The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-03-04
TWENTY APOLLlOS IN NEW
COLLEGE PLAY BY FRANKLIN rylEs
BY FRANKLIN FYLES

the newer resort of cowboys and min
ers is non-alcoholic, for soft drinks
only are sold, and card games are pro-
hibited, checkers and dominos without
stakes being the only play permitted.
The Indian chief is as stately as
Royle's and as degenerate as Belasco's
"a blend of dignity and thirst
Placards of peace and piety are on the
walls of the saloon, and the gang of
loungers is mostly neat and pretty, for
many OF its wearers of flannel and
buckskin are chorus girls. However,
the principal hard characters of the
melodramas are present in close imi-
tation of makeup, although in the case
of the typical bad man on a shoot-up
spree, Weber makes him a little runt
of a crushed desperate, kicked and
cuffed even by tenderfoot tourists, and
shot to death every time he pulls his
gun. That is very funny.
However, after seeing the best that
Weber's adept humorist, Edgar Smith,
can write in travesty, I am inclined to
believe that wild western life, where
it still is actually wild. is so wild in
truth that it can't made wilder in a
libel. So as a whole this burlesque
is more initiative than exaggerative-
Marie Dressler, the bulky Coincidence,
gives stalwart carcature of Blanche
Bates camp saloon keeper. but she
gets up against limitations. At the
point where Blanche says Damn iti''
manifestly Marie cannot go further in
to profanity; so she forbids swearing
by any one on her premises.
Remember, boys" she says. "this
amt Belasco's stage, and you mus mt
open no tobasco sass bottles here
At the end of scene. where Blanche
is left alone by the romantic road
agent, she recalls fondly that he called
her the most beautiful girl he had
ever seen. A Iovesick look comes into
her face, she is wistfully silent q mo-
ment, and then she murmurs oh,
hell" How can Marie exa Sgerate that
in speech? Instead of trying, she puts
her mouth through motions of silent
utterance and lets the audience i'm
agine the language.
There is wondrously Belascan
snowstorm in "The Girl of the Golden
West" and the mockery of it in 1.-THE
Squaw Mans Girl is funny. Belasco
sends Blanche Bates TO her mountain
cabin, where she invites her sudden
lover to supper, and he becomes snow
bound there. so that they have TO spend
the night together. Blanche gives up
her bed to her guest. and blankets
herself at the other side of the room
on the floor. while the furious storm
bowls outside shakes the hut and
Sits snow in through the cracks Ma
RE Dressler lodges her ardent visitor
in the barroom, and above and below
the swinging half-dOoTs the snow en-
tiers in tremendous quantities She
pulls a sideboard away from the wall
and it becomes a bedstead, but a big.
square space is left open TO the blast.
which filings in a buShel of snow on
the couch and the man. TheTeuDOn he
takes the redhot stove into bed with
him and embraces it fondly. As TO big
Marie. she changes her day gown for
mans nightshirt, fastens snOwshoes
on her feet and trots shiveTingly about
the drifts setting the room TO rights
for the night
Then comes the famous game Of
chance between the girl and the sher-
if for the life or death Of the lover.
Blanche you know. won by ringing
in a cold deck in poker showdowns.
But Marie has forbidden cards in her
sheebang; so the fateful game IS
checkers. with bits of coal for her
men and crackers for the sherif's. and
Marie beats him by eating his men
while he isn't looking.