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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d02b9ae --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66294 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66294) diff --git a/old/66294-0.txt b/old/66294-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c7d601e..0000000 --- a/old/66294-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9558 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Seven Lively Arts, by Gilbert Seldes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Seven Lively Arts - -Author: Gilbert Seldes - -Release Date: September 13, 2021 [eBook #66294] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS *** - - - - -Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is indicated by _underscores_; -boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=. - - - - -[Illustration: - - The 7 Lively - Arts - _by_ - Gilbert Seldes -] - - -[Illustration: THE CUSTODIANS OF THE KEYSTONE. By Ralph Barton] - - - - - THE SEVEN - LIVELY ARTS - - By - - _Gilbert Seldes_ - - “... _But, beside those great men, there is a certain number - of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which - they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we - cannot get elsewhere; and these, too, have their place in - general culture, and must be interpreted to it by those who - have felt their charm strongly, and are often the objects of a - special diligence and a consideration wholly affectionate, just - because there is not about them the stress of a great name and - authority._” - - --WALTER PATER - - -[Illustration] - - - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMXXIV - - - - - THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS - - Copyright, 1924 - By Harper & Brothers - Printed in the U. S. A. - - _First Edition_ - - B-Y - - - - -TO MY FATHER - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - _The Keystone the Builders Rejected_ 3 - - _An Imaginary Conversation_ 27 - - _“I Am Here To-Day”: Charlie Chaplin_ 41 - - _Say It with Music_ 57 - - _Tearing a Passion to Ragtime_ 69 - - _Toujours Jazz_ 83 - - _Mr Dooley, Meet Mr Lardner_ 111 - - _A Tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld_ 129 - - _The Darktown Strutters on Broadway_ 149 - - _Plan for a Lyric Theatre in America_ 161 - - _The One-Man Show_ 177 - - _The Dæmonic in the American Theatre_ 191 - - _These, Too_ 203 - - _The “Vulgar” Comic Strip_ 213 - - _The Krazy Kat That Walks by Himself_ 231 - - _The Damned Effrontery of the Two-a-Day_ 249 - - _They Call It Dancing_ 267 - - _St Simeon Stylites_ 277 - - _Burlesque, Circus, Clowns, and Acrobats_ 291 - - _The True and Inimitable Kings of Laughter_ 297 - - _The Great God Bogus_ 309 - - _An Open Letter to the Movie Magnates_ 323 - - _Before a Picture by Picasso_ 345 - - - APPENDICES - - _Appendix to “I Am Here To-Day”_ 361 - - _“Bananas” and Other Songs_ 367 - - _Appendix to “These, Too_...” 374 - - _The Krazy Kat Ballet_ 377 - - _Further Note on the Fratellini_ 380 - - _The Cinema Novel_ 383 - - _Acknowledgments_ 391 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - The Custodians of the Keystone. _By Ralph Barton_ _Frontispiece_ - - _Page_ - Charlie Chaplin. _By E. E. Cummings_ 42 - - Irving Berlin (_Photo. Maurice Goldberg_) 74 - - George Gershwin (_Photo. Carl Klein_) 92 - - The Sun’s Dwelling. _By Joseph Urban_ 132 - (_From the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915. Photo. M. N. Lawrence_) - - George M. Cohan. _By Alfred Frueh_ 138 - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - - Willie Collier. By Alfred Frueh 142 - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - - Eddie Cantor. _By Roland Young_ 179 - - Frank Tinney. _By Roland Young_ 181 - - Ed Wynn. _By Roland Young_ 183 - - Fanny Brice (_Photo. Steichen_) 192 - - Al Jolson (_Photo. Muray_) 198 - - Leon Errol. _By Alfred Frueh_ 204 - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - - Bert Savoy (_Photo. Abbe_) 208 - - Mike and Mike. _By T. E. Powers_ 218 - (_Copyright by the Star Company. By permission of the - publishers of the_ New York Journal) - - A Cartoon. _By R. L. Goldberg_ 228 - (_Courtesy of_ Life--_from the Burlesque Sunday Supplement - Number_) - - Fragment from the Krazy Kat of the Door. _By George Herriman_ 240 - (_Copyright by the Star Company_) - - Krazy Kat. _By George Herriman_ 244 - (_Courtesy of the artist and the_ New York American) - - Vaudeville. _By Charles Demuth_ 254 - - Joe Cook (_Photo. Morton Harvey_) 260 - - Irene Castle (_Photo. Muray_) 268 - - Cirque Medrano. _By Henri Toulouse-Lautrec_ 292 - (_By permission of Paul Rosenberg & Co., Inc._) - - National Winter Garden Burlesque. _By E. E. Cummings_ - (_Courtesy of_ The Dial) 294 - - Paolo 298 - - Francesco 298 - - Alberto 299 - - The Fratellini. _By Fernand Leger_ 300 - - A Painting. _By Pablo Picasso_ 346 - (_By permission of Paul Rosenberg & Co., Inc._) - - - - -NOTE - - -This book was written while on holiday some three thousand miles away -from data, documents, and means of verification. It is written from -memory and, although I have had time and have tried to check up, I feel -sure that the safest thing is to let it go as cautious merchants do -when they send out statements--with the _caveat_: E. and O. E.--errors -and omissions excepted. I haven’t tried to write a history of any of -the lively arts, nor intended to mention all of those who practice -them. I should, however, feel sorry if I have omitted anyone who has -given me intense pleasure, even though the omission has not, in any -way, the countenance of a slur. - -Everything else that properly belongs in a preface has found its way -into the two chapters: _The Great God Bogus_ and _Before a Picture by -Picasso_--and the acknowledgments are numerous and serious enough to -need a place for themselves in the appendix. - - G. S. - - _Ile St Louis--New York City - March 1923--February 1924_ - - - - - _The Keystone - the Builders Rejected_ - - - - -THE KEYSTONE THE BUILDERS REJECTED - - _For fifteen years there has existed in the United States, and - in the United States alone, a form of entertainment which, - seemingly without sources in the past, restored to us a kind - of laughter almost unheard in modern times. It came into being - by accident; it had no pretensions to art. For