The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 29

OFF STAGE I'lce Follies' iTLoaded With BROOKLYN EAGLE, NOV, 13, 1 94 29 On the Screen Byiew sh.a.r Skating Stars A cast of International stars will present a pro gram in Madison Square Gar-, den Thursday night to launch the "Ice Follies" on Its 14th annual run in New Yorjc. Frick and Frack of Switzerland, Hazel Franklin of England, Marilyn Ruth Take and Harris Lege of Canada, and! Betty Schalow; Mae Ross, Hugh Hendrickson and Bill Cameron of the U. S. are the figures who will star in this new edi tion of the celebrated and Johnson revue. The famous Ice Folliettes, the best trained "chorus line" in skating shows, will dance eight ensemble numbers, and will present their, pinwheel in a gorgeous Indian finale, "Totem Ceremonial Dance." Frick and Frack, nonpareil Swiss masters of com edy," head the program with their newest sketch, "In the Bahamas." To complete the laugh department, Virginia Morrison and Less Hamilton will present "The Skating Bill Cameron will star in a madcap riot of laughs and action in "The Building Ole Ericsen and John Mulvey will portray a St Bernard of the Alpine slopes in "To the MADY CHRISTIANS and Raymond Massey who open in 'The Father" at the Cort Theater next Wednesday evening.

It is a revival of Strindberg's tragedy, translated by Robert Joseph. Rescue," and Dick Rasmussen and Cameron will revive the comedy piece, "The Bowery," Week's Plays WEDNESDAY which was first conceived by Ed Shipstad and Oscar Johnson in the In 1926. Miss Franklin, one of the most accomplished interpreta THE FATHER, at the Cort Theater. August Strindberg's tive skaters of our times, wi On the Subject of Serious Music In Contemporary Theater Presently two ambitious musicals are occupying the boards on Broadway. The first, In the order of their appearance, would be "Lost in the Stars" at the Music Box Theater.

The other, a matter of much discussion among critics both -drama and musical is "Regina," the Marc Blitzstein version of Lillian Hellman's Little Foxes," at the 46th Street Theater. The appearance of these, close together, naturally would remind one of last season's "Magdalena," the Heitor Villa-Lobos orchestral story bolstered by Irra Petina Dorothy Sarnoff. It ran expensively for 88 performances. Theatrically it produced two fine numbers: One that might have been called the "Cathedral Anthem." The other was the comic playing around with a broken-down mechanical piano player. Neither was enough.

One also recalled "The Rape of Lucretia," a Benjamin Britten score. Here was great drama the theme has been a favorite of the poets; even Shakespeare wrote about it but it dissolved into a music rather strange to the ears of Broadway, Production perhaps should have taken the blame. The fact remains that those who sat out front were bored. And they weren't waiting hopefully for a tune to bat: down another "Show Boat." One wonders if the old barn which houses opera expertly on Broadway at 40th and called the Metropolitan should not be left to its own devices. The shows mentioned above were riding down the operatic radio beam, for all that by the definitions of the cognoscenti, they were operettas.

To this writer, unfortunately both "LCst in the Stars" and "Regina" flirted with a curious confusion as to which they should be: Opera or operetta. All their faults can be ascribed -to this not profound but obvious reflection. In "Lost in the Stars," a little boy named Herman Coleman, singing "Big Mole," really stole the show' away. On opening night there were no encores, so little Herman had to sit on the stage, beaming at the applause he had spontaneously errupted. Be it to the credit of the audience that it tried to bring him back.

But the performance was comparable to an Avon Long singing "It Ain't Necessarily So" in "Porgy and Bess." Little Herman lost nothing by the comparison. One doubts that either Maxwell Anderson, the author, or Kurt Weill, the composer, had anticipated this curious reaction of an audience. Yet it was rousingly nice. One doesn't often have a chance to say that in a theater column. The story of "Lost in the Stars" was implausible when Alan Paton wrote it in his best-seller "Cry, the Beloved Country." The composing skill of Kurt Weill, who also arranged the orchestrations, came through to those who wondered what Mr.

Anderson would do with it. Mr. Anderson concocted a final scene which made the book a little melodramatic. And moving. It would be an insult to a fine production to call this operetta or just a musical.

It. was strictly a play with music, Todd Duncan singing, a something for future producers to bear in mind. The pundits are still arguing whether "Regina" is opera or operetta. The purists will insist it is the latter. Some would say it doesn't matter.

