Evening star., 1948-07-23
The Cast.
full sized actors and a squadron Of


in addition to Winninger, such
people as Dan Daley, Fay Banter,
Charles Ruggles, Nancy Guild, Bar
bara Lawrence and Sig Ruman.
The salaries of these probably add
UP to a pretty penny, enough surely
to have justified the spending OF
another pretty penny for a better
script. Producer Morosco should
nave thought of this, but men who
are knee-deep in memories OF vau-
deville never remember its import
ance.
The strange contradiction which
went unnoticed is that the semi
musical based upon an old George
M. Cohan song title is built en-
tirely around a bad vaudeville act.
OF course, it might be possible to
create a good movie around some
thing of the sort, but it obviously
would have to be a farce. "Give My
Regards to Broadway" is nothing of
the kind.
What it is is another Of those
dreary, sentimental obituaries OF
vaudeville.
It is the story of the act, little
filler item, of the Great Albert, a
nondescript performer played by
Winninger. When vaudeville dies
at the hands of the movies and an
upstart called radio-the Great AL
bert gets himself q job as timekeep-
er in a north Jersey factory. 1t is
not much of Job, but 1t permits
the family to settle down in
home Of its own. This is better, IN
a way, than fifth rate hotels IN
sixth class towns and living on a
diet Of hamburgers with onions.
But does it satisfy the Great Al
bert?
OF course 1t doesn't. He dreams
for 20 years Of the day that ne
will 20 back to vaudeville and no
matter how rapidly he makes a
vice-presidency at the factory, the
dream remains unchanged. To their
intense boredom, he keeps his chill
dren working on the act that he
will have ready when the call comes.
He teaches them, as little, untal-
ented educators always do, how to
be inept jugglers and Indifferent
dancers.
The new act, like the old one.
is bad and the script admits this
with a kind of unvalnished honesty.
The funny thing is that 1t never
does anything about sparing the
audience another repetition OF the
dull, uninspired thing. Night after
night, they all go through the same.
routine until finally enough film
has been anassed to make feature
length picture out of Give MY
Regards to Broadway"
It would be difficult to name a
picture in which a normally quail
fled cast gives more continuously
listless performance. Winninger, an
old Snowman from vaudeville's days,
tries to inject some life into the
lifeless material and the same may
be said of Miss BANTER.
The younger set, Daley, the
Misses Guild and Barbara Lawrence,
who have no sentimental recollec-
tions of vaudeville, act as if they
we're bored to death by the whole
thing.
Theirs, somehow, are the utterly
convincing performances in "Give
My Regards to Broadway"
The Capitols stage is a huge one
as such things 60. but it is nothing
like the great open spaces to which
Cowboy Ritter and his snow white
horse are accustomed. They natural
ly find themselves confined in the
revue which constitutes this weeks
stage show. Nevertheless. this
transfer from the sage to the stage,
is not without its refreshing aspects.
Whether White Flash is the most
beautiful horse in the world Is
something this department is not
prepared to say until 1t has seen
all the other horses. He Is a su-
premely beautiful beast, however,
and Betty Jane Smiths singing and
Ladd Lyons comedy have to be
good to compete against such equine
glamour.