ten years or - more it added an element of cheerful madness to the lives of - millions and was despised and rejected by people of culture - and intelligence. Suddenly--suddenly as it appeared to them--a - great genius arose and the people of culture conceded that in - his case, but in his case alone, art existed in slap-stick - comedy; they did not remove their non expedit from the form - itself._ - - _Perhaps only those of us who care for the rest know how - good Charlie is. Perhaps only the inexpressive multitudes - who have laughed and not wondered why they laughed can know - how fine slap-stick is. For myself, I have had no greater - entertainment than these dear and preposterous comedies, and - all I can do is remember. The long, dark, narrow passage set - out with uncomfortable chairs; the sharp almond odours, the - sense of uncertainty, and the questionable piano; and then upon - the screen, in a drab grey and white, jiggling insecurely, - something strange and wonderful occurred. It was mingled with - dull and stupid things; but it had a fire, a driving energy - of its own--and it was funny! Against all our inhibitions - and habits it played games with men and women; it made them - ridiculous and mad; it seemed to have no connexion with the - logic of human events, trusting to an undecipherable logic of - its own. A few scholars found the commedia dell’arte living - again; a few artists saw that the galvanic gestures and - movements were creating fresh lines and interesting angles. - And a nation cared for them intensely until the remorseless - hostility of the genteel began to corrupt the purity of - slap-stick. That is where we are now: too early to write an - epitaph--late enough to pay a tribute._ - - -Lest the year 1914 should be not otherwise distinguished in history, -it may be recorded that it was then, or a year earlier, or possibly a -year later, that the turning point came in the history of the American -moving picture. The first of the great mergers arrived--an event not -unforeseen in itself, a “logical development” the press agents called -it--seeming to establish the picture as a definitely accepted form of -entertainment. It was a moment when a good critic might have foretold -the course of the moving picture during the next decade, for at that -time the Triangle of Fine Arts (D. W. Griffith), Kay-Bee (Thomas H. -Ince), and Keystone (Mack Sennett) was formed. Two of these names were -already known, and of the two one was to become, for a time, the -most notable name in the profession; the third was hidden behind the -obscure symbol of the Keystone; it represented one who had acted in, -and was now directing, the most despised, and by all odds the most -interesting, films produced in America. Mr Griffith was already entered -on that road which has since ruined him as a director; he was producing -_Intolerance_, and, if I may borrow a phrase from the Shuberts, his -personal supervision was not always given to the Triangle-Fine Arts -releases; Mr Ince was presently to meditate upon the possibility of -joining the word “super” to the word “spectacle,” thus creating the -word “superspectacle”; and Mr Sennett--by a process of exclusion one -always arrives at Mr Sennett. He is the Keystone the builders rejected. - -I know nothing more doleful as a subject of conversation than the -social-economics of the moving picture; what was remarkable about the -Triangle was not its new method of distribution, its new hold on the -timid exhibitor, or its capacity for making or losing fortunes. The -thing to note is that the two “serious” producers, and the hard-headed -business men who invested money in their efforts, thought it well -to associate with themselves the best producer of vulgar slap-stick -comedy. More than that, they combined in a peculiar ratio for the -scheme provided that there was to be released each week either a Fine -Arts or an Ince picture; and that with each of these was to be shown -a Keystone comedy. So that those who were perpetually being caught in -the rain, or missing the eleven-o’clock from Philadelphia to New York, -saw twice as many Keystone comedies as (a) Fine Arts or (b) Kay-Bee -releases. The recent all-hailing of Mr Chaplin as an artist because of -his work in _The Kid_, the bright young reputations of Harold Lloyd -and Buster Keaton, indicate that most critics of the moving picture -caught the train and missed the shower. They certainly missed the -comedies; for the Fine Arts and Ince pictures were in their time the -best pictures produced; and the Keystone comedies were consistently and -almost without exception better. - -This is not the place to discuss the shortcomings of the feature film; -for the moment, let the dreadful opulent gentility of a Cecil De Mille -production serve only to sharpen the saucy gaiety of the comic, the -dulness of a Universal set off the revelry of slap-stick. There is one -serious point which a good critic (Aristotle, for example) would have -discovered when he regarded the screen as long ago as 1914 and became -aware of the superiority of the comic films. He would have seen at once -that while Mr Griffith and Mr Ince were both developing the technique -of the moving picture, they were exploiting their discoveries with -materials equally or better suited to another medium: the stage or the -dime novel or whatever. Whereas Mr Sennett was already so enamoured of -his craft that he was doing with the instruments of the moving picture -precisely those things which were best suited to it--those things which -could not be done with any instrument but the camera, and could appear -nowhere if not on the screen. - -This does not mean that nothing but slap-stick comedy is proper -to the cinema; it means only that everything in slap-stick _is_ -cinematographic; and since perceiving a delicate adjustment of means -to end, or a proper relation between method and material, is a source -of pleasure, Mr Sennett’s developments were more capable of pleasing -the judicious than those of either of his two fellow-workers. The -highly logical humanist critic of the films could have foreseen in -1914--without the decade of trial and error which has intervened--what -we see now: that the one field in which the picture would most notably -declare itself a failure would be that of the drama (Elinor