1927 | Theater, Film
Theater, Film
Theater: Saturday's Children by Maxwell Anderson 1/26 at New York's Booth Theater, with Wollaston, Mass.-born actress Ruth Gordon (Jones), 30, New York-born actor Roger Pryor, 25, Humphrey Bogart, Beulah Bondi, 310 perfs.; The Marquise by Noël Coward 2/16 at London's Criterion Theatre, with Marie Tempest, 129 perfs.; Crime by Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer 2/22 at New York's Eltinge Theater, with Chester Morris, Kay Johnson, Bronx-born ingénue Sylvia Sidney (originally Sophia Koslow), 16, 186 perfs.; The Mystery Ship by Edgar M. Schoenberg and Milton Silver 3/14 at New York's Garrick Theater, with veteran New York-born actor Wallace Erskine, 64, 240 perfs.; The Butterfly's Evil Spell (El maleficio de la mariposa) by Spanish poet-playwright Federico García Lorca, 27, 3/22 at Madrid's Teatro Esclava; The Second Man by Worcester, Mass.-born playwright S. N. (Samuel Nathan) Behrman, 34, 4/11 at New York's Guild Theater, with Alfred Lunt, English-born actress Lynn (née Lillie Louise) Fontanne (Lunt), 39, Margalo Gilmore, Earle Larimore, 178 perfs.; On Approval by Frederick Lonsdale 4/19 at London's Fortune Theatre, 469 perfs; Baby Cyclone by George M. Cohan 9/12 at Henry Miller's Theater, New York, with Grant Mitchell, Spencer Tracy, Georgia Caine, 184 perfs.; The Trial of Mary Dugan by Bayard Veiller 9/12 at New York's National Theater, with Ann Harding, Cyril Keightley, 437 perfs.; Four Walls by Connecticut-born playwright Dana Burnet, 39, and George Abbott 9/19 at New York's John Golden Theater, with Austro-Hungarian-born actor Lee Strasberg, 25, 144 perfs.; The 19th Hole by Frank Craven 10/1 at George M. Cohan's Theater, New York, with Craven, Marion Abbott, 119 perfs.; The Ivory Door by A. A. Milne 10/18 at New York's Charles Hopkins Theater, with Henry Hull, Donald Meek, Louis Closser Hale, Helen Chandler, 310 perfs.; Barrabas by Nordahl Grieg 10/26 at Oslo's National Theater; Porgy by DuBose Heyward, now 42, and his wife, Dorothy, 10/27 at New York's Guild Theater, with Frank Wilson, Evelyn Ellis, Rose MacClendon, 367 perfs. (see Fiction, 1925; Gershwin opera, 1935); The Oil Islands (Die Petroleuminseln) by Lion Feuchtwanger 10/31 at Hamburg's Deutsches Schauspielhaus; Coquette by George Abbott and Ann Preston 11/8 at Maxine Elliott's Theater, New York, with Helen Hayes, Covington, Ky.-born actress Una Merkel, 23, Charles Waldron, 366 perfs.; The Road to Rome by New Rochelle, N.Y.-born playwright Robert E. (Emmet) Sherwood, 31, 11/31 at The Playhouse, New York, with Jane Cowl, Joyce Carey, 440 perfs.; Paris Bound by Philip Barry 12/27 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Hope Williams, 234 perfs.; The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and New York-born playwright Moss Hart, 23, 12/28 at New York's Selwyn Theater, with Otto Kruger, Catharine Calhoun Doucet, Orlando Daly, Roger Pryor, Joseph King, Sylvia Field, in a play based on the Barrymores, 345 perfs.
The Théâtre Alfred Jarry is founded at Paris by playwrights and actors who include poet-actor Antonin Artaud, Robert Aron, and Roger Vitrac, who will gain fame for their "Theater of Cruelty" ("théâtre de la cruauté"). Artaud maintains that theater's function is to liberate the instinctual energy of man, who has been turned by civilization into a sick and repressed creature, he has proposed removing the barrier of the stage that separates audiences from performers, and before the group disbands in 1929 it will present four programs—mythic spectacles that include groans, screams, verbal incantations, pulsating lighting effects, and oversized stage puppets and props.
Actor-writer-producer Arnold Daly dies at New York January 13 at age 52; playwright Roi Cooper Megrue at his native New York February 27 at age 42; actor John Drew at San Francisco July 9 at age 73 after a successful road tour with the 1898 Pinero play Trelawny of the "Wells"; actress-producer Amelia Bingham dies at New York September 1 at age 58.
