The Wilmington morning star., 1940-07-06
Man About

By George Tucker

man with the wistful face and the
baggy pants has not always had
his share Of luck from those who
control the destinies of the chill
dren of Broadway. Trooping into
stage doors glowing with hope and
trooping out again with blasted
dreams is not a novel experience
for Jimmy Savo. No one can re-
member when the critics have not
written well of him, but somehow
his luck has been to be assigned
to plays that have seldom vowed
EN- at the box Office. For this
reason one of the greatest, if not
the greatest, pantomime artists in
the whole length and breadth OF
the American theater is little
known away from Broadway.
y But maybe 1910, with its car
mage and wars, it's horrors and
famines and political upheavals,
will come through with a new coin
of luck for Jimmy Savo. He is in
Maine now trying out a new must
cal comedy show that he owns
himself-and he will bring it to
Broadway this summer. Inquire
after this show and he will tell you
"It's a one-man revue, full length,
and it's title is NUNS the Word"
A suggestive title, this. The Savo
style is pantomime, not o d.
Charlie Chaplin calls him the
greatest pantomimist in tn e
world" and perhaps he is. His ap-
peal is pathos. Other comedians
make you laugh. Just as often
Savo makes you want to weep.
Ben Hecht and Charles MacAr-
thur once wrote a scenario and
then filmed a picture with Save
as the star. It was the story Of a
little Russian hero hobo who wan
dered through France, finding
trouble wherever he turned, and
the final fadeout had him trudging
down a country road in his baggy
pants and his over-lowing shirt,
hurt but not down, a wisp of cheer
shining through eyes that in any
one else would be dimmed in dis
illusionment.
AS a finished product it was not
a good picture. There were obvi-
GUS theatrical flaws. But moments
in it rank, in this observers opin-
ion, with the best patho-comedy
ever put on film.
You must not imagine, from the
foregoing, that Jimmy has not
made money, and that he is not
able to get jobs, or that he is on
relief. You don't own Broadway
revues when you are broke. But
only occasionally, since the days
when he was worrying his mother
half to death as a kid praticing
ledgerdemain on her, juggling
soup spoons, or attempting to bal
ance the kitchen stove on his chin,
has he come into the rewa:Gs he
deserves.
In Broadway restaurants Savo is
as shy, as Paul Kunasz says, as a
Disney deer. He seems uneasy in
crowds. This isn't true at all times.
1t is only that the gift of panto-
mime, which always has reflected
a wistful sort of pathos, makes
him appear that way.
In NUNS the Word" Savo will
sing one song-a special number
written for him by the great mu-
steal comedy song writing team of
Rogers and Hart. Otherwise he
will be in pantomime-frst as a
Swedish maiden, then, in this or
der, as a hospital orderly, a lonely
hunchback, a character from Mo-
liere, a spirited Pocohontas in a
war dance, a Chinese concert sing
err, a sentimental laundress, and
last, as Eve.
I don't know how long this show
will last, or what Broadway will
think of it, but if there is only one
person I would like to see get all
the breaks that anybody can get
on a break-queer street like Broad
way, it is this same shy little
Italian = American in the baggy
pants. !