

"The version of Lysistrata you are about to witness comes at a time of particular economic strength in this country. The United States is not at war. People are making a lot of money, and nobody's losing his life on foreign soil. So, can Lysistrata only be performed when things are good? Is its original daringness never to be experienced by theater audiences again? Where is the radicalness of this play? What makes it worth seeing now, under these conditions?"

- David Bell, Lysistrata, Then and Now (Bad Epitaph production program)

In 1996, I picked up a copy of Aristophanes' Lysistrata at ABCDEFG Books in Camden, Maine. This edition was translated into verse in 1924 by the noted Australian Jack Lindsay, with illustrations by his father Norman Lindsay. One of the original hardcovers, this was exactly the kind of smutty book that would have been found indecent and its transmission through the U.S. Post illegal under the Comstock Act of 1873.

And this wasn't even the original. While Lindsay père created line drawings that are delightful and racy, featuring a collections of male and female characters naked or mostly naked, all actual genitalia are either (in the case of males) cast in dark shadows or (in the case of females) erased. You may interpret such censorship as you will.

The text of Lindsay fils, however, goes through an even more bizarre transformation. Reading it, I wasn't immediately compelled, for example, to produce it for the stage. It wasn't very funny, and though the sexual humor was apparent, it was so tame as to be virtually uninteresting. Later I found a paperback of Lindsay's translation that was published in the 1960s, and learned he had bowdlerized his own work! His original text, as published without fear of censorship, still includes innuendo and puns rather than outright obscenity ... but they're better.

The last major notable production of Lysistrata in Cleveland was the legendarily pilloried production at the Cleveland Play House in late 1970. That production was actually produced at a time America was at war, but as Tony Mastroianni reported in the Cleveland Press, "This is an anti-war play, basically, but it is difficult to find the message under all the sniggering and archness."

Cleveland Play House, 1970
Photo by Tom Prusha

Both he and Plain Dealer critic Peter Bellamy delivered the production a one-two punch the day after it opened (Bellamy called the production, "perverted" and "obscene") and reservations didn't merely dry up, people were calling the Play House to cancel. In what may have been the shortest run of any professional production in Cleveland, Lysistrata at the Play House had three performances and suspended the run.

Our new company, Bad Epitaph, was maintaining a streak of strongly-received productions. I had an idea at that time that we would produce a classic in the Spring and something contemporary in the fall, as far as we could take that. Having produced a Shakespeare as our inaugural production (Hamlet) I didn't want to return to the Bard again for as long as possible.

I found Lindsay's verse translation to be clever and funny, but possibly a little inaccessible to a modern audience. However, reading other, more recent translations, I realized that this was its strength. For example, the translation the Play House used thirty years earlier was by Douglass Parker, written in 1964, and that should tell you right there what went wrong. A jazz aficionado, Professor Parker strains to be hep and obvious with his sex jokes, and the entire script reads like an extended comedy sketch from Playboy After Dark.

But what is Lysistrata, anyway? Is it an anti-war argument, the purpose for which Aristophanes wrote it in 411 BCE? Is it one big sex comedy? Is it an Ur-feminist text, championing the strength and power of women? Or is it exactly the opposite of that -- as Mastroianni pointed out in his review, "What the Play House production misses in emphasizing the obvious is the underlying story of women desiring to resume normal domestic relations."

Lysistrata can be seen as a conservative piece of work; the women are refusing to have sex with their husbands until they abandon unending war and return home.

Also, at this point in history, I was only recently married, and my wife and I were making plans to have children. So my interest in staging a happy celebration of marriage, sex and procreation was also very personal.

Shannon McNamara, Alison Garrigan, Elaine Feagler
Photo by Anthony Gray

Director's Note:

There is no private domain of a person's life that is not political, and there is no political issue that is not ultimately personal.
- Charlotte Bunch

The Greeks invented Democracy, built the Acropolis, and then called it a day.

- David Sedaris

Bad Epitaph's production of Lysistrata opened on May 19, 2000, and it was very successful. The Plain Dealer called our production, Helter-skelter and often hilarious, the Free Times a high-spirited and campy romp, and Scene Magazine christened it that summer's first joyous work.

By closing night we were sold out - oversold, actually, adding more and more seats. That fall Bad Epitaph received a nomination for a Northern Ohio Live Magazine Award of Achievement, based largely on the success of Lysistrata. But that is the end of the story, not the beginning. 

I recently read over my notes from the rehearsal period, and learned some very important lessons that I had forgotten.

Christopher Bohan, Jennifer Wiech
Photo by Anthony Gray

My apprehension over producing a sex comedy were great. As a rule, sex just isn't funny, it's embarrassing. Case in point, the movie Exit To Eden, based on one of Anne Rice's soft porn novels. Director Garry Marshall wanted to make a gentle comedy that adults could enjoy together, but when it appeared the movie he was making wasn't going to appeal to anyone, he threw in a caper subplot (entirely unrelated to Rice's work) and cast Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd as detectives. What was merely cheesy swiftly became crass.

