1935 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: Waiting for Lefty by actor-playwright Clifford Odets, now 28, 1/5 at New York's Civic Repertory Theater on 14th Street, with Luther Adler, Sanford Meisner, 168 perfs.; The Old Maid by Zöe Akins (who has adapted the Edith Wharton novel) 1/7 at New York's Empire Theater, with Australian-born actress Judith (originally Frances Margaret) Anderson, 36, Helen Menken, 305 perfs.; The Petrified Forest by Robert Sherwood 1/7 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Humphrey Bogart, Leslie Howard, Peggy Conklin, 197 perfs.; Point Valaine by Noël Coward 1/16 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Broderick Crawford, 55 perfs.; Three Men on a Horse by George Abbott and John Cecil Holm 1/30 at New York's Playhouse Theater (to Fulton Theater 11/36), with Garson Kanin, Millard Mitchell, Sam Levene, Shirley Booth, 835 perfs.; Adrienne Ambrossat by Georg Kaiser 2/5 at Vienna's Theater in der Josefstadt; Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets 2/19 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Morris Carnovsky, Luther Adler, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Roman Bohnen, New York-born actor John Garfield (originally Jules Garfinkle), 21, directed by Harold Clurman, 209 perfs.; Till the Day I Die and Waiting for Lefty by Odets 3/26 at New York's Longacre Theater with a top price of $1.50 per seat in a production by the Group Theater founded 4 years ago, 136 perfs.; There Was a Prisoner (Y avait un presonnier) by Jean Anouilh 3/21 at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris; Our Power and Our Glory (Var aere og var makt) by Nordahl Grieg 5/4 at Bergen's Den National Scene denounces the owners of Norway's merchant fleet who profited from the Great War; Night Must Fall by Welsh-born English playwright (George) Emlyn Williams, 29, 5/31 at London's Duchess Theatre, with Williams as Dan, May Whitty, Matthew Boulton, Angela Baddeley, 436 perfs.; Winterset by Maxwell Anderson 9/25 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Burgess Meredith, 26, Richard Bennett, Margo (Mexican-born actress Maria Marguerita Guadelupe Boldao y Castilla, 17) is based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case, 195 perfs.; Dead End by Sidney Kingsley 10/28 at New York's Belasco Theater, with New York-born actor Joseph Downing, 32, Sheila Trent, 268 perfs.; Call It a Day by C. L. Anthony (Dodie Smith) 10/30 at London's Globe Theatre, with Fay Compton, 509 perfs.; Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot 11/1 at London's Duchess Theatre (it was performed in June of last year at Canterbury), with Robert Speaight in a play based on the death of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, at the hands of Henry II's knights in 1170, 113 perfs. (Eliot has seen a premier of his Sweeney Agonistes at Vassar and promised Hallie Flanagan a play about Becket); Tiger at the Gates (La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu) by Jean Giraudoux 11/21 at the Théâtre de l'Athenée, Paris; Boy Meets Girl by Bucharest-born playwright Bella Spewack (née Cohen) and her Russian-born husband, Samuel, both 36, 11/27 at New York's Cort Theater, with Jerome Cowan, Garson Kanin, Everett Sloane, 669 perfs.; Sweeney Agonistes by T. S. Eliot 12/10 at London's Westminster Theatre, with John Moody, Patrick Ross, Isobel Scaife, 15 perfs.

Former drama teacher-historian George Pierce Baker dies of pneumonia at New York January 6 at age 68; playwright Augustus Thomas of a heart attack at a Nyack, N.Y., golf club August 2 at age 77; Broadway theater tycoon Charles B. Dillingham of arteriosclerosis at New York's Astor Hotel August 30 at age 66; actress-manager Dame Margaret (Madge) Kendal at Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, September 14 at age 86; actor DeWolf Hopper at Kansas City, Mo., September 23 at age 77; playwright Langdon Mitchell at his native Philadelphia October 21 at age 73; actor-director Moffat Johnston at Norwalk, Conn., November 3 at age 49.