Glyn-Cecil -De Mille-Gilbert Parker, in short). Without a moment’s hesitation he -would have put his finger on those two elements in the cinema which, -being theoretically sound, had a chance of practical success: the -spectacle (including the spectacular melodrama) and the grotesque -comedy. Several years later he would have added one word more, that -grotesque tragedy might conceivably succeed. For it is not only the -fun in the Keystones which makes them successful: it is the method of -presentation. - -The rightness of the spectacle film is implicit in its name: the -screen is a place on which things can be _seen_, and so long as a film -depends upon the eye it is right for the screen--and whether it is -right in any other regard depends upon taste and judgment and skill. -Omit as irrelevant the news reels, animated cartoons, educational and -travel films--all of them good; omit equally those printed jokes and -clippings from the _Literary Digest_ which are at once the greatest -trial _and_ error of the screen. What remains? The feature film and -_The Cabinet of Dr Caligari_. This--the only film of high fantasy I -have ever seen--is the seeming exception which proves the rule, since -it owes its success to the skilfully concealed exploitation of the -materials and technique of the spectacle and of the comic film, and not -to the dramatic quality of its story. The studio settings in distortion -represent the spectacle; they are variations of scenery or “location”; -the chase over the roofs is a psychological parallel to the Keystone -cops; and the weak moment of this superb picture is that in which the -moving picture always fails, in the double revelation at the end, like -that of _Seven Keys to Baldpate_, representing “drama.” - -No. The drama film is almost always wrong, the slap-stick almost -always right; and it is divinely just that the one great figure of -the screen should have risen out of the Keystone studios. He came -too early; Chaplin spoiled nearly everything else for us, and he is -always used by those who dislike slap-stick to prove their case. -Their case, regrettably, is in a fair way to be proved, for slap-stick -is in danger. The hypothetical critic mentioned above has not yet -occurred; Mr Bushnell Dimond, the best actual critic of the movies, -is without sympathy for Mack Sennett and calls him a Bourbon, in the -sense of one who forgets nothing and learns less. What Mr Sennett has -needed long since is encouragement and criticism; and stupid newspaper -critics (who write half-columns about a new Gloria Swanson picture -and add “the comedy which ends the bill is _Down in the Sewer_”) have -left slap-stick wholly without direction.[1] At the same time the -tradition of gentility, the hope of being “refined,” has touched the -grotesque comedy; its directors have heard abuse and sly remarks about -custard pies so long that they have begun to believe in them, and the -madness which is a monstrous sanity in the movie comedy is likely to -die out. The moving picture is being prettified; the manufacturers -and exhibitors are growing more and more pretentious, and the riot -of slap-stick seems out of place in a “presentation” which begins -with the overture to _Tannhäuser_, and includes a baritone from the -imperial opera house in Warsaw singing _Indian Love Lyrics_ in front -of an art curtain. In Paris there are one or two Chaplin films visible -nearly every day; in New York the Rialto Theatre alone seems to make -a habit of Chaplin revivals and of putting its comic feature in the -electric sign. The Capitol, the largest, and rapidly becoming the most -genteel, of moving picture palaces (but who ever heard of an opera -palace?) frequently announces a programme of seven or eight items -without a comedy among them; and you have to go to squalid streets and -disreputable neighborhoods if you want to see Chaplin regularly. He -could ask for no finer tribute, to be sure; but it is not much to our -credit that the greatest mimic of our time has no theatre named after -him, that it was in Berlin, not in Chicago or New York, that the first -Chaplin festival took place, and that _Tillie’s Punctured Romance_, -a film intensely important in his development, was last billed in -a converted auction room on the lower East Side of New York, where -Broadway would find it vulgar. - -There were always elements in the Keystone which jeopardized its -future--it lacked variety, it was often dull, its lapses of taste were -serious. (I transfer the name of Keystone to the _genre_ of which -it was the most notable example; it was for long, and may still be, -superior to most of the others.) But, while there is still time, its -miraculously good qualities can be caught and possibly preserved. The -ideal comedy of Mack Sennett is a fairly standardized article; too -much so, perhaps, but the elements are sound. They include a simple, -usually preposterous plot, frequently a burlesque of a serious play; -more important are the characters, grotesque in bulk, form, or make-up; -and, finally, the events which have as little connexion with the plot -as, say, a clog dance in a musical comedy. In the early days of the -Keystone, it is said, the plot was almost nonexistent in advance, and -developed out of the set and the props. The one which was called, in -revival, _The Pile Driver_, must have been such a film, for its plot -is that two men meet a pretty girl near a river and they find a huge -mallet. It is a film full of impromptus--not very brilliant ones, -as a matter of fact--in which Sennett and Chaplin and Mabel Normand -each occasionally give flashes of their qualities. A few years later -you see the same thing when the trick of working up a film from the -material in hand has become second nature. _His Night Out_ presents Ben -Turpin and Charlie Chaplin as equal comedians: two men on a drinking -party, stumbling into a luxurious hotel, reverting automatically to -the saloon from which they have been thrown, mutually assisting and -hindering each other in a serious effort to do something they cannot -define, but which they feel to be of cosmic importance. Later, one -finds a more sophisticated kind of comic. _Bright Eyes_ has to do -with a gawky young man, reputed rich, received into a wealthy family, -engaged to the daughter, denounced as an