One of the few exceptions to this rule is The Tall Guy featuring Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson in the funniest sex scene every committed to film. And I've seen The Room.

I must have been inspired also by my recent experience performing in The Compleat Wks of Wllm Skhspr (abridged) at Beck Center. When Roger Truesdell cast two of the funniest men in Cleveland, Allen Branstein and Nick Koesters and then chose me to round out the trio, I thought he was insane because I am not funny. The experience was a crash course in what funny is or can be, and I took a (un)healthy dose of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ethos of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and thought I would try it with this 2,400 year old Greek comedy.

The production company was solid, Don McBride build to order an Acropolis that doubled as the set from Laugh-In, with balconies and shuttered windows that open and close. Ali Garrigan - our Lysistrata - designed contemporary costumes, and Brian Pedaci the numerous ridiculous props, some of which he procured from places like Chain Link Addiction.

I had invaluable assistance from my dramaturg David Bell (who provided all sources below) who provided not only a bottomless well of theater history, but was also my confidant during the darkest parts of the rehearsal process and was very insightful as to what was not working and reminding me what was.

And, of course ... it was a musical! As we assume, the ancient Greeks used song to convey strong messages, and so did we. Following my suggestion that this story plays itself out everywhere, all the time, our composer Dennis Yurich shaped Linday's verse into the lyrics for eight songs that were Goth, rock, ska, country, even a nod to the Andrews Sisters.



Of course, what everyone really remembers is the nudity. I know artists who have strong, negative opinions about nudity onstage, that it breaks down suspension of disbelief in a way that nudity on screen does not. Frankly, I think the opposite - that film celebrates unhealthy body types and calculated audience response in a way that a live naked human performing in a play does not.

That doesn't mean I wasn't eeked out by casting a play where I was asking actors how much they would or would not disrobe onstage. I knew from experience in other productions that it was best to be very specific up front, and to set a date when we would commence "show conditions".

Clyde Simon, Alison Garrigan
Photo by Anthony Gray

My rehearsal journals remind me how horribly self-conscious and unfunny everything was proceeding through the month of April. I was positive I was going to drop a large turd onto the stage of Cleveland Public Theatre (the company which we had made a healthy arrangement to perform) until the first of May. 

May Day we played the scenes where the men and women stripped to fight ... and suddenly the show was ridiculous! Not dirty, just happy, funny stupid, which is pretty much how we rode through the rest of the experience.

In addition to his praise, Tony Brown also called the show "sloppy", and it was literally sloppy, with buckets of actual water dumped onto Nick, Chris and Rob as they scurried around in jackstraps fitted with brightly-colored erections. Our Lysistrata came onstage for the interval with a mop. Opening night, one other writer for the Plain Dealer sniffed, "Well, it's not Aristophanes." There were also more than the usual backstage pranks throughout the run, some which during any other production would have been brought up with Human Resources.

By and large, it was a festive, funny and inoffensive anti-war play. Just before we really needed one.

Sources:
Revival Ruins Greek Play by Tony Mastroianni, Cleveland Press, Dec. 5, 1970

'Lysistrata' at Play House Plumbs Depths of Vulgarity by Peter Bellamy, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 5, 1970
Photo of Ronald Greene and Myriam Lipari as Kinesias and Myrrhina, Cleveland Press, 1970 (date unknown)

Revelry Abounds In Bad Epitaph's Version of 'Lysistrata' by Tony Brown, Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 22, 2000

Rowdy Romps by Amy Bracken Sparks, The Free Times, May 24, 2000

Greeks Bearing Gifts by Keith Joseph, Scene Magazine, June 1, 2000

Elvis at the Arena

November 23, 1956, Elvis played the Arena. One of these days I will document the Moondog Coronation Ball (1952) in some detail ... or at least spread more specious rumors. Regardless, the Arena was an all-purpose venue, the site where boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson murdered Jimmy Doyle in the sixth (literally, as it turned out) and the Cleveland Barons played hockey.

On Halloween night, 1956, the Cleveland Newspaper Guild went on strike, bringing to an abrupt halt the publication of all three Cleveland papers -- the Press, News and Plain Dealer. At the top of his game, Elvis Presley storms into town. His first movie, Love Me Tender had opened a week earlier, and the theme song was on top of the charts. No. 2 that week was Don't Be Cruel.

There wasn't a single Cleveland paper covering the concert.

Well, there was one paper covering the event. The Black and Gold sent its star photographer, seventeen year-old Lew Allen to cover the concert. Yes, that's right -- the Heights High School newspaper.

The show did not begin punctually at 8 PM that night as advertised. Excited fans were left waiting for fifteen minutes before Elvis took the stage. Legend has it he was receiving a phone call from a very ill and disappointed, ticket-holding girl who was in the hospital, and he just chatted with her for a while to try and make her feel better. Believe it or not, that's the story Lew Allen himself told, and has a picture of Elvis backstage on the phone as proof.

