Evening star., 1935-12-01
Truck Fun
Feature of
New Farce
Popular Comedian in
"Whatever Goes Up"
in New York.
BY LUCIUS BEEBE.

COMEHOW the spectator at Ernest
Trucks current farce, Whatever
Goes Up has feeling that Mr.. Truck
is careful to see to it that none of the
other participants in the charade at
the Biltmore Theater come even with
in seltzer squirt of his own capacities
as cringing and hectored imperson-
ator of cigar clerk caught up in a
tidal wave of sweepstake riches. A
mousey fellow, as ever, in his latest
impersonation, he indulges fatu-
GUS bonhomie, selects as his gospel
the radio preachments of "The Voice
of Time" and sets aside each week
fund for the endowment of the
moochers who infest his cigar mart.
His most inviting sales talk is in
the interest of a combination spe-
cial which includes a toothbrush.
tube of shaving cream and a volume
of the verses of Edgar Guest. So gull
lible is he indeed that he accepts a
sweepstakes ticket in payment Of a
bad debt and is hoist to comparative
afhuence with his own naivete. 1t is
just the dish for Mr.. Truck.
In Whatever Goes Up" he finds
himself, to be sure, in more of Mag
gle and Jiggs situation than he did in
''Whistling in the Dark" but he car
ries it with assured aplomb, be 1t be-
hind the counter of his native cigar
shop or in the Babylonish mazes of
the Waldorf's towers This is more
than can be said for the rest of his
associated troupers, who, fired perhaps
by Mr.. Trucks own conscious and
adroit overstepping Of the bounds of
conservative comedy when the occa-
sion demands, play their parts with all
the fragrant coyness of a Rucyrus Erie
steam shovel uprooting the pavement
of Madison avenue. This circum-
stance and the very patent nature of
the theme Gts entire course is
sketched by the locations of the scenes
as listed in the program) are the prin-
cipal defects in broad and slam
bang farce, and to note them at all is
perhaps captious and niggling. ANA
teurs of the art of Mr.. Truck are &C
customed to derive their esthetic de-
lights from the pigments laid on with
palette knife rather than from more
delicate tracery, and they will find all
the accustomed and ribald Truck
cesses Of comedy evolving here.
The best shot Of the evening, as
Time would say, shows the guileless
and Philadelphia counterman atop a
step ladder, as he is apprised of his
sudden windfall of $l50,000. It's the
little man at his best.
A MOTHER of the more promising
openings Of the week, that of
First Lady," comes too late to make
this Broadway gazette, but it has
played before alert audiences in Phila-
delphia and lands here with good
talk" behind it. The old notion that
the drama reporters foregathered in
the lobby and agreed to array their
thumbs up or down on this or that
play is fairly well discarded by a
more knowing generation of theater-
goers and newspaper readers, but this
good talk" or the reverse, which
circulates before q shows premiere
Is not without its subtle influence
on the reviewing mind. Too much or
too extravagant a legend preceding
a play from other cities is likely to
work it harm. Jubilee" suffered to
certain extent from Boston couriers
who brought in eye-popping details
of its magnifcence, although this
proved to affect the cynical and
sophisticated Mayfairites more than
the critics. But 1t is different for
the fretted reviewer, whose endurance,
night after night, is subjected to a
severe test, to approach with a cheer
ftl aspect play about which he has
heard gloomy reports.
First Lady," however, is a politely