Evening star., 1944-04-12

| Dear NICK: Ihere was an au
and Ill sailors and marines, wa
Medical Center on Monday night
to the point ot desperation, for
I am sure Chester Stratton,
Vera-Ellen and Mimi Berry of
the Connecticut Yankee" COM
pany, together with Evalyn
Tyner are much more COM
petent entertainers.
They did miss you, Nick, for
it had been announced that you
were coming and you don't have
to be told. or do you, what
entertainment means to those
men.
I have a feeling, however, that
your loss was greater than theirs
for when it was explained-for
want of any other explanation,
and in considerable embarrass-
ment-that you had just been
put in IA, the applause was
virtually deafening. 1 am sure
you cannot have heard anything
so enthusiastic in your artistic,
so to speak, life. You should
not have missed it, Nick.
That is really a wonderful
audience as any audience of its
kind would be. It's members
come from such places as
Guadalcanal, Buna, Tulagi,
Sicily and Anzio. Those were the
"theaters" those men played,
Nick, and it does not seem I'M
reasonable of them to expect you
to come out to their pleasant
new theater at the Naval Medi-
cal Center.
My personal regret over the
incident, Nick, is that as master
of ceremonies, I was at a total
loss to explain your absence.
Yesterday morning, Is hours
later, I was informed that you
had sent wire from your New
Jersey home saying Sorry un-
able to make benefit, regards"
to Maurice Winter your COM
pany manager.
Isn't that pretty laconic?
After all, Nick, you did get
back in time for the perfor-
nance before your paid audience
at the National, just a couple
of hours later.
My efforts to get your side Of
the story from theater attaches
did elicit the information that
you were emotionally upset, the
result of becoming the father
of a new baby and simultane-
ously being reclassified Ia in
the draft. No one can dispute
that such an experience is plau-
sibly designed to upset any man.
But millions of Americans have
been classified la at one time
or another, and, as for new
babies, tens of thousands of
fathers already in the service
have never even seen theirs.
I shall be glad to print any,
thing you might want to write
in explanation to that audience
at the Naval Medical Center
in the same spot and in the
same size type.
Sincerely yours,
JAY CARMODY.
X X
Warner Bros. statisticians have
heir own factual way of Judging
public taste in pictures. With box
office figures in front of them
they have just come to the con-
clusion that there is nothing like
a good escape screen drama when
it comes to fascinating the public
And, among escape dramas, they
rate the musical highest.
Latest chunk of evidence on this
score is the record of the late Earle
picture, Cover Girl"
1t broke all existing records fol
second week runs at that theater
among others the records of dozens
Of pictures which were more
highly praised by both critics and
the public. The difference in the
figures for the first and second
weeks, the statisticians would have
you know, was only IL per cent.
On the average run of pictures,
and in many cases the most highly
praised ones, the second week
figures normally are from "a to
26 per cent less.
Answer that, the statisticians
challenge.
Bulletin board: Major Barbara,
Bernard Shaw's elfin comedy al
the Little, the one which has an