Allen went on to study photography at the Rochester Institute of Art, and went on a rock and roll tour in 1958, take great photographs of Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Frankie Avalon, Duane Eddy, Bobby Darin, the Hollywood Flames and others.

The Cleveland Arena and Elvis Presley were demolished in 1977.

Hockey stick.

Sources: Elvis Australia
ScottyMoore.net

See also: Elvis Presley at Brooklyn High (1955)

Artist McGaw Sketches Federal Players

"It Can't Happen Here"
Cleveland Press, Wednesday, October 28, 1936
Artist: John McGaw

... why does everyone look so creepy?

Arthur Loesser

Arthur Loesser (Aug. 26, 1894 - Jan. 4, 1969) was born in New York City and began playing piano at age six. A graduate of Columbia and the Institute of Musical Art (later known as Julliard) he toured the world as a concert pianist beginning in 1913.

During World War II he was an officer and a Japanese interpreter, and later became the first American to appear in Japan after the war, with the Nippon Symphony.

Loesser had joined the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1926, becoming head of the piano department in 1953. He was program editor and annotator for the Cleveland Orchestra (1937 - 1942), and a music critic for the Cleveland Press (1938 - 1956).

He also wrote popular books on music, Humor in American Song (1943) and Men, Women, and Pianos: A Social History (1954).

DID YOU KNOW ..? Loesser tells us the reason the piano became the most acceptable instrument for genteel ladies in the Western World is because of all of the things women aren't required to do to play one. They need not purse their lips, nor wrap them around anything, spread their legs or crane their necks. They just sit up straight and tap their fingers. But then, Loesser never saw Tori Amos.

In 1968, Loesser was awarded a special citation from the Cleveland Arts Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts.

Arthur was the elder half-brother to Broadway composer Frank Loesser. It was Arthur who referred to himself as "the evil of two Loessers," a line Frank would steal and use in reference to his first wife.

Sources:
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Wikipedia
Cleveland Arts Prize

Warfel on "The Crucible"

Season's Uncurtaining of Play House's Euclid-77th St. Theater offers Arthur Miller's compelling drama, "The Crucible." First night impressions by (Cleveland Press) Artist Jim Herron.
Play House Does a Great Job With Miller's Stirring "Crucible"
By Jack Warfel
Cleveland Press, Wednesday, October 7, 1954

With expected forwardness, the Play House opens a new season in its Euclid-77th St. Theater with a play vastly articulate and compellingly assertive.

Uncurtained for a premiere last evening the work, by Arthur Miller, author of the prize-winning drama "Death of a Salesman," is titled "The Crucible."

Winner of the Antoinette Perry Award for best play of the year, Miller's newer effort has already been produced in Germany and France with success of varying degrees, following its New York introduction, before reaching Cleveland.

Contemporary futility, sham and vanity, balanced by persevering dignity and truth are pitched back into the year 1692 with a Salem, Mass. setting, for the evaluation by the author.

Salem's field-fire spread of witchcraft suspicions, trials and hangings cast long shadows into our present generations in sundry guises, easily identified in Miller's preachment.

Savage Portrait

In a sense the play is frightening by implications, certainly electrifying as theatrical fare.

Here is a savage portrait of gossip-mongering and character defamation among persons, communities and nations; also a bitter denunciation of groups with such extreme righteousness that they attempt to extinguish all but their own light in the world.

In the author's own explanation for this work, "Characters of Salem appealed to me because they were conscious of an ideology and knew what they stood for ... they understood what was happening to them and they knew why they struggled ... they did not die helplessly ... they did not whimper."

Conflict Essential

Miller believes that since 1920 American drama has been a steady year-by-year documentation of man's defeat,a trend in which the author places no trust.

"Conflict," he asserts, "is the essence of life and until man realizes this he will knock himself out trying to wipe it from the world."

There are sterling performances in "The Crucible," staged by Frederic McConnell. Ella Apple, one of the more gifted actresses from Karamu Theater's talent lode, acts Tituba, a Christian accused of witchcraft and snuffed out as an easy victim.

Her performance, as usual, is splendidly eloquent.

Kirk Willis Fine

Kirk Willis and Eve Roberts as husband and wife, brooding over his indiscretion with a servant girl who subsequently accuses the wife of witchcraft for doom's-sake, are altogether right.

The cast is uniformly skilled and includes major performances by Max Ellis, Frank Stevens, Helen Watkins, Robert Allman, Rolf Engelhardt (who gives his role a Shakespearean flourish), and William Paterson, the latter a calculating deputy governor.

Settings by William McCreary are studies in Economy, tremendously effective.