Frankly, on opening night this writer was a little bewildered by the Blitzstein scoring. But as it grows on one, it achieves stature. The recitativos were enough to encourage a little nap but certainly Jane Pickens as the venomous wife was not Intended to yield to Brenda Lewis, who most certainly sang her way above all the others. This little piece about music in the theater is not intended to be sour. Such as "Lost in the Stars" and "Regina" are adventures and may heaven forbid that Broadway should abandon adventuring.

There is plenty to be said for a little boldness in production. The theater needs it. "Magdalena" and "The Rape of Lucretia" were informative evenings. Whate'er betide "Lost in the Stars" and "Regina," they certainly have livened up a season which the Cassan-drag have been predicting would be dreary. "Love Me Long," a past week's presentation at the 48th Street Theater, was the first entry in the future book as the "worst of the season." It began from nowhere and ended exactly there.

However, maybe something will come along to capture its cellar championship. I hope not. skate as a kitten in a make-bl play starring Raymond Massey and Mady Christians, Cast includes Mary Morris, Philip Huston, John D. Sey mour, Grace Kelly, Paul Lar son and Charles Snyder. Mr.

lieve sequence in "The Music Shop." Miss Take, former Canadian champion and Olympian, will present a solo of the most difficult figure-skating feats as "The Orchid Girl." Legg, also a former Olympian, and the peerless daredevil of the ice, leaps with Massey directed. Setting and lighting by Donald Oenslager. Costumes by Eleanor Gold 'King's Men' and 'Fame Is the Spur' Start Together but End Differently By a neat, illuminating coincidence two pictures of i distinguished quality arrived last week, one from Hollywood, the other from England, dealing with the same theme. Both "All the King's Men" and "Fame Is the Spur" show the birth of a politician, diagram- his changing character under the influence of power and success, delve or try to delve into what makes him tick, and both show how the two men detour from their original routes and wind up betraying themselves and others. But there the resemblance ends, which brings us to the illuminating part of the coincidence.

Although dealing with such familiar subject matter, the two pictures could hardly be more different in approach, tempo, story treatment, production style, flavor of performance. The fact that one takes place compactly in present times, while the other stretches' from 1860 into recent times, has nothing to do with the case. They offer such a great contrast because "All the King's Men" bears a made-in-Hollywood label, while "Fame Is the Spur" comes from England. And by diverging so widely from a common starting point, they throw considerable light on many differences between American and English movies. Where the American picture is filled with violence and fast paced, the other is slower moving, more reflective.

Where one paints character In globs of high color, the other gives you an etching or a detailed portrait in medium tones. Where one tosses off its political points on the run, the other constantly returns to a fundamental viewpoint, adding a new fact, giving it more depth, body and significance. Where one packs in a lot of incident, most of it melodramatic Incident, to provide an overflow measure of entertainment and thereby appeal to the widest possible audience, the other steadily and exclusively appeals to the adult filmgoer. There's plenty of melodrama, all right, in "All the King's Men," but this is one time it wasn't dragged in bodily just to add box-office flash. It's an open secret that Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize novel, the basis of this Columbia work, was Inspired by Huey Long's stormy career.

And no picture that hoped to do justice to his' life could be at all skittish about frilling out all the stops. Written, produced and directed by Robert Rossen, the picture is filled with surging vitality, tough-eyed comment and shrewd observations about the seamier aspects of practical politics. It's really an impressive performance that Mr. Rossen displays here, catching the tobacco-spitting background of Willie Stark's rise with a graphic, newsreel sort of candor and generally drawing the same honest sort of portrayals from his cast. It's not often that you find a picture that looks so real and is, at the same time, so dramatic or, if you will, melodramatic.

This isn't to say that "All the King's Men" is a great, picture, though. Plenty informative, yes; no end exciting, sure. But it falls short of the highest distinction for one fundamental reason. There are minor flaws in the picture, such as the fumbling romance between the newspaperman and the society girl, but it's the handling of Willie Stark's transformation that hurts the picture most. There's not enough shown In the early Willie Stark, a sincere, honest political innocent, to explain how he could have developed into a ruthless egomaniac, a brilliant rabble-rouser and shrewd master of rough-and-tumble politics.

Except for this failure to project Willie's innermost workings, Broderick Crawford does a fine job. Moreover, there's an electrifying performance by screen newcomer Mercedes McCambridge and able portraits from John Ireland, 1 Anne Seymour, John Derek, Sheppard Strudwick, and others. I'm very curious to see what the triple-threat Mr. Rossen does next. In the meantime, "All the King's Men," at the Victoria, is strongly recommended to all who like meaty, exciting fare.