impostor, reduced to the -kitchen, flirting there with the maid, restored to favour, and, nobly -refusing the daughter’s hand, marrying the maid. Here Ben Turpin had -good moments, but much of the gaiety of the film depended upon Chester -Conklin (or one who much resembles him) as another servant in the -house, bundling himself up in furs like Peary in the Arctic, bidding -farewell at an imaginary outpost of civilization, and striding into--a -huge refrigerator, to bring back a ham before the adoring eyes of the -cook. - -The comic film is by nature adventurous and romantic, and I think -what endears it to us is that the adventure is picaresque and the -romance wholly unsentimental--that is, both are pushed to the edge of -burlesque. For the romance you have a love affair, frequently running -parallel to a parody of itself. The hero is marked by peculiarities -of his own: the Chaplin feet, the Hank Mann bang and sombre eyes, -the Turpin squint, the Arbuckle bulk; against these oddities and -absurdities plays the serene, idle beauty of a simple girl (Edna -Purviance or Mabel Normand in her lovely early days), and only on -occasions a comic in her own right like Louise Fazenda or Polly Moran. -In some five hundred slap-stick comedies I do not remember one single -moment of sentimentality; and it seems to me that every look and -gesture of false chivalry and exaggerated devotion has been parodied -there. The characteristic moment, after all, is when the comedy is -ended, and just as the hero is about to kiss the heroine he winks -broadly and ironically at the spectators. Our whole tradition of love -is destroyed and outraged in these careless comedies; so also our -tradition of heroism. And since the moving picture, quite naturally, -began by importing the whole baggage of the romantic and sentimental -novel and theatre, the moving-picture comedy has at last arrived at -burlesquing its silly-serious half-sister. Two years before _Merton -of the Movies_ appeared, Mack Sennett, with the help of Ben Turpin’s -divinely crossed eyes, had consummated a burlesque of Messrs Griffith, -Ince, and Lubitsch, in _A Small Town Idol_, far more destructively, -be it said, than Chaplin in his _Carmen_, and with a vaster fun than -_Merton_. - -Everything incongruous and inconsequent has its place in the unrolling -of the comic film: love and masquerade and treachery; coincidence and -disguise; heroism and knavishness; all are distorted, burlesqued, -exaggerated. And--here the camera enters--all are presented at an -impossible rate; the culmination is in the inevitable struggle and -the conventional pursuit, where trick photography enters and you see -the immortal Keystone cops in their flivver, mowing down hundreds of -telegraph poles without abating their speed, dashing through houses or -losing their wheels and continuing, blown to bits and reassembled in -midair; locomotives running wild, yet never destroying the cars they so -miraculously send spinning before them; airplanes and submarines in and -out of their elements--everything capable of motion set into motion; -and at the height of the revel, the true catastrophe, the solution of -the preposterous and forgotten drama, with the lovers united under the -canopy of smashed motor cars, or the gay feet of Mr Chaplin gently -twinkling down the irised street. - -And all of this is done _with the camera, through action_ presented to -the eye. The secret of distortion is in the camera, and the secret of -pace in the projector. Regard them for a moment, regard the slap-stick -as every moment explains itself, and then go to the picture palace and -spend one-third of your time reading the flamboyancies of C. Gardner -Sullivan and another third watching the contortions of a famous actress -as she “registers” an emotion which action and photography should -present directly, and you will see why the comic film is superior. -There is virtually no registering in the comedy, there is no senseless -pantomime, and the titles are succinct and few. In _Bright Eyes_, as -the marriage of convenience is about to take place, the mother sweeps -in with these words, “Faint quick--he’s dead broke.” An absurd letter -or telegram is introduced to set the play going; the rest is literally -silence. - -What I have said about Chaplin regards him as a typical slap-stick -comedian.[2] The form would have succeeded without him and he has -passed beyond the form entirely. The other practitioners of the art -come out of his shadow, and some of them are excellent. What makes -Chaplin great is that he has irony and pity, he knows that you must -not have the one without the other; he has both piety and wit. Next -to him, for his work in _His Bread and Butter_ and a few other films, -stands Hank Mann, who translates the childlike gravity of Chaplin into -a frightened innocence, a serious endeavour to understand the world -which seems always hostile to him. He was trained, I have been told, -as a tragic actor on the East Side of New York, and he seems always -stricken with the cruelty and madness of an existence in which he alone -is logical and sane. If he, walking backward to get a last glimpse of -his beloved (after “A Waiter’s Farewell,” as the caption has it), steps -on the running board of a motor instead of a street car, he is willing -to pay the usual fare and let bygones be bygones. His black bang almost -meets his eyes, and his eyes are mournful and piteous; his gesture -is slow and rounded; a few of the ends of the world have come upon -his head and the eyelids are a little weary. He is the Wandering Jew -misdirected into comic life by an unscrupulous fate. - -His most notable opposite is Harold Lloyd, a man of no tenderness, -of no philosophy, the embodiment of American cheek and indefatigable -energy. His movements are all direct, straight; the shortest distance -between two points he will traverse impudently and persistently, even -if he is knocked down at the end of each trip; there is no poetry in -him, his whole utterance being epigrammatic, without overtone or image. -Yet once, at least, he too stepped into that lunatic Arcadia to which -his spirit is alien; not in _Grandma’s Boy_, which might just as well -have been done by Charles Ray, but in _A Sailor-made Man_. Here the -old frenzy fell upon him, the weakling won by guile, and instead of -fighting one man he laid out a mob from behind; something excessive, -topsy-turvy, riotous at last occurred in his ordered existence. He -is funny; but he has no vulgarity; he is smart. He amuses me without -making me laugh, and I figure him as a step toward gentility. - -Ben Turpin has progressed, fortunately without taking that step. In -_Bright Eyes_ he was mildly absurd; in _His Night Out_, with Chaplin, -he was tremendously funny; and what he learned there of the lesson of -the master he imported into his private masterpiece, _A Small Town -Idol_. Like Chaplin, he disarms you and endears himself; unlike him, -and often to Turpin’s advantage, he knows how to be ridiculous. One -always sees Chaplin’s impersonations as they see themselves. Is he a -count or a pretender, or an English gentleman, or a policeman, or a -tramp, the character is completely embodied; Chaplin never makes fun of -himself. The process of identification is complete and, apart from the -interest and the fun of the action, your chief pleasure is in awaiting -the inevitable denunciation. Ben Turpin, who has only a talent for -Chaplin’s genius, makes the most of it and lets you see through him. -His exaggerations do more than reveal--they betray, and above all -they betray the fact that Turpin is aware of the absurdities of his -characters; you see them objectively, and through him you see through -them. - -When he returns home as the Wild West screen hero, and his own picture -is shown before those who so recently had despised him, his deprecating -gesture before the screen on which his exploits are being shown is so -broad, so simple-silly, that it is more than a description of himself -as he thinks it is, and lets us perceive his absurdity. He is exactly a -zany. - -Three other buffoons of the old Keystone days retain their capacity -to be amusing: the galvanic, jack-in-the-box, Al St John; Mack Swain, -and Chester Conklin; they are exactly as they were ten years ago, and -one fancies they will never be great. The difficult person to be sure -about is Buster Keaton, who came to the pictures from vaudeville, -and has carried into his new medium his greatest asset, an enormous, -incorruptible gravity. He never smiles, they say, and I have sat -through some of his pictures--_The Boat_, for one--without seeing any -reason why he should. It was a long mechanical contrivance with hardly -any humour, and was considered a masterpiece; while _The Paleface_, -in which Keaton played an entomologist captured by Indians, passed -unnoticed. It had nearly everything a comic needs, and there were -certain movements _en masse_, certain crossings of the lines of action, -which were quite perfect. Keaton’s intense preoccupation and his -hard sense of personality are excellent. In _Cops_ he took a purely -Keystone subject and multiplied and magnified it to its last degree -of development: thousands of policemen rushed down one street; equal -thousands rushed up another; and before them fled this small, serious -figure, bent on self-justification, caught in a series of absurd -accidents, wholly law-abiding, a little distracted. I do not think one -will soon forget the exquisite close of that picture: the whole police -force forming a phalanx, hurled as one body into the courtyard of the -station--and then the little figure which, having been trapped within, -seems doomed to arrest, coming out, itself accoutred in uniform, and -quietly, quietly locking the huge doors behind it. It, yes; for by that -time Keaton has become wholly impersonal. So affecting Larry Semon has -never been; nor Clyde Cook; and behind them, but _longo intervallo_, -come the misguided creatures who make the kind of slap-stick which most -people think Sennett makes. I am sure there are other good comedians; -but I am not trying to make a catalogue. No one, in any case, has been -able to impose himself as these few have; and most of the others are so -near in method and manner to these that they require nothing fresh to -be said of them. - -It seemed for a moment, in 1922, that if a confessed murderer were set -free by a jury, he or she went into the movies; but if a moving-picture -actor was declared innocent, he was barred from the screen. The justice -of this I cannot discuss; yet a protest can be made against the -æsthetically high-minded who said that the real reason for barring the -films of “Fatty” Arbuckle was their vulgarity and their dulness. For -“Fatty” had gone over to a comedy more refined than slap-stick long -before 1922; and in 1914 he was neither stupid nor dull. Once indeed, -in _Fatty and Mabel Adrift_ (Mabel being Miss Normand) he came near to -the best of slap-stick, and the same picture was as photography and -printing, for sepia seascapes and light and shade, a superior thing -entirely. The fatuous, ingratiating smile was innocent then, in all -conscience, and as for vulgarity-- - -Let us, before we go to the heart of that question, look for a -moment at the comedy which was always set against the slap-stick to -condemn the custard-pie school of fun--the comedy of which the best -practitioners were indisputably Mr and Mrs Sidney Drew. In them there -was nothing offensive, except an enervating dulness. They pretended -to be pleasant episodes in our common life, the life of courtship and -marriage; they accepted all our conventions; and they were one and all -exactly the sort of thing which the junior class at high school acted -when money was needed to buy a new set of erasers for Miss Struther’s -course in mechanical drawing. The husband stayed out late at night or -was seen kissing a stenographer; the wife had trouble with a maid or -was extravagant at the best shops; occasionally arrived an ingenuity, -such as the romantic attachment of the wife to anniversaries contrasted -with her husband’s negligence--I seem to recall that to cure her he -brought her a gift one day in memory of Washington’s birthday. These -things were little stories, not even smoking-room stories; they were -acted entirely in the technique of the amateur stage; they were -incredibly genteel, in the milieu where “When Baby Came” is genteel; -neither in matter nor in manner did they employ what the camera and -the projector had to give. And, apart from the agreeable manners of Mr -and Mrs Sidney Drew, nothing made them successful