The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-29

OIdI OI Q d II Quentin would be quite delighted to see and hear the zany White put the chief "G"-Man through the comedy third-degree.
 Even one-time dubious charac- ters fall into Hoover,s ken of ac- quaintanceship = provided they now are on the straight and nar- row.
 Colorful Tune
 On Tin Pan Alley they were tell ing me the other night about an- other freak success. This one is the tune, Deep Purple" which is sweeping the country. Five years ago Peter de Rose composed Deep Purple" as piano piece, sans lyrics, and 1t failed of popularity.
 The seasons sped by and De Rose all but forgot about his lone- ly composition. Then Doris Rhodes the songstress, exhumed it from the archives. She liked the tune so much that she got Mitchell Parrish to write words. And boom! She had barely sung it twice before Deep Purple" was out of the red and a spectacular success.
 Three years ago Cole Porter wrote breezy tune called Begin the Beguine" for the musical, "Ju- bilee." The show closed and the song apparently died with it. But two and half years afterward, Begin the Beguine" was plucked from the files and played again. And 10, it now is a smash hit! B. of E. G-Men
 A new racket has been nipped by the Board of Education's G-Men and the exposure is likely to set the swing musicians back.
 Every time a popular swingster arrives at Broadway movie citadel, his cash value is judged by the number of riotous jitter- bugs clamoring at the box office. And these rabid fans usually are youths playing hockey from school.
 Well, several enterprising boys have gone around to the swing men and have offered to produce from 50 to 2000 jitterbugs at the theater on Opening Day. For a good fee, of course, just as cla- quers operate in the Opera House. Since the academic standards of the city were endangered by this old racket, the school board has put the Laws finger upon the jit- terbug organizers.
 Peripatetic Playwright
 Of the playwrights, Elmer Rice is the most travelled. He plans best when he is in. new surround ings. One day may find him en route to his beloved Paris; an- other day bound for Mexico, or a-sail on the Carribean.
 We see the bespectacled and leisurely dramatist often in Man. haitian restaurants of foreign fla vor; one night at an Armenian bistro, the next in a Moscovite eating place. He is familiar with many and varied cuisines, as result of his many journeys.
 Several years ago a friend en- countered Rice in ricksha in Shanghai. Hello, Jack" said Rice, casually, haven't seen you in quite a while!"
 He Had Time
 Robert E. Sherwood's mid-win- ter vacatioY cruise to South America was a futile trip.
 Enroute to Rio, Sherwood e had hoped to outline romantic com edy, as change from the politi- cal implications in his stirring, patriotic hit, Abe Lincoln in Illinois" But Sherwood could not contemplate the gentle nu- ances of love plot in South America. He found rife such hate and fear, bred by European propaganda down there, that he hurried home in a breeding spirit.
 This" he concluded, as he dis embarked in New York, is no time for comedy"
 And that's a coincidence = be- cause in short while Katharine Cornell and Laurence Olivier are coming to Broadway in a play