The Cleveland Play House 1954-1955 Season

CPH Curtain Pullers Production of "Hamlet"

Cleveland is the best legitimate theatre town west of New York. Last season saw 82 professional and semi-professional productions, 23 of which were musicals ... The Play House had the highest record of productions with 19 shows, the Hanna had 16 touring attractions, Karamu 13 shpws, Chagrin Falls Summer Theatre 12 plays, Musicarnival 9 musicals, Rabbit Run 9 plays, and Cain Park 4 musicals. - Omar Ranney, The Cleveland Press

The Cleveland Play House 1954-1955 Season

Point of No Return (Osborn) The Fourposter (De Hartog) The Crucible (Miller) The Girl on the Via Flamina (Hayes) My Three Angels (Spewack) The Winner (Rice) Material Witness (Kantor) Best Foot Forward (Holm, Martin & Blane) Sabrina Fair (Taylor) The Emperor Jones (O'Neill) Mrs. McThing (Chase) Burning Bright (Steinbeck) Dail M For Murder (Knott) Time Out For Ginger (Alexander) A Bear In The Attic (Kanzell-Riley - World Premiere) Hamlet (Shakespeare) King of Hearts (Kerr-Brooke) Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Wouk) Night Must Fall (E. Williams)

Source: Leaps of Faith (Oldenberg)

Lou Groza

Right in the middle of the post-game argument between Frank Kilroy of the Eagles and Lou Groza of the Browns was Russ Gestner, business manager of the Browns. The angry Groza finally was restrained from belting Kilroy. The Toe charged that Kilroy elbowed him in the face.

The Browns beat the Eagles 6-0, improving their record to 6-2 for the 1954 season. (Nov. 22, 1954)

- Cleveland Press photo by Fred Bottomer

Louis Roy "The Toe" Groza (January 25, 1924 - November 29, 2000) played his entire career for the Cleveland Browns. Back in the day, people used to commit to one team. The son of Eastern European immigrants, Groza was the shortest of his three brothers, growing to only 6'3".

While playing for OSU, Groza was drafted and upon discharge began playing for the Browns (1946-1959, brief retirement, 1961-1967.) He was an offensive tackle, but also an astonishing kicker, which is how he got the nickname The Toe, and not for some other reason.

Groza’s signature season came in 1954, when he was named NFL Player of the Year as a powerhouse offensive tackle and steady straight-ahead kicker who converted 16 of 24 field goals and 37 of 38 extra points. The season ended with Groza leading the way for the Cleveland offense in a 56-10 destruction of Detroit in the NFL championship game.

- Cold, Hard Football Facts.com

In 1954 the Browns went 9-3 for the season. It was the last year the Browns would ever win an NFL championship. Ever.

Sources:
Cleveland Press
Cleveland Memory Project
Wikipedia
coldhardfootballfacts.com

Anthony J. Celebrezze

Anthony Joseph Celebrezze Sr. (September 4, 1910 – October 29, 1998) was the 49th Mayor of Cleveland, elected to office in 1953 and remaining there until 1962. He served an unprecedented five two-year terms (Cleveland mayors have been elected to four-year terms since 1979.)

Cleveland was at that time run by a tightly-organized Democratic party, and the Italian-American Celebrezze was not their candidate. Credit is often given to the endorsement of Louis B. Seltzer, editor of the Cleveland Press, for the victory. However, Seltzer may have simply been aware of the strong popularity Celebreeze had among the citizens of Cleveland and threw his support behind the apparent victor. He was also supported by Ohio Governor (and former Cleveland mayor) Frank Lausche.

During his tenure over $140 million was spent on urban renewal projects, including the construction of the Red Line, connecting the East and West Side. In addition, much attention was paid to construction of the freeway system to bring those who were moving to the suburbs easier transit into the city. However, he was also the champion of Erieview, a plan to revitalize the vanishing downtown population by razing old buildings close to the lake and creating vast high-rises and lots of parking. The razing of old housing stock took place, but the rebuilding never materialized, with the exception of the big, ugly, vacant Erieview Tower.

Source:
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

Sam Sheppard

Let's dig right in, shall we?

Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard (December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an osteopath who lived in Bay Village, Ohio, my hometown.

The end, moving on.

*Big sigh.*

Okay, let's try again.

Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard (December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an osteopath, living in Bay Village, Ohio. He was married to Marilyn Reese Sheppard, mother to their son, Sam, whom they called Chip.

In the early morning on July 4, 1954 Marilyn was brutally murdered in their lakefront home. Sheppard gave conflicting reports about the events in question, claiming he had seen a "bushy-haired intruder" assaulting her, with whom he got into a fight and was knocked out. Pursuing the assailant to the beach, he was struck unconscious again.

The trail of Sam Sheppard for the murder of his wife ... Jesus, I can't even write this, everybody knows this story. The Fugutive, The Cleveland Press, Louis Seltzer, F. Lee Bailey, it makes my head hurt.

How's this ... the made-for-TV movie Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Murder Case was released on November 17, 1975 starring George Peppard as Dr. Sam. Someone in my family watched it. It couldn't have been my father - he had absolutely no interest in this case, the man was guilty, full stop. It was probably Denny, who was in eighth grade. In any event, I took in this horrid story, told in the form of a horrid TV movie, at the tender age of seven. My daughter is seven.


