Evening star., 1939-01-15

jackets and so make it easier to lug
them into heaven.
The canon, fretting and snoozing
on his wheelchair, is democracy it
self and the church at it's pro-
foundly wise best. Faith, tolerance,
love are the ingredients of his re-
ligion, and he knows very clearly
that man can be coaxed into good
ness more easily than he can be
flogged or bullied or legislated
into it. -g4
Nora, of course, played with beau
tiful tempestuousness by Jessica
Tandy, is opposed to Father Shaugh-
messy, and Denis, helplessly sober,
bows to him and becomes secretary
to his moral police. In the end the
canon snatches triumph from
Fascist hands, restores decency and
peace to the village and, in the
oblique manner by which the church
governs souls most successfully,
boots Denis onto the white steed
with Nora.
He does this by rising miracu-
lousy from his wheelchair and max
ing pungent comments on the pri-
vate lives of a mob of bowling storm
troopers, and it was tribute to the
quality of the plays writing, as well
as its acting, that sophisticated
first night audience believed the
make-b believe so sincerely that it
burst into applause at the sight of
Barry Fitzgerald walking haltingly
across the stage. A thoughtful,
poetic work rarely stirs such sweet
tumult.
Pair of Cinema Stars
Hailed on Broadway.
The thousands who are Fastening
to Forty-fourth street to sigh, very
audibly, over Franchot Tone and
Sylvia Sidney, are seeing a poor tale
filled with more unforgettable char
acters and pungent writing than
many a good play. Irwin Shaw calls
"The Gentle People" a Brooklyn
fable, and it iS a little fairy tale
about two gentlemen who turn upon
gangster who is exploiting all the
JOY from their lives, murder him and
get away with it.
The gangster, played quite ade-
quately by Mr.. Tone and with
enough of a suggestion of coarse
menace to startle the audience out
of dreaming over his good looks, is
stock hard guy, but Miss Sidney
and Sam Jaffe and Ella Kazan and
Lee j. Cobb have been luckier. The
author has given them people to
play with. Miss Sidney has the part
of a girl who is too young to have
adjusted herself to the realization
that she is ordinary and destined
for a routine life and accepts the
gangster's offer to carry her into
the extraordinary. Mr.. Jaf1e and
Mr.. Kazan, as father and betrothed
of the hapless girl, have the chore
of teaching her the compensations
of the ordinary life. Mr.. Cobb has
been tossed into scene which is
as gratuitous and unconnected and
welcome as human laughter on a
desert island.
primrose Path" Looks
Good for a Year.
Robert L. Buckner and Walter
Hart have written "The Primrose
Path" out of Victoria Lincoln's
novel, February Hill," and the story
is of three generations of friendly,
rowdy, rollicking fancy ladies. Helen
Westley, with a gorgeous red wig,
makes lullabies out of bawdy songs
for her grandchild, and all con-
cerned have so much fun that they
think it shame when the flock de-
cides to take a f1ier at the moral
life. They don't succeed with NOR
ality, and that's the more or less
happy ending.
The technique of the humor is to
turn logic and convention upside
down, and it seems to work fine. The
lines, the incidents and the char
acters have a happy talent for fall
ing on your ears like custard pies
and, If the piece doesn't run a year,
the town will be stupef1ed.
(copyrisht, 1899. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance. Incl