Evening star., 1938-01-02

4NE" 1OIlh
7 T is in the field of musical COM
edy that the theater has taken
its worst beating at the hands
OF the motion picture. Singing
and dancing stars. composers, dance
directors, costume designers and
chorus girls find it easier and more
profitable, as we'll as far more con-
ducive to an international reputation,
| to demonstrate their wares before a
camera in Hollywood than to go
through the hardships and agonies of
Broadway production. Whereas the
New York dramatic season used to
be an almost constant procession of
musical wonderWorks of one kind or
another, the premiere of a revue an
operetta or even an old-fashioned girl
and-music show is now an event filled
with novelty and excitement And if
| the score Is not the work of Richard
Rodgers and Lorenz Hart the re-
sulting astonishment leaves us OPEN
mouthed and incredulous. There are
times when it seems as if the authors
of the recently departed Babes in
Arms" had taken out patent rights
on the entire idea of the musical
show.
Despite the domination Of the girl
and-music field by the Hollywood i'm
presarios, it seems to me that the
films, save financially, are badly equip
ped for the manufacture of such
works. They can give us huge and
lavish production numbers that the
stage could never equal, and offer
greater numbers of handsome show
girls in one scene than all the Broad
way shows together could employ in
couple of seasons. They can af-
ford to pay their brightest luminary,
Mr.. Astaire, enough money to make
him dance for them, and they can
photograph his eloquent footsteps from
fascinating angles that the theater
could never conceive. Yet it hap
pens that of all the dramatic fields
wherein flesh and blood, rather than
shadows, are a necessity, the musical
comedy is the most imperative In
the drama the emotional appeal may
be spiritual or intellectual, but in mu-
sical comedy. even though it be the
most austerely political or social of
Satires, the basic requirement Is
frankly and proudly physical. Above
all things. it cries for a warm and
human touch of personality, for close
contact with living beings, for the
pleasant proximity of sex appeal.
Fifty screen chorus girls, artfully pho
tographed through gauze, may look
very alluring, but they are a pretty
dim substitute for five good-looking
stage chorus girls standing across the
footlights from you. The dances of
Mr.. Astaire or of Bill Robinson may
be vastly enhancing on the screen,
but they are very weak substitutes for
the dancing Of these two incompatible
gentlemen upon the stage. The musi-
cal show is hardly an abstract art.
THIS season in the theater shows
gratifying signs of increasing
activity on the part of every one save
the playwrights, and so it is hardly
surprising to find that the number
OF new musical shows is already con-
siderably increased over that of last
year. At the moment you can find
in the vicinity Of Broadway such vary
ing productions as I'D Rather Be
Right" "Hooray for What!" THE
Cradle Will Rock" Pins and Needles" !"
Between the Devil" and Three
Waltzes," all of which are music. if
not girl-and-music. shows. Nor is it
altogether astonishing to find, in con-
sideration of the growing preoccu-
patton of the public with political
events, that four of the six produc-
tions 60 in intellectually for social
satire. With I'D Rather Be Right"
lampooning the Roosevelt administra-
ton. "Hooray for What" mocking
war and the League of Nations, The
Cradle Will Rock" snarling at MIR.
Tom Girdler and Pins and Needles" /"
the gay production of the Interna-
(see WATTS, Page F-2)