So, since the second grade I have been aware of this gruesome tale, of what the word "bludgeon" means, to know that justice does not exist, that truth can be unknown, what the 46 year-old George Peppard looked like without a shirt ... a child does not need to know these things.

And to think that it happened in my home town.

"A second Boston Tea Party!"

The following play script is by David Hansen © 2010.


UNION PARTY CONVENTION

MAYOR BURTON steps forward.

MAYOR BURTON
Cleveland in her Centennial Year warmly welcomes the Convention of the National Union for Social Justice! We cordially invite everyone attending your convention to attend the Great Lakes Exposition. We invite you to share the inspiration of a rapidly growing community confident of its own future and of that of the country under the control of popular government.

VOICE OF THE LIVING NEWSPAPER
Citizens from around the nation, Forty-thousand strong have come to Municipal Stadium to hear the fighting radio priest, Father Charles E. Coughlin give the keynote address at this first Union Party convention, throwing the weight of his ten million listeners behind the candidacy of North Dakota Representative William Lemke. Some sporting patriotic costumes!

Enter CONVENTIONEER in a feathered "Red
Indian" headband, war paint and modern, floral
patterned dress.

CONVENTIONEER
You remember the Bostonians dressed up like Indians when they threw that high-priced British tea overboard? Well, we don't like the high-priced tea we're getting from Washington, and we don't like taxation without representation, so we're going to throw it overboard. We represent a second Boston Tea Party!

VOICE OF THE LIVING NEWSPAPER
What if your man doesn't win the election this November?

CONVENTIONEER
These feathers stand for peace. That means we will use peaceful methods -- Not bullets, but ballots.

VOICE OF THE LIVING NEWSPAPER
Here comes the man himself, as thousands rise to their feet in the sweltering summer heat!

FATHER COUGHLIN, a stocky, ruddy
cheeked man in a frock coat and collar, with
round wire-rimmed spectacles, walks through the
audience to the rostrum at center.

CROWD
(goes wild)

FATHER COUGHLIN
Mr. Chairman, Rev. Dr. Gerald Smith, Congressman Lemke, ladies and gentlemen from every State in the Union. It is my happy privilege to be here today.

That great betrayer and liar, Franklin Double-Crossing Roosevelt, promised to drive the money-changers from the temple, and succeeded in driving farmers from their homesteads. He built up the greatest debt in all history, which he permitted the bankers the right to spend, and you and your children shall repay with seventy billion hours of labor.

My friends, the hand of Moscow backs the Communist leaders in America, and aims to pledge their support for Roosevelt. We are wholly opposed to the Roosevelt taxes, dole, and to the propaganda that has been spread through this land. We are opposed, sympathetically, to the Republican candidate, poor Mr. Alfred Landon. Holy Mackerel, Andy! He doesn't know whether he is going or coming.

Is it Democracy for the President to browbeat the Congress and insist this legislation "must" be passed? Is that democracy?

FATHER COUGHLIN waits for a reply from
the audience. If he does not receive one, he asks
"Is that Democracy?" Even more ferociously.

FATHER COUGHLIN (CON'T.)
Is it Democracy for the president to say, "pass this legislation whether it is Constitutional or not"? Is that Democracy? Is it Democracy to have our country filled with bureaucrats and their banks filled with unpayable debts, save for their bankers? Is that Democracy? Why should there be want in the midst of plenty simply to satisfy the Rothschilds, the international financiers, the Jews?

We are Christians. We believe in Christ's principle of love your neighbor as yourself. I challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does not believe in it. The better class of Jews are willing to accept this basic principle of Christianity. When men become so prideful that they believe they can rewrite the eternal law of God - when ballots have proved useless - then as one American, imbued with the tradition of Washington, I shall not disdain using bullets for the preservation of liberty!

FATHER COUGHLIN takes off his coat.

FATHER COUGHLIN (CON'T.)
It is not pleasant for me who coined the phrase "Roosevelt or ruin" - a phrase based upon promises - to voice such passionate words. But I must admit that "Roosevelt AND ruin is the order of the day. New Deal policy is Un-Christian! It is anti-God! It is downright asinine!

FATHER COUGHLIN undoes and removes his
clerical collar.

FATHER COUGHLIN (CON'T.)
If I don't deliver nine million votes for William Lemke, I'm through with radio forever! I am willing to die in this struggle to liberate America from the money changers!

FATHER COUGHLIN swoons, steps back,
mops his brow, regathers himself and gasps:

FATHER COUGHLIN (CON'T.)
I AM SICK!

FATHER COUGHLIN is helped away from the
rostrum.


This fictionalized speech was created using quotations from Charles E. Coughlin at rallies in Cleveland and Philadelphia, and from the following sources:
The New York Times
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
The Cleveland Press
Social Justice
Father Coughlin's radio broadcast
Additional thanks to Karen Ketchaver and Donald Warren's biography of Coughlin.