A Los Angeles jury awards Charles Chaplin's estranged wife, Lila (née Grey), $4,000 per month for child maintenance January 13. She testified that she had not seen Chaplin since November.
New York's Roxy movie theater opens March 11 on Times Square at the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 50th Street. Chicago architect Walter Ahlschlager has designed the 4,000-seat house for William Fox, Irwin Chanin, and other investors, who provide showman S. L. "Roxy" Rothafel with an orchestra pit that can accommodate 110 musicians, private projection rooms, a broadcasting studio, club rooms, rehearsal rooms, a music library, and a lavish apartment for Roxy's personal use.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded May 11 by Louis B. Mayer of M-G-M (see 1924). Created for the express purpose of giving out annual awards, the Academy is headed by Douglas Fairbanks (see "Oscars," 1928).
Grauman's Chinese Theater opens May 18 at Los Angeles with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings; it does not begin until nearly 11 o'clock and goes on until 2 in the morning (see Grauman's Egyptian, 1922). Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have helped to finance the $2 million theater, which features an outdoor courtyard.
The Cinematograph Films Act passed by Parliament requires that a certain minimum proportion of films exhibited in British theaters be of domestic origin. The measure is designed to protect Britain's film industry from domination by Hollywood, whose executives have capitalized on the lack of a language barrier to exploit the British market, and although most of the films made to fulfill the quota are low-budget "quickies" of little merit, Britain will develop a viable industry capable to beating Hollywood at its own game (see Ealing Studios, 1902; Gainsborough Pictures, 1928).
Films: Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer is the first full-length talking picture to achieve success (see 1926). Wahoo, Neb.-born executive producer Darryl (Francis) Zanuck, 25, has given Al Jolson his film debut. The film opens at Warner's Theater in New York October 6, its cast includes St. Paul, Minn.-born vaudeville veteran William Demarest, 35; it contains only brief sequences of dialogue and singing (Jolson dances as he sings "Toot-toot-tootsie"), but Jolson says, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet," the sound-on-disk Warner Brothers Vitaphone system employs disks synchronized with the film, and it introduces a new era of "the talkies" that saves the studio from bankruptcy and will end the careers of some movie stars. Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is developing its own Photophone sound-on-film system for the major studios, and it will become the industry standard (see 1929).
Other films (all silent): Buster Keaton's The General with Keaton; Ted Wilde and J. A. Howe's The Kid Brother with Harold Lloyd; G. W. Pabst's The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney); Abel Gance's Napoléon with Albert Dieudonné; Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg with Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer; F. W. Murnau's Sunrise with Philadelphia-born actress Janet Gaynor (originally Laura Gainer), 20, George O'Brien; Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March with Vienna-born director-actor von Stroheim (originally Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Nordenwall), now 41, Canadian-born actress Fay Wray, 20, ZaSu Pitts. Also: Alan Crosland's The Beloved Rogue with John Barrymore, Conrad Veidt, sets by William Cameron Menzies; Walter Ruttman and Karl Freund's Berlin: The Symphony of a Great City; Fred Niblo's Camille with Norma Talmadge, Gilbert Roland; Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary with Creighton Hale, Salem, Mass.-born actress Laura La Plante (originally La Plant), 23; Ernest Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper's Chang, shot on location in Siam; René Clair's Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie with Albert Prejean, Olga Tschechova; Harry Langdon's The Chaser and Three's a Crowd with Langdon; James W. Horne's College with Buster Keaton; Sam Wood's The Fair Co-Ed with Marion Davies; San Francisco-born director Dorothy Arzner's Fashions for Women with Esther Ralston, Raymond Hatton; Clarence Brown's Flesh and the Devil with John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson; Frank Borzage's Seventh Heaven with Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell; Sergei Eisenstein's The Ten Days That Shook the World; Victor Fleming's The Way of All Flesh with Emil Jannings; William K. Howard's White Gold with Jetta Goudal, George Bancroft; William A. Wellman's Wings with New York-born actress Clara (Gordon) Bow, 22 (who has been discovered by producer Benjamin P. [Percival] Schulberg, 36), Kansas-born actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers, 23, Charlottesville, Va.-born actor Richard Arlen (Cornelius R. Van Mattimore), 28, Helena, Mont.-born actor Gary (originally Frank James) Cooper, 26 (who has also been discovered by Schulberg).
Theater owner Marcus Loew dies of a heart attack at his native New York September 5 at age 57; Warner Brothers partner Sam L. Warner of pneumonia at Los Angeles October 5 at age 40.