Where the Columbia picture is weakest, "Fame Is th Spur," at the Little Cine Met, is strongest. Performed with quiet, searching brilliance and subtle shading by Michael Redgrave, this picture completely explains the change of a young radical of late 19th Century England into a cautious power in the Labor party and final emergence as a conservative grand old man of politics, a Baron and friend to those interests he had once fought so bitterly. Like its American counterpart, "Fame the Spur" Is realistically mounted, but the net effect is considerably quiete, even though it does contain several episodes of violence. Covering a span of some 75 years, it inevitably lacks a rising line of tension or a tidy story pattern, and yet it maintains a high level of interest throughout, thanks to Redgrave's splendid interpretation, fine support by the entire cast, and the excellent way the producing-directing team of John and Roy Boulting have staged, practically all the Individual chapters of this biography. A thinly disguised biography, I might add, because this English work was also suggested by a true-life story, Ramsay McDonald's, as described in Howard Spring's novel of the same name.

Superficially remote from America, 1919, in time and place, "Fame Is the Spur" actually tells a pretty timeless story, and tells it very well, about the corroding effect of power and success on a man's character. It's one of our worthiest foreign visitors this year. I JT.N smith. THURSDAY ICE FOLLIES OF 1950, at Madison Square Garden. A musi-ral skatinir revue oroduced prodigious power and speed over formidable obstacle's in "The Hearts Are Trumps" pro by Shipstads and" John duction.

Green-eyed, blond Miss Schalow is the star soloist in a beau-tifully costumed pantomimic fairy tale, "The 'Dream- of 1 Snoopy Bear." Titian-haired son. Featuring a cast of 200. including the "Ice Folliettes." Starred are Frick and Frack, Betty Schalow, Marilyn Ruth Take, Harris Legg, Mae Ross, Narena and Norris and the Scotvold Twins. This is the 14th opening of the show in the same place. Miss Ross, movie starlet who gave up a career in the cinema for interpretative skating, emu kites the tight-rope walker of the big top in a panoramic rep-i Wins Stardom resentation of the circus.

Hendrickson, the male lead of the nation's pioneer touring ice revue, will offer a routine of Wild West vigor in "Down Because of the unanimous critical salute given Emlyn Texas Way," and pair with Miss Schalow in an exquisitely timed Williams for his characterization of the cynical Colonel Iz-qulredo in "Montserrat" at the Fulton, producers i Bloomgarden and Gilbert Miller exhibition of synchronized skating, etc. will henceforth star him in Lil JUANITA "HALL, BETTA ST. JOHN AND WILLIAM TABBERT in the cute and moving little "Happy Talk" "number, in "South Pacific" at the Majestic. lian Hellman's adaptation of Publicity Pays Emmanuel Robles' play. Richard W.

Krakeur and Rob ert L. Joseph report that, as a result of the first official announcement last Sunday of the Kansas Play Optioned Fred Malina, Alfred Stern opening of Raymond Massey and Mady Christians in "The gnd Joseph Maharam have taken an option on "A Cry of Father" at the Cort Theater, Raymond Masse Remembers Inspiration by John Drew Among his assignments as a director in England some years ago, Raymond Massey did a play with a cast of nobodies, actors unfamiliar to even the most constant of British playgoers. The eager newcomers were one Emlyn Williams, who had exactly Players," a first play by Will Gibson. Treating the conflict between inner and outer re Nov. 16, approximately 1,400 mail orders 'were received by the first mail Tuesday morning.

The producers have engaged a special staff to handle these reservations. sponsibilities which plagued the youth of William Shakespeare, the play was recipient lines, Charles Laughton, two of a Kansas Statewide play writing mmnptitinn awarrl thp fi- Binnie Barnes and an obscure "You can't blame the Ameri little chap named Barry can director," Mr. Massev con sters In the West End, youngfnal judge for wnlcn was Ecdie Scott-Smith was chosen. Noti tinues. "He cannot afford Dowling.

It. was subsequently "They were unknowns," says take a chance. Every Broad Peter Scott-Smith Enjoys This City, the While He Acts presented by the Topeka Civic Theater. Mr. Massey.

director and co- way fhow is practically life-and- death to all concerned and the with Mady Christians of "The Father," opening at the Cort Theater next Wednesday, Lends Talents Robert Browning's translation of Agamemnon to his retiring Kurt Richards, seen on Broad "but they came to me with a wealth of experience attained way in a variety of roles with fication did not come until four days prior to the start, of rehearsals in New York in late August. That weekend was the most exciting in his life, Peter says. For the first time he left his native England -on a westbound Atlantic Clipper from Heathrow Airport at on a Saturday evening, arriving in New York the next day. Four hours later he was oh the stage professor gives the play its title in countless parts, already pol In the curtain-raiser, "The Maurice Paul Muni and John Garfield, is playing the leading male role In "The Edge ished and stagewise. Harlequinade," he is a stage struck super given a line, which he finds difficulty in ut of the Sword," a drama about "Young actors here have so little chance to practice their craft.

