Volume 3 — Blistering Broadway

In the old days we used to hear startling tales of the decadence of the Paris theatre. It is no longer necessary to cross the pond to have one’s aesthetic (?) senses stirred. The New York stage will do it for you this season. Right behind the Broadway footlights you can see everything done in the name of Art from witnessing a young lady actually climb in a bed already occupied by a male to observing a squad of girls play strip poker until—

But let us go back to the beginning. They say that it is a dull season in New York and that no one is spending money—at least for theatre tickets. Hence the frantic effort to whet the jaded appetites of the elusive theatre-goers.

Let us list some of the more sprightly attractions. Bear in mind that some of them have excellent qualities. There is, for instance, Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle,” telling of an old couple who have broken all the conventions and of a younger couple about to follow in their footsteps. It is told with lively cleverness. No, indeed, the young people do not find a moral in the experiences of their elders. At the end they dash away to investigate the illicit love-in-a-cottage stuff themselves and Mr. Maugham points out that in life it doesn’t matter “what you do as much as what you are.” And also that “you can do anything in this world if you’re prepared to take the consequences and consequences depend on character.” All of which is excellent mental food for the 1921 flapper.

Then there is Cosmo Hamilton’s “The Silver Fox,” a little epic of a philandering wife with a penchant for young men and abbreviated socks. Clever, too, but decadent.

Also we might note “Ambush,” the opus of a young woman who likes pretty things and who is aided and abetted by her mother. Papa is a poor commuter who wakes up when daughter introduces a flip and married gentleman friend. When he protests, daughter slaps his face and snaps “Damn you!” Still, there is some excuse for “Ambush.” At least it is well written.

Here we turn to the plain every day efforts to be insolently sensational at any price.

“Getting Gertie’s Garter” (note the chaste title), was one of the earliest of the sexly stimulants. But garters have lost their vogue and, anyway, the short skirts have ruined their novelty. So the piece did not seriously upset New York.

Then there’s “Lilies of the Field,” for instance, a demi-mondaine treatise anent certain lilies who “toil not neither do they spin,” or however it was that the Good Book let down the gold diggers of the old days. This is especially recommended for the eighteen-year-old flapper.

With which we arrive at the real blush producers of the year. Consider “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.” Here a young woman, newly married, invites her old sweetheart to her boudoir at midnight, gets him squiffy and persuades him to undress and climb into bed. And undress he does, right down to his B. V. D.’s in front of the footlights, the appreciative heroine and the audience. Said heroine then clambers in—and friend husband appears. Yes, it’s all to teach hubby a lesson (one must make some concession to the police) and the B. V. D. person gets the air.

Broadway had been busily getting out its shekels to see Bluebeard and the B. V. D. youth when along came Avery Hopwood’s “The Demi-Virgin.” Now, Mr. Hopwood’s demi-virgin is not the demi-vierge of the French, from whom the noun comes. Since this is a family paper, we will explain demi-vierge as a young and ambitious lady who is broadminded up to a certain point. Mr. Hopwood’s heroine, however, is a movie queen who deserts her husband, another movie idol, on their wedding night. Although the husband finally succeeds in capturing his demi-wife in her boudoir and thereupon starts out to—well—anyway the real incident of the piece is the aforementioned strip poker party, where a half dozen film fillies discard garment after garment in a game designed to be thrilling. It isn’t a mere strip poker party but a “strip cupid” affair, the first to arrive at the cupid state to be the winner—or loser. The game progresses until it is a mere matter of a card’s turn who is to be cupid when, of course, the thing is ended.

This, then, is the state of the New York stage at this moment. Meanwhile, film fans see life on the screen through the eyes of little Rollo while, just around the corner, six young women are in the act of taking off their pink envelope thing-ums while an appreciative audience applauds. Not, of course, that we’re for censorship anywhere. But the New York stage producer seems to be able to get away with anything.

It is making it awfully hard for the musical comedy producer. Years ago he reached a certain limit in bare revelations and now the drama comes along and wins away the tired business man. Of course, the musical comedy maker isn’t giving up without a fight. Now and then he has an inspiration, as when, in the new Greenwich Village Follies, he reveals a lady to personify Art dressed exclusively in three golden leaves, each placed with fine discernment and discretion.