The "tea party" conventioneer's quotation is documented, and not a product of the playwright's imagination. Really. For real.

The Harvard Club Raid

Federal Bureau of Investigation
John Edgar Hoover, Director
May 12, 1936

MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR

Re: Police Corruption in CLEVELAND, OHIO.
On January 10, 1936, the Prosecutor's Office of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, raided the Harvard Club. The Bueau has made no independent investigation concerning this raid, but slippings from the January 11, 1936 issue of the Cleveland Press discloses that John Sulzman, Sheriff of Cuyahoga County, took no part in the raid; that the County Prosecutor enlisted the cooperation and aid of twenty-five private detectives and armed with search warrants endeavored to serve such warrants at the Harvard Club.

They were met with formidable resistance, however, by Jimmy Patton, who threatened to "mow down" the raiding party with machine guns and held the raiding party at bay for six hours, during which time all the gambling equipment at the Harvard Club was moved away by trucks. It was finally necessary for the Safety Director of Cleveland to proceed to the Harvard Club, located just outside city limits, with a party of policemen to gain entrance to the Club.

This action was necessary because the Sheriff, when called by the Prosecutor's raiding party for aid, refused to send assistance, even though his office was notified that the Prosecutor's raiding party had been threatened with machine guns. It is evident, therefore, that the proprietors of the Harvard Club were closely connected with politicians and those in power in Cleveland.

It is desired to point out particularly the "hard boiled" attitude assumed by James "Shimmy" Patton, who threatened to "mow down" the raiding party. The newspapers setting forth this information are probably correct in the attitutde which was assumed by Patton as well be shown herein below:

[[TWO PAGES ARE REDACTED]]
On February 24, 1936, Mr. W.G. Harper, Operative in Charge of the United States Secret Service, Treasury Department, Cleveland, Ohio, was interview by Special Agent [[redacted]] Mr. Harper stated that when the Harvard Club was closed by the local authorities information is to the effect that the raid was so planned as to give Elliot (sic) Ness, recently appointed Safety Director of Cleveland, a political buildup.

The Cleveland newspapers have given a great deal of publicity to the raid and to the fact that Sheriff John M. Sulzmann refused to come to the aid of County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan, when Cullitan found it impossible to gain entrance into the Harvard Club. A news item appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, dated January 11, 1936 is quoted as follows:

"For nearly six hours last night operators of the Harvard Club held County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan, his staff and twenty special constables at bay after they appeared at the expensive gambling resort in Newburg heights to raid it simultaneously with a surprise attack on the Thomas Club in Maple heights, which yielded without resistance.

From sunset until nearly 11 last night the prosecutor and his force of men were repulsed by threats from the operators of the Harvard Club to 'mow down' the constables with machine guns if they tried to batter in the doors.

The Harvard Club was stormed only after Safety Director Eliot Ness, acting, he said, 'as a private citizen,' took several police squads to the prosecutor's aid.

Cullitan pleaded in vain for help from the city police department and from Sulzmann, the country's chief law enforcement officer."

Entrance having been finally gained after a six hour seige, the prosecutor and his deputies found that all of the gambling equipment had been removed by the aid of trucks. The paper goes on to state that after entrance had been gained "Hebebrand and his aids walked into the money-counting room of the club on the pretext of getting their hats and coats, and escaped by climbing through a small window near the roof of the resort, and dropping ten feet to the ground outside."

The paper continues -

"A few minutes later Sheriff Sulzmann, ill in bed at his home, sent word to Cullitan, the prosecutor said, that he would not send aid or protection unless it was requested by Mayor Jerry Sticha of Newburh Heights, 'in accordance with my home rule policy.' Cullitan had previously tried time after time to reach Sticha at his home, but was told he was not there.

The paper gives the following details concerning the raid:

"Patton (James "Shimmy" Patton who is well known to this Bureau) cursing profusely, rushed toward Cullitan. Cullitan tried to accomplish his task peacefully.

'Anyone that goes in there,' Patton cried, 'gets their _______ head knocked off. You've got your _______ home at stake and we got our _______ property at stake.'

'I've tried every decent way I could --' Cullitan began.

'No, you haven't,' Patton broke in.

'This is my job to close this place,' Cullitan said.

'Why don't you quit your job?' Patton shot back.

The Cleveland News, dated January 11, 1936 stated as follows:

"Mr Cullitan also had 'nothing to say' when asked if he would take any action against village officials who allowed gambling joints to operate so openly in violation of law."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, dated January 14, 1936 quotes Eliot Ness, Safety Director, as follows:

"'I did not know Sheriff Sulzmann excepting through the newspapers,' Ness said. 'I haven't met him yet, but I consider I know him thoroughly since his refusal to send deputies to the aid of County Prosecutor Cullitan.'