In England there Is op director cannot train actors in four weeks of rehearsal." Massey becomes sad when he remembers all the actors who came looking for work in "The Father." Even after the cast was filled he did not let applicants go away without speaking to them. He apologized because could do nothing for them and because they had waited so hopefullj. "Maybe I sympathize with them because I know what they must go through," he said. Peter -Scott-Smith, the only member pf the original London cast of Terence Rattigan'g "The Browning Version," in w'nich Maurice Evans and Edna Best star at the Coronet Theater, has appeared in six West End plays In four years. It is a record among young boy actors in London.

Peter, now 17, enacts a brash hut kind-hearted schoolboy In "The Browning Version," whose present of a copy of postwar Germany at the Abbe tering with conviction. Practical Workshop, 103d St. and Riverside Drive, Thursday The British representatives for Maurice Evans had a tough portunity for experiment and any number of small groups who put on plays for a night of the Ctironet rehearsing again under British director Peter time deciding whether Peter had outgrown his schoolboy or so. For a few pounds ster Glenvllle's expert guidance, ling they can get together a Born in 1932. his background part.

But after giving a read ing to all the available young- production and one perform and Friday evenings. Mr. Richards and Katya Sergava, who plays the leading female role, 8re the two professionals lending their art to the Abbe student production in the Dubose Hey ward prize play. since he was seven was that of wartime London; which was far "I used to haunt stage doo ance pays the cast. Nobody makes big money, but actors from the saftest spot in the British Isles.

During the blitz myself in Toronto. It was Drew, who made me an actor. get their chance to act." he attended Christ College at He was playing at the old Prin Finchley. It was an American play. Hugh Herbert's "Kiss and cess and I went to the stage doorman and asked to speak with Drew.

Of course, the Tell," in which ne piayea me precocious kid, Raymond, that cave the young Scott-Smith his doorman knew me. I had been around often enough. So he went and told him a young man start behind the footngnts. Since then he acted in "The was waiting outside to talk to Years Between" with Clive him. He had never seen me before, but he spent a full hour Brook, in "The Other Side," Treasure Island," "Peace chatting.

After that talk noth ing could stop me from becom Comes to Peckham" and "All Over the Town." ing an actor. In "Peace Comes to the Town" "Perhaps the most fortunate thing that happened to me at he was cast with Bertha Bel-more, who is featured In "The Browning Version." the time was a business failure Peter has been watching per I was in my father's busines, the manufacture of farm implements. When that folded, the formances when he isn't on stage with great interest. "It is way was clear for me to go on the stage. My father told me I exciting to see different players If It I -)i f- create parts that you've watched was crazy, but if that was what other artists play for more I wanted to do, go ahead.

Only please don't rehearse on the than a year. Mr. Evans and Edna Best are terribly effective, and yet their conception of the parts are different from Eric Sabbath." Mr. Massey admits that there are pitfalls in directing and appearing in the same play. "It is I difficult to be objective about wire a DCI1, JJUb 111c anui la happy with the way the preliminary work has progressed and enjoys working with such Portman's and Mary, Ellis'," he reports.

The teen-age Britisher has also acquired foster parents here, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rapport Rapport is general manager for Mr. Evans and went on Peter's papers as his guardian so he would be permitted to land here unaccompanied by his parents. Young Scott-Smith is i experts as Mady Christian, rv Mary Morris, Phillip Huston and John Seymour.

mil mmm 1, leveling in Manhattan. "What a I tightest play with which I have ever dealt," he says. "Strindberg's mind teemed with ideas. He had so much to say, but he said it without a bit of wasted dialogue. He knew how to keep audiences on their toes.

place! I walk myself silly each day. My ambition? To get over to Brooklyn. Wish I could have seen the Dodgers play. Maybe I will next Spring." NATHAN MILSTEIN, violinist virtuoso, in recital at the Brooklyn Academy of Music next Tuesday evening in the Major Concert Series, sponsored by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. MAE WEST AND CHARLES G.

MARTIN in "Diamond Lit," the gay revival of JZ0 classic ot the Plymouth Theater. VIRGINIA HASKINS as Zerlino in "The Marriage of Figaro," singing next Friday night ot N. Y. C. Center in N.

Y. C. Opera production..