The next step on the New York stage will probably come when the musical comedy producer raises—or lowers—his limit. Despite our youth, we can recall—vividly—when he made the step from tights and stockings to bare legs, the only thing left is for him to ape the Parisian producer and have costumes stop their upward trend at the waist. We shall see, we shall see!

* * *

Hibrow Column

Speaking about high-brow poetry, we have from the Saturday Evening Post (page 26, October 15th), real classy lyrics on how to eat or drink something. The poem isn’t quite clear as to whether Mr. Bloodgood was eating a rotten apple or merely taking a shot of moonshine, but anyway, it’s high-brow stuff—

* * *

Pathfinder Pulls This

The prisoner threw the magazines across his cell in disgust and swore eloquently. “Nothin’ but continued stories,” he raged, “an’ I’m to be hanged next Tuesday.”

* * *

Reversed English

Three southern gents of color were engaged in an argument.

First Darkey—“My wife is some cook!”

Second Darkey—“My wife is not much of a cook, but she is some wash-woman.”

Third Darkey—“My wife is not much of a wash-woman and no cook, but she shuh can kiss!”

First Darkey—“She can, she can!”

Third Darkey—“Wat’s dat?”

First Darkey—“Can she? Can she?”

* * *

“That helps a good deal,” remarked the poker player as he drew the fourth ace.

* * *

Watch ’em Run

Sportsman (to friend at track meet)—“So you like to watch the runners, old man?”

Sport—“Yes, I surely do. That plump girl over there has two in one stocking.”

* * *

Stop That, Horace!

“What’s all that growling I hear?”

“Oh, that’s the ‘Hot Dog’ I just ate.”

* * *

Courtroom Pot Pourri

They just caught Roy Gardner!

Where was he standing?

On Hightower watching Fatty Arbuckle before he visited Richmond, Virginia.

* * *

Towser Likes His Morsel

The man getting his hair cut noticed that the barber’s dog, which was lying on the floor beside the chair, had his eyes fixed on his master at work. “Nice dog that,” said the customer.

“He is, sir.”

“He seems very fond of watching you cut hair.”

“It ain’t that, sir,” explained the barber. “You see, sometimes I make a mistake and snip off a little bit of a customer’s ear.”

* * *

A Tit-Bit

It was washing day and John had been kept from school to look after the baby. Mother sent him into the garden to play, but it was not long before cries disturbed her. “John, what is the matter with baby now?” she inquired from her wash-tub.

“I don’t know what to do with him, mother,” replied John. “He’s dug a hole and wants to bring it into the house.”

* * *

Misplaced Vertebra

Here’s a good story on a Minneapolis chiropractor. He started his treatment on the new patient by rubbing his back. Then he turned the patient over and applied the treatment in front. The patient stood the tickling as long as he could, then with a look of content in his eyes he sez, “Kiss me, Doc.”

* * *

Charlie’s Delicate Habits

A nice young man called on a nice young lady and spent the evening recently. When he arrived there was not a cloud in the sky, so he carried no umbrella and wore no goloshes nor mackintosh. At 10:00 o’clock when he arose to go, it was raining pitchforks and grindstones.

“My, my, my!” said the nice young lady, “if you go out in this storm you will catch your death of cold.”

“I’m afraid I might,” was the trembling answer.

“Well, I’ll tell you what—stay all night; you can have Tom’s room, as he is visiting uncle and aunt up in the country. Yes, occupy Tom’s room. Excuse me a minute, and I’ll just run up and see if it’s in order.”

The young lady fled gracefully upstairs to see if any tidying was necessary. In five minutes she came down to announce that the room was in readiness, but no Charles was in sight. In a very few minutes, however, he appeared, dripping wet and out of breath from running and with a bundle in a newspaper under his arm.

The nice young lady greeted him with: “Why, Charles, where have you been?”

“Been home after my night shirt,” was his reply, as he hung his hat up to drip.

* * *

That train smokes a lot.

Yes, and choos, too.