1932 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: The Animal Kingdom by Philip Barry 1/12 at New York's Broadhurst Theater with Brooklyn-born actor William (Dennis) Gargan, 26, Leslie Howard, Ilka Chase, 183 perfs.; Whistling in the Dark by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter 1/19 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater (to Waldorf Theater 11/3), with Edward Arnold, Ernest Truex, New York-born Anthony Ross, 22, 265 perfs.; The Atlantic (Atlanter havet) by Nordahl Grieg 1/23 at Oslo's National Theater; There's Always Juliet by John Van Druten, 2/15 at New York's Empire Theater, with English-born actress Edna Best (originally Edna Hove), 32, Herbert Marshall, 108 perfs.; Too True to Be Good by George Bernard Shaw 4/4 at New York's Guild Theater, with Beatrice Lillie, Hope Williams, Leo G. Carroll, London-born actor Claude Rains, 32, 57 perfs.; Another Language by Rose Franken 4/25 at New York's Booth Theater, with Margaret Hamilton, Margaret Wycherly, Dorothy Stickney, Patricia Collinge, Joplin, Mo.-born John Beal, 22, 344 perfs.; The Ermine (L'ermine) by French playwright Jean (-Marie-Lucien-Pierre) Anouilh, 21, 4/26 at the Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris; Bridal Wise by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich 5/30 at New York's Cort Theater, with James Rennie, Madge Kennedy, 128 perfs.; When Ladies Meet by Rachel Crothers 10/6 at New York's Royale Theater, with Spring Byington, Walter Abel, 173 perfs.; Service by C. L. Anthony (Dorothy Smith) 10/12 at Wyndham's Theatre, London, with Leslie Banks, Jack Hawkins, Peggy Simpson, Ann Todd, 199 perfs.; Criminal at Large by the late London-born novelist-playwright Edgar Wallace (who has died at Hollywood, Calif., February 10 at age 56) 10/10 at New York's Belasco Theater, with William Harrigan, 161 perfs.; Dinner at Eight by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber 10/22 at New York's Music Box Theater, with English actress (Laura) Constance Collier, 50, 232 perfs.; Dangerous Corner by J. B. Priestley 10/27 at New York's Empire Theater, with Cecil Holm, Jean Dixon, Mary Servoss, 51, 206 perfs.; For Services Rendered by W. Somerset Maugham 11/1 at London's Globe Theatre with Ralph (David) Richardson, 29, Flora Robson, 29, Cedric Hardwicke; Biography by S. N. Behrman 12/12 at New York's Guild Theater, with Earle Larimore, Ina Claire, Jay Fassett, 283 perfs.

"Manifesto of the Theater of Cruelty" ("Manifeste du théâtre de la cruatuté") by Antonin Artaud is published at Paris (see 1927).

Washington's Folger Library opens. The great Shakespearean collection has been funded by the late Standard Oil Co. chairman Henry Clay Folger, who retired in 1928 to devote all his attention to his Shakespeare library and died without issue at Brooklyn, N.Y., in June 1930 at age 73.

Minnie Maddern Fiske dies of heart failure at Hollis, N.Y., February 15 at age 66; Lady Gregory at her Coole Park estate in County Galway May 22 at age 80; New York theatrical booking agent William Morris sits down to a game of pinochle with three vaudevillians at the Friars' Club in West 48th Street, begins playing at 12:15 in the morning of November 2, and drops dead of a heart attack 15 minutes later at age 59; playwright Eugène Brieux dies at Nice December 6 at age 74.