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Joan Littlewood, 21, founds the Theatre Union, an experimental group, at Manchester. Director Littlewood will reorganize the Union in 1945 as the Theatre Workshop and open in 1953 at London's Theatre Royal with a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

Radio: Major Bowes Amateur Hour 3/24 on NBC with onetime U.S. intelligence officer Major Edward Bowes, 60, as emcee in a program that will continue until Bowes's death in June 1946. By mid-1936, he will be auditioning 500 to 700 amateur entertainers per week (out of some 10,000 weekly applicants), many of whom will wind up on New York City's relief rolls; The American Half Hour 4/6 on BBC with Manchester Guardian correspondent Alistair Cooke, 27; Fibber McGee and Molly 4/16 on NBC Blue Network stations with comedians Jim Jordan, 39, and his wife, Marian (née Driscoll) (to 1957); Lights Out 4/17 on NBC Red Network stations is a horror show created by NBC Chicago staff writer Wyllis Cooper, who will leave next year and turn the program over to Arch Oboler, now 36; Pepper Young's Family 6/29 on NBC (daytime) with Curtis Arnall in a soap opera written by New York-born playwright Elaine Carrington (née), 45 (to 1/16/1959); Backstage Wife 8/5 on Mutual Broadcasting stations (daytime) stars Vivian Fridell as Mary Noble in a soap opera (it will move to NBC in March of next year) created by Anne Ashenhurst and her husband, E. Frank Hummert (to 1/2/1959); Gang Busters 7/20 on NBC. Developed by Phillips H. Lord, the show will move to CBS early next year and continue for more than 20 years.

Films: Clarence Brown's Anna Karenina with Greta Garbo, Fredric March; James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein with English character actress Elsa Lanchester (Elizabeth Sullivan), 32, Boris Karloff; George Cukor's David Copperfield with British-born actor Freddie Bartholomew (Frederick Llewellyn), 11, W. C. Fields, Lionel Barrymore; John Ford's The Informer with Victor McLaglen; Henry Hathaway's Lives of a Bengal Lancer with Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, C. (Charles) Aubrey Smith, 72; Frank Lloyd's Mutiny on the Bounty with Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone; Sam Wood's A Night at the Opera with the Marx Brothers, Kitty Carlisle; Leo McCarey's Ruggles of Red Gap with Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles; Jack Conway's A Tale of Two Cities with Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allen, Edna May Oliver, Basil Rathbone, Blanche Yurka; Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps with Robert Donat, 30, Madeleine Carroll (originally Marie Madeleine Bernadette O'Carroll), 29, Godfrey Tearle, 50; Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda documentary Triumph of the Will extolling last year's Nuremberg rallies. Also: Clarence Brown's Ah, Wilderness with Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Aline MacMahon, Eric Lindon; William Keighley's "G"-Men with James Cagney; William Wyler's The Good Fairy with Margaret Sullavan, Herbert Marshall; Basil Dean's Look Up and Laugh with Gracie Fields; Abel Gance's Lucrèce Borgia with Edwige Feuillière (née Edwige Caroline Cunati), 27, who appears in a brief nude sequence and will go on to have a major career in Paris's legitimate theater; Clyde Bruckman's The Man on the Flying Trapeze with W. C. Fields; Richard Boleslawski's Les Misérables with Fredric March, Charles Laughton; Harold Young's The Scarlet Pimpernel with Leslie Howard, Tasmanian-born actress Merle Oberon (Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson), 24; William Dieterle's The Story of Louis Pasteur with Paul Muni.

Twentieth Century-Fox is created by a merger of the 2-year-old Twentieth Century Pictures with the 20-year-old Fox Film Corp.

Air-conditioned movie theaters showing continuous films provide escape for Depression-beleaguered Americans, whose 15¢ tickets (5¢ at matinees) let them see double features, newsreels, cartoons, short subjects, travelogues, and coming attractions (exhibitors sometimes offer free dishes and machine-made glassware to attract patrons). Ushers with flashlights show patrons to their seats in ornate picture palaces.

"STICKS NIX HICK PIX" headlines Variety July 17. The 30-year-old show business newspaper reports that rural audiences reject motion pictures with bucolic stories and characters.

Marie Dressler dies of cancer at Santa Barbara, Calif., July 28 at age 65.