'When John Flynn, my assistant director, went to County Jail he found six deputies just sitting -- perhaps waiting for the millennium. He got no satisfaction from Jailer Murphy. Neither did I. We both pointed out Mr. Cullitan's plight, and we both got the answer: 'The sheriff stands by his home rule policy -- he must request from the mayor of Newburg Heights.'

'It Can't Happen Here', the title of one of our best sellers, would be true locally if applied to the sheriff rescuing the prosecuting attorney. Hence the recent raids became news here, although they would not have been news in many cities.

'I want to say seriously to you and to all of the better element, that we must have the public with us. That means good citizens must not neglect their full duty.'"

The above quotation was taken from a speech given by Eliot Ness at the Cleveland Athletic Club before the Odovene Club, composed of Ohio Wesleyan University Alumni.

That the raid conducted by Frank T. Cullitan is alleged to have its political aspects is shown in a news item appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer dated January 29, 1936, which is quoted as follows:

"County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan's recent raid on the Harvard and Thomas Clubs was described last night as a plot 'cooked up' by an assistant county prosecutor to embarrass Sheriff John M. Sulzmann's campaign for Congress in the Twentieth District and to benefit Congressman Martin L. Sweeney."

The news item goes on to state:

"The ward leaders voted to endorse Sulzmann for Congress and to call a meeting next week of the 277 precinct committeement in the district to submit Sulzmann's candidacy to them."

For your information Sulzmann was defeated in the primaries.

News items appearing in the Cleveland newspapers are very laudatory of the appointment and conduct of Eliot Ness as Public Safety Director of Cleveland. He was particularly praised for his action in assisting County Prosecutor Cullitan, "as a private citizen" during the raid on the Harvard Club. News items have also stated that numerous raids are being conducted by police squads in an effort to clean up gambling conditions in Cleveland.

The Cleveland News dated January 11, 1936, refers to Ness as follows:

It was Mr. Ness who, when Sheriff Sulzmann, from his sickbed, refused to send aid to Cullitan, took the bull by the horns and led 33 Cleveland police officers and men to the Harvard Club to protect Cullitan from possible violence."

Referring to Cullitan the same paper states:

"The prosecutor, his job of closing the two notorious gaming resorts done, offered no criticism either of Sheriff Sulzmann's refusal to help, or f the lethargy of Newburg Heights and Maple heights officials in failing to close the clubs."

Referring to Eliot Ness' move to clean up conditions in Cleveland, the Cleveland News dated January 9, 1936 is quoted as follows:

"On orders from Safety Director Ness a meeting of policy operators was called by Deputy Inspector Frank W. Story at the E. 35th St. - Longwood Ct. police station Tuesday night.

'Fold up of your own accord or we will fold you up,' Inspector Story told them.

Along lower Scovill Ave., once the most open vice district in the city, officers are visiting houses and ordering all transient girls to move out of the city. Only those who can provie their legitimate homes are in the houses are being permitted to remain.

Bookmakers still exist, doing a curb or telephone business, but the gambling resorts have disappeared. Gamblers who prospered in Cleveland last year are reported to have either left town or to be making plans to heads for other cities where the law enforcement is more casual.

The order has gone out for the cleanup.

The police department knows Director Ness means business."

In praise of the work of Safety Director Ness the Cleveland News of January 11, 1936 carries and editorial containing the following:

"While we're cherring, let's fill the air with three long hurrahs and nine sharps rahs for Eliot Ness."

Respectfully,
K.R. McIntire.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FOIA)

Tobacco Road

People loved to hate this play about Georgia sharecroppers.

‘White Trash’ On View Again In Hanna Play 

Turnip-Eating Jeeter Lester and His Forlorn Family Are Still Living by ‘Tobacco Road’ by Charles Schneider, The Cleveland Press 

"As truth - either highly localized or universal - I don’t consider ‘Tobacco Road’ worth it’s weight in last winter’s turnips. But as a theatrical sensation, it is just the stuff."

Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote: "The theatre has never sheltered a fouler or more degenerate parcel of folks than the hardscrabble family of Lester. Plays as clumsy and rudderless as 'Tobacco Road' seldom include so many scattered items that leave such a vivid impression." 

Though this play adaptation of the novel by Erskine Caldwell was banned in cities such as Chicago and Detroit, touring productions found a comfortable home in Cleveland several times over.

Hanna Theatre

Built in 1921, the Hanna Theatre was a 1,421-seat proscenium-style Broadway touring house. The Hanna stands out from the other four major theaters (Ohio, State, Palace and Allen) that make up what is now known as Playhouse Square in a few distinct ways. 

Most obviously, the Hanna is located on East 14th Street and not Euclid as the others are. Additionally, the Hanna has a short lobby, like a Broadway house. The grand, palatial houses of Euclid Avenue had large, opulent lobbies. But from the street you could have a sold-out house and no one would know. 

Owner Carl Hanna wanted the audience to spill out onto the street, to generate public excitement for whatever was happening inside. These days, certain audience members do spill out onto the street, to smoke. 