Radio: Burns and Allen 2/15 on CBS with comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen, who will move to television in 1950; One Man's Family 4/29 on West Coast NBC stations with J. Anthony Smythe as retired San Francisco stockbroker Henry Barbour, Minetta Ellen as his wife, Fanny (to 5/8/1959). California writer Carlton E. Morse, 30, has created the show, which will go national next year and continue for decades; The Jack Benny Show 5/2 on NBC with Milwaukee-born violinist-comedian Benny (originally Benjamin Kubelsky), 38, who has toured in vaudeville (originally as Ben K. Benny), appeared last year in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and begins a show that will continue for 23 years with the help of Benny's wife, Mary Livingston, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and scriptwriters who will work endless variations on the themes of Benny's stinginess, his Maxwell car, his violin playing, and his age. Perpetually 39, Benny will later move to CBS, go on television in 1955, and continue for another 10 years; Today's Children 5/15 on NBC's Blue Network is a 15-minute "soap opera" created by former schoolteacher Irna Phillips, 31, in a revamping of the soap opera Painted Dreams that she wrote for Chicago's WGN beginning in 1930. Phillips played the role of Mother Moynihan on Painted Dreams and plays the role of Mother Moran; Vic and Sade 6/29 on NBC with Art van Harvey as Vic, Bernardine Flynn as Sade in a series created and written by Paul Rhymer, 25 (to 9/29/1944); Just Plain Bill 9/19 on CBS is a 15-minute soap opera that began last year as an evening show. Featuring a small-town barber who married above himself and is now a widower, it has been created by Chicago advertising executives Anne Ashenhurst (née Schumacher), 28, and E. Frank Hummert, 48, who recognize that stay-at-home housewives are the nation's chief purchasers (to 10/55); The Fred Allen Show 10/23 on CBS with former vaudeville juggler Allen (originally John Florence Sullivan), 38. His cast of comedians will include his wife, Portland Hoffa. He will have a half-hour show beginning 6/28/1942 and will continue until 6/29/1949, when guests will include Jack Benny; Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century 11/7 on CBS (to 3/1947); Walter Winchell's Journal 12/4 on NBC's Blue Network with Harlem-born New York Daily Mirror columnist Walter Winchell (originally Winschel), 35: "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea, let's go to press!"

Films: Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel with Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John and Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery, Jean Hersholt; Mervyn LeRoy's I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang with Paul Muni; Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack's King Kong with Fay Wray, Carlsbad, N.M.-born actor Bruce Cabot (originally Jacques Etienne de Bujac), 27; Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise with Georgia-born actress (Ellen) Miriam Hopkins, 29, Oklahoma City-born actress Kay Francis (originally Katherine Edwina Gibbs), 27, Herbert Marshall. Also: George Cukor's A Bill of Divorcement with John Barrymore, Hartford, Conn.-born actress Katharine (Houghton) Hepburn, 26 (Bryn Mawr '28); Josef von Sternberg's Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich (who sells her virtue for 85¢—the price of a meal for herself and her child), Herbert Marshall, English-born actor Cary Grant (originally Archibald Alexander Leach), 28; Monta Bell's Downstairs with John Gilbert, Paul Lukas, Virginia Bruce (Mrs. John Gilbert), Hedda Hopper, Reginald Owen; Clarence Brown's Emma with Marie Dressler, Jean Hersholt, screenplay by Frances Marion; Marc Allegret's Fanny with Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Charpin; Norman Z. McLeod's Horse Feathers with the Marx Brothers; Basil Dean's Looking on the Bright Side with Gracie Fields; Edward Cline's Million Dollar Legs with W. C. Fields, Sedalia, Mo.-born comedian Jack Oakie (originally Lewis Delaney Offield), 28; Elliott Nugent's The Mouthpiece with James Flood, Warren William; Karl Freund's The Mummy with Boris Karloff, Zita Johann; James Whale's The Old Dark House with Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Santa Monica-born actress Gloria Stuart (originally Gloria von Dietrich Stuart Finch), 22; Tay Garnett's One-Way Passage with Kay Francis, William Powell; Polish-born director Richard Boleslawski (originally Rysard Shrzednicki)'s Rasputin and the Empress with John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Morgan, Diana Wynyard; Jack Conway's Red-Headed Woman with Jean Harlow as a gold-digging secretary who sleeps her way up the social ladder, gets found out, and lands in Paris with a new sugar daddy and a stud chauffeur (uncensored script by Anita Loos), Chester Morris; Howard Hawks's Scarface with Paul Muni, New York-born actress Ann Dvorak (originally Anna McKim), 22. The film is far more violent than anything yet seen; Hawks has reportedly told his people, "Screw the Hays Office. Start the picture and make it as realistic, as exciting, as grisly as possible," but its ending has been rewritten and reshot twice to satisfy demands by the 10-year-old Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (see Production Code, 1934).

The world's first drive-in movie theater opens on the north side of Admiral Wilson Blvd., at Camden, N.J., where chemical-plant manager Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr., 32, has invested $25,000 to create what Variety will call an "ozone." He will patent the idea next year but will receive royalties from only a few of the thousands of exhibitors who follow his lead (see 1946).