The Washington times., 1932-07-19
| look over the index of
GILBERT sELDEs

defend it's position but to see what has happened the
people I praised then and some failed t.. to praise.
their field and is refreshing to find SO many OF them
still out in front Here some of hem alphabetically:
Bugs Baer Still peerless paragrapher, whose para
graphs packed into sentences His comparisons are
still startling his vision still obque his humor still
personal his style still his own and inimtable.
Irving Berlin: After few years of semi servtude in
the takie he returns with "Face the Music, his feel
ing for melody unimpared his frendlness of spirit ln
his words and music) matured his humor as charming
BEFORE his of the popular thing accurate
ever.
Brce to Conan
Fanny Brice: The slapstck of other women come
dians their smarness or brittleness, touch her.
Given good material she is superb; given meager
material she is still Fanny Brce, which is plenty.
Charlie Chaplin: Ten years ago l looked tor re-
of pure fun: My missed the actuality; but
not disappointed. He is still the greatest man in
the arts of entertainment our generation has seem
AMI perhaps any generation.
George M. Cohan wrote of him chiefly master
of revue; naturally he has gone more and more into
his special kind of comedy and meodrama He hasn't
written another Song and Dance Man." but his
performances are amazingly good. He knows more
about the heater, suspect than anyone else in it.
Clark to Cersawin IS
Clark and Mccullough: AS indescribable and as
funny in "Strike Up the Band' they were in the
Music Box ten years ago.
Joe Cook: When I wrote about him, he had never
been solo headlner in vaudeville and thought that
he would never be anything else couldn't him
star of musical show-and he has been the star of
muSCdlS ever since, as Dand as certain as WagglSn
as mad and as satisfying as he was in the one-man
vaudeville act without the four Hawaians.
George Gershwin: The music of "Strke Up the
Band Superior to the current prize winner Of Thee
SingO wittier and cleverer than his older peces
ne hasn't main tained the Swanee touch-his songs
please, but no longer haunt us-and should be due
next year for sheer melody again as in "The Man
Love" and dozens of others. His more serious work
has not impressed me, after the famous RHAPSODY
which is still good in spite of being reduced radio
plaything
| Movie Casualties
ID. w. Griffith He was going off the reservation then:
came back to 1t to do good Abraham Lincoln; and has
LETT it again. A casualty of movie business
. George HERMAN: His Krazy Kat is STILL to my mind
with stupefacton at Herrimans ingenuity should swear
1t has finer with the years. The nearest to
Chaplin in the lot
Al JOson: He left the supreme position he held on the
stage to the movies by proving that the talkes
would be popular But he is not the greatest in the
casualty too Ten years ago could think of no pleasure
In the theater comparable to listening to him.
Keaton to Lardner
Buster KeatOn: AS good as he was then which means
up among the leaders, but not as good as his admirers
thought him. In "The Passionate Plumber" a few
months ago. he had excellent scenes but the takies
aren't favorable to his gum silences as the movies
were
Jerome Kern See "Show Boat" and die!
Ring Lardner His series of baseball stories are as
good as You Know Me- Al and everything he has writ
ten in the intervals of terrible Illness has had the mark
OF genius The first sarst of the greatest of our
humorsts and incompatible story teller. He hasn't
developed the mad streak of Gaspar but his stories
have grown more and more sardonic, his feeling for
character acute
| shall do l. to next.