In 1936, you could have seen taken in performances of:

• Tobacco Road ('White Trash' On View Again in Hanna Play - Cleveland Press)
• Katharine Cornell in Saint Joan
• Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! produced by the Group Theatre ("The most important play the Hanna has had this year." - W.Ward Marsh, PD)
• Burgess Meredith in both the world premiere of Maxwell Anderson's High Tor (opened Dec. 30) and earlier that year in Anderson's Winterset opposite Peggy Ashcroft.
• George M. Cohan in Dear Old Darling
• José Ferrer in Boy Meets Girl

And for the record, in late 1934, Orson Welles played the Hanna in a touring production of Romeo & Juliet, starring Katherine Cornell as Juliet and Basil Rathbone as Romeo. During the course of the tour Welles played Mercutio. Once it transferred to Broadway in December 1934, Welles assumed the role of Tybalt. 

The Hanna is now home to Great Lakes Theater. 

UPDATE: Happy 100th Birthday, Hanna Theatre!

Sources: Wikipedia 

From Broadway to Cleveland: A History of the Hanna (John Vacha) 

basilrathbone.net

Red Salute Redux

The world's sick! And you're going to be asked to pay the doctor's bill!
Critical reaction to The Red Salute AKA Her Uncle Sam:

Red Salute Opens in Circle Theater Today
W. Ward Marsh, Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 2, 1936

‘Red Salute’ annoyed me and heckled me and generally irritated me so much with its childish flag-waving and jeering at the “the other side” that I did not find it wholly entertaining. Just when it settled down to the business of entertaining that old devil ridicule would pop up and wreck what might easily have been a worthy successor to “It Happened One Night.”

It does have some very funny scenes … but it also has this mawkish and bigoted defense of an America which is not the kind of country the true patriot wants.

***
Red Salute
Isi Newborn, Cleveland Press, January 3, 1936

Its manner of ridicule is so shallow and naive that it depicts radicals as simpletons, making the argument against them seem weak.

***
15 Students Picket Theater, Call Film Unfair to Youth
Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 3, 1936
“The Red Salute grossly misrepresents student organizations and radical youth movements.”

The Young People’s Socialist League of Cleveland, the Young Circle League, and the combined American Student Unions of Western Reserve University, Glenville High School and John Adams High School.

Statement: “‘The Red Salute’ is a flag-waving tissue of lies and distorts the real aims of the college radical youth movement; it teaches war; it opposes free speech.”

Executive manager of theater, David Marmorstein: “The picture is good entertainment.”

Film is available for free streaming in an incomplete form here.

Original Red Salute post.

The Little Colonel/The Littlest Rebel

Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was just shy of seven years-old when The Little Colonel debuted in 1935. My daughter is seven and a half. Crazy.

The story takes place just after the conclusion of the Civil War. A Southern "belle" marries a Northerner and is disowned by her father, a former Confederate Colonel, played by Lionel Barrymore. The couple moves West, has a daughter (Temple) and then separates. The mother returns home with her child, named after her grandfather - Lloyd.

Hattie McDaniel, in the only role she was ever allowed to play, acts as surrogate mother to the girl and explains her origins and in a nutshell, the war which continues to separate and confound our nutty little nation. Temple also tap dances with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson on some stairs in a clip you've probably had burned into your memory. I have no idea where I've seen it, I have never watched this movie, but it was probably used in a commercial in the 1970s or something.

In December, this was followed by The Littlest Rebel which takes a bad thing much too far. This number takes place during the Civil War, with Robinson now playing an actual slave, and not just a freed one. He remains darn cheerful.

The film includes a rather shameful scene where terrified enslaved people shiver in their boots at the impending arrival of the Yankees who will take them from their loving homes.

I found several advertisements in the Call & Post and even some feature items praising "Mr. Bojangles" including photos of him alongside Miss Temple. None of the advertisements I located in the Cleveland Press include any indication there even were any black people in this movie.

This post was updated to reflect Mrs. Black's 2014 death.

The March of Time

Time Inc. Created the newsreel The March of Time in 1935. An early foray at tele-journalism, several of the techniques pioneered by this successful featurette (they were continued through the early fifties) may be considered deceptive, or even unethical. Events were often re-created, performed by actors - or sometimes by the actual participants - on sets or soundstages far from the site of the actual stories, without any explanation that this was being done.

In addition, the stentorian, God-On-High voice of Westbrook Van Voorhis lent a heightened or exaggerated sense of importance to the proceedings. Orson Welles famously lampooned these films in Citizen Kane, providing entertaining exposition through a newsreel called News On The March.

The Cleveland Press drew a direct comparison to these newreels in their March 28, 1936 review of The Living Newspaper:

With simple staging and unique lighting, "The Living Newspaper dramatizes news events - local, national, and international - in an incisive and compact March of Time manner."

This comparison was also made in Variety.


A number of March of Time films will be broadcast this weekend on Turner Classic Movies (see today's New York Times for more details.)

Sources:
Wikipedia
The Cleveland Press
The New York Times