except the corrupt -desire, on the part of the spectators, to be refined. - -Nothing of the sort operated in the far better (feature film) comedies -which Douglas Fairbanks made when he was with Fine Arts. To suit -his physique, they were almost all adventurous; they were always -entertaining. _Flirting With Fate_[3] presented a young man who had -decided to die and gave “Automatic Joe,” a gunman, his last fifty -dollars to “bump him off” unexpectedly. Once the agreement was made, -the tide of fortune turned for the young man, and, desiring earnestly -to live, he felt the paid hand of the assassin always upon his -shoulder. At the same time the gunman had reformed; his one object was -to return the unearned fifty dollars. And the cross-purposes, the chase -and flight, were within short distance of high farce. The comedies of -Charles Ray were also unpretentious, and also used the camera. These -and others were always perfectly decent; but none of them was refined. - -And there, essentially, we are back at slap-stick; for the refined -comedy was pretentious, and what is pretentious is vulgar in any -definition of the word; while slap-stick never pretended to be anything -but itself and could be disgusting or tasteless or dull, but it could -not be vulgar. I consider vulgar the thing which offends against the -canons of taste accepted by honest people, not by imitative people, -not by snobs. It is equally bad taste, presumably, to throw custard -pies and to commit adultery; but it is not bad taste to speak of -these things. What is intolerable only is the pretense, and it was -against pretentiousness that the slap-stick comedy had its hardest -fight. It showed a man sitting down on a lighted gas stove, and it -did not hesitate to disclose the underwear charred at the buttocks -which were the logical consequence of the action. There was never the -slightest suggestion of sexual indecency, or of moral turpitude, in the -Keystones; there was a fuller and freer use of gesture--gesture with -all parts of the human frame--than we are accustomed to. The laughter -they evoked was broad and long; it was thoracic, abdominal; it shook us -because it was really the earth trembling beneath our feet. The animal -frankness and health of these pictures constituted the ground of their -offense. And something more. - -For the Keystone offended our sense of security in dull and -business-like lives. Few of us imagined ourselves in the frenzy of -action which they set before us; none of us remained unmoved at -the freedom of fancy, the wildness of imagination, the roaring, -destructive, careless energy which it set loose. It was an ecstasy -of comic life, and in our unecstatic lives we fled from it to -polite comedy, telling ourselves that what we had seen was ugly and -displeasing. Often it was. I am stating the case for slap-stick, but -I do not wish to make myself responsible for the millions of feet of -stupidity and ugliness which have been released as comic films. I have -seen Ham and Bud and the imitators of Charlie Chaplin; I have seen -an egg splattered over a man’s face with such a degree of nauseous -ugliness that it seemed I could never see a comic again. But as like -as not, on the same bill was the James Young screen version of _The -Devil_ with George Arliss, or Geraldine Farrar in _Carmen_, or the -“_‘Affairs of’ Anatol_.” And when people who have seen these “artistic” -films, or the barber-shop scene in a Hitchcock revue or Eddie Cantor in -a dentist’s chair, exclaim (falsely) that moving-picture comedians do -nothing but throw pies, I am moved to wonder what on earth they are -expected to throw. They are using the eternal materials of their art, -precisely as Aristophanes used them and Rabelais, with already far too -many concessions to a debased and cowardly and artificial taste. At the -two extremes simple and sophisticated people have looked directly at -the slap-stick screen and loved it for itself alone; in between are the -people who can see nothing without the lorgnettes of prejudice provided -by fashion and gentility. The simple ones discovered and prospered -the slap-stick screen long before the sophisticated were aware of its -existence; they took it for what it was and cared nothing for the fact -that it was made by inartistic people and shown in reeking rooms for a -nickel. For long the poison of culture was powerless to enter; but not -long enough. - -I feel moderately certain that the slap-stick comedy is a good thing -for America to have; yet, being neither an apostle of pagan joy nor a -reformer, I have to put my plea for slap-stick on personal grounds. -It has given me immeasurable entertainment and I would like to see -it saved; I would like to see a bit more of its impromptus, its -unpremeditated laughter; I would like to do something to banish the -bleak refinement which is setting in upon it. - -Seven years ago, in an imaginary conversation, I made Mr David Wark -Griffith announce that he would produce _Helen of Troy_, and I made -him defend the Keystone comedy. It seemed to me then as now that there -is nothing incongruous in these subjects; properly made, they would -be equally unrefined, but _Helen of Troy_, being in the grand manner, -would be called “artistic.” Mr Griffith has not made _Helen of Troy_, -and the pre-eminent right to make it has passed from his hands. The -Keystone, with its variations, needs still an authoritative defender -and an authoritative critic. It is one of the few places where the -genteel tradition does not operate, where fantasy is liberated, where -imagination is still riotous and healthy. In its economy and precision -are two qualities of artistic presentation; it uses still everything -commonest and simplest and nearest to hand; in terror of gentility, it -has refrained from using the broad farces of literature--Aristophanes -and Rabelais and Molière--as material; it could become happily -sophisticated, without being cultured. But there is no fault inherent -in its nature, and its virtues are exceptional. For us to appreciate -slap-stick may require a revolution in our way of looking at the arts; -having taken thought on how we now look at the arts, I suggest that the -revolution is not entirely undesirable. - - - - - _An Imaginary - Conversation_ - - - - -AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION - - _The theatre of Dionysos. A great crowd is just leaving the - amphitheatre and as the attendants roll back the heavy awnings - and unleash the tent-poles, the moon, which has been excluded - for the performance, begins to filter in, and presently the - stone begins to throw off faint shimmers, and dark shadows fall - across the stage. The builded temple, which has been screened, - is now revealed, and its colours glow again, albeit in shades - not known to the light of day. The porticos of temples look - down upon the theatre, and olive trees stand dark and beautiful - on the hills. From afar the bustle of the town dies away, and, - perhaps, in a moment of unutterable stillness, the murmur of - the many-sounding sea can be heard._ - - _The spectators of the strange entertainment have at last - departed, and the long e’s, ungrateful to the ear of the Attic - scholar, are heard no more. In the far centre of the theatre - a man is taking apart a mechanism--that from which the deus - sprang in this evening’s play. Two other men remain. One walks - musing and absorbed, looking toward that entrance whereby - Orestes was wont to make his way to the stage. The other walks - slowly round about the theatre, marking its aspects, and - thinking of practical things. Presently they meet at the spot - where once the choragus stood. They salute each other._ - - -MR GRIFFITH - -I am sorry that you should have been here to-night. To you, I suppose, -this has been only a sacrilege. I am sorry that you should feel that I -am gloating over my success. But perhaps I am mistaken. Are you, or are -you not, Walter Pritchard Eaton? - -MR EATON - -I am. And you are David Wark Griffith, are you not? [_D. G. nods._] We -are well met, then--if I may make use of a phrase which the drama, and -not your _métier_ has made famous. By the way, ought I to “register” -pleasure in any conventional way? - -D. G. - -Score one for you. I have sinned. But since you say we are well met, -can’t we chat for a moment about things? You see, I am not altogether -unaffected by this scene--the light, and the ancient theatre, and the -memories of it all. - -W. P. E. - -They would all do admirably for a picture--for one of those -extraordinary scenic effects which you create as no other man can -create them. But the memories--those at least are mine. Surely you are -not thinking of-- - -D. G. - -No. Not just now. I am humble at times. But let us say that you are -the great antagonist of the movies, and I the protagonist. I want very -much to understand what you mean when you attack them. I remember you -said that my spectacle, _The Birth of a Nation_, was violently unfair -because it was wordless. Am I not right? - -W. P. E. - -I said some such thing. - -D. G. - -And you are a defender of the theatre. May I assume that _The -Clansman_, which was a spoken drama, was more fair than my spectacle? - -W. P. E. - -At least, in the play, there was a reply in kind to every attack. The -dumb-show for which you are responsible showed only one side. - -D. G. - -Then you are attacking the movie for being a propaganda, and are -displeased with the propaganda because it is one-sided. May I say that -possibly the movie was made as an artistic spectacle, and had no such -object? And do I not recall the surprise with which such a play as -_Strife_ was received because it did show two sides? After all, I did -not make it impossible for you to put on _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ as a reply -to me. - -W. P. E. - -It would be fruitless to continue the discussion on this point. I spoke -of your movie in passing, because I am always hearing about it. For the -most part let us admit that it was not cheap. Can you say as much for -the others? - -D. G. - -No. The movie is a vulgar art--it is _the_ vulgar art. And certainly -I do not purpose to rob that statement of its effectiveness by saying -that the word must be taken in its best, or even in its original, -meaning. It must be taken in its worst meaning. The movie is vulgar, -but it is art. The best of it is none too good--yet. But the worst of -it is not so bad as you think. - -W. P. E. - -I am willing to grant you that in the representation of spectacle, in -the realm of trick photography and in the preservation of the events -of the moment, the movie has its place. I question it only when it -invades the drama. There you must pardon me. I have the drama close to -my heart. - -D. G. - -You have been warming the viper quite a long time. It is about to -sting. I am willing to grant you that in musical comedy, in purely -intellectual engagements, and in the exploitation of sound, the drama -has its place. But I have noticed in your own complaints that in the -things that touch the heart, in the grand manner, in the projection of -high emotion, you find the drama of to-day a pretty sad affair. - -W. P. E. - -Who is to blame for it? - -D. G. - -Who killed Cock Robin? Not I. I had not heard that the -Comédie-Française was seriously affected by the activities of Pathé -Frères. I have yet to learn that music has been driven into hiding by -the movies, although I have heard that the ride of the Valkyries is -more familiarly known to-day as the “Klan-theme” from _The Birth_. -Didn’t your theatre die--if it has died--because it stifled itself? -Hadn’t you noticed the decline ten years ago? - -W. P. E. - -I am not blaming the movie. I am deploring it. I do not think that -it is good for people to be eternally fed on whatever is cheapest, -nearest, easiest of comprehension. I object to it all the more when -something high and fine is butchered to make a movie holiday. - -D. G. - -I deplore that as much as you. I do not think that _Cabiria_ was cheap, -or easy of comprehension. There was enough on the surface to make it -popular. But there was also enough in the depths to make it grand. - -W. P. E. - -The movie is still two-dimensional, Mr Griffith. Can we speak of depths? - -D. G. - -Ah, you say “still”! Then we have a future. In the theatre there was a -long succession of little known men, and then came the men whose plays -made these stones sacred to you. There were many Elizabethans before -Shakespeare. Will you call me the Marlowe of the movies? I believe in -them enough to hope for a Shakespeare. But don’t you see that we are -young; we are without conventions-- - -W. P. E. - -Pardon me. You are with far too many. I remember that in the early -days, when you went about on tiptoe for fear of waking up the -revengeful Muses, you employed actors without any technique. There was -an uncouth, a delightful freshness, about your work. I had hopes then -that you would contribute to the stage. Instead you have taken from it. -You have borrowed all its worst conventions. And you have added some of -your own. There is the dreadful convention of registering. - -D. G. - -Isn’t that from the stage? - -W. P. E. - -Hardly. - -D. G. - -Your actors and actresses register. - -W. P. E. - -Not as yours do. The long training in the expression of emotions has -developed a suitable medium, the slightest variation on which becomes -inestimably precious. In the moving picture the variation is unknown. -And, although I am the last person to want to advantage the movie, let -me tell you why. I can hear the voice of the director, just as the -misguided husband leaves his wife--a favorite situation in the movies -and very novel--I can hear him crying out, “Register grief!” If he -does not cry out, the inner voice of the actress cries out. Not “feel,” -not “express the feeling,” but express the semblance of grief. It is -an art of superficies. Perhaps your actresses--and why, dear sir, do -you choose such impossibly blond, pretty and stupid actresses?--have -worked out a new expression, a new registration. At the terrible moment -they forget. They register as they, or another actress as well paid -and as hotly advertised, registered six months before. I am as tired -of heaving breasts and eyes turned to heaven as I am tired of Charlie -Chaplin’s walk when he does not walk it. Conventions? There is no end -to them. What your art, as you call it, lacks, is limitations. - -D. G. - -You mean there are no limits to it? That is a strange remark for you to -make. - -W. P. E. - -No. I do not mean that. I mean that every art, until recent times, has -proposed certain limitations, under which it had to work. Goethe--a -poet whom you have yet to introduce to your spectators--once wrote, -“_In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister!_” And these -limitations must be more than physical. There is no reason why a poem -should rhyme abbaabbacdcdcd, but the sonnet must rhyme in some such -manner, or it will not be perfect. There may be greater poems than -these sonnets--that is a matter of taste--but the art of the sonnet -has its own perfection because those limitations have been accepted -joyously by those who chose to write. You have proposed no limitations -to yourself. Your art is chaos. - -D. G. - -Didn’t I confess as much when I said it was vulgar? It must have its -appeal to the very lowest. But because our roots are in the dung and -the mire, do you think there shall be no lovely blossoms on the trees -in spring and no fruit? If I make a fortune in raw melodrama, shall I -not spend it on Helen of Troy? - -W. P. E. - -Helen of Troy? - -D. G. - -Why not? The moving picture is always elemental, but it can be grand. -What are the essentials of a story: love, beauty, pursuit, coincidence, -rescue-- - -W. P. E. - -Tell me, Mr Griffith, is it true that you recite “The Relief at -Lucknow” each night before you go to bed? - -D. G. - -Not now. I am reciting the Iliad now. Can’t you see the battlements of -Troy with Helen looking down from her tower--the ruinous face-- - -W. P. E. - -Registering? - -D. G. - -Again a hit! But I shall overcome it. I shall show you Scamander rising -from his bed, and the gods on high Olympus-- - -W. P. E. - -With a close-up of the beard of Zeus? - -D. G. - -And Patroclus leaping on the Ilian shore, and Achilles sulking in his -tent. I shall make Homer live again. - -W. P. E. - -Dear me. Is he dead? Why wasn’t I informed? - -D. G. - -Love and battle, heroism and beauty, action and emotion, pity and -terror--what more can you ask? All the great sum of Hellenic life, its -morning glow and its great noon of enviable beauty, shall be in my -picture. It shall mingle humanity with the gods again. - -W. P. E. - -Through the exquisite agency of cutbacks? - -D. G. - -As surely as Marlowe’s topless towers--the captions are written for -me--rose in the backdrops of your theatres. I shall glorify the -mechanics of my art. I shall make them invisible and divine. I shall -speak in words of white fire-- - -W. P. E. - -Perhaps. But you will never speak with the tongues of angels--and of -men. I will admit the dulness of the theatre if you will grant the -absurdity of the mechanics you employ. I will ask you only if the -moving picture will ever become human? - -D. G. - -I do not know. I am not sure that humanity is very translatable. But -we have ecstasy. In the projector lies all wonderful adventure, and I -go into a dingy, stuffy, moving-picture house with the foreknowledge -that something strange and wonderful, though it be at times cheap and -vulgar, will be shown me. In a drab world the movie is an instrument -of miracles. The gross caricatures are perhaps truer than the realism -of the theatre. I see a Rabelaisian madness in the millions of broken -plates. In a thousand flying custard pies I recognize an eternal -impulse of humankind. In the mad comings and goings of impossible -characters I still see some persuasion that life is “wanton and -wondrous and forever well.” Here, in this theatre, life was once -glorified. But the grandeur has died out and we must restore it as we -can. - -W. P. E. - -Not in my time, I fear. For me the past is not dead, so you cannot -restore it. And here, in the end, you have my last objection to the -moving picture. You are destroying the imagination of mankind. There -are no more mysteries since your work has come into being. Everything -is visible. Everything is explained. - -D. G. - -Except the soul, my dear sir.[4] - - - - - “_I am Here To-Day_”: - _Charlie Chaplin_ - - - - -“I AM HERE TO-DAY”: CHARLIE CHAPLIN - - -For most of us the grotesque effigy dangling from the electric sign -or propped against the side of the ticket-booth must remain our first -memory of Charlie Chaplin. The splay feet, the moustache, the derby -hat, the rattan walking-stick, composed at once the image which was -ten years later to become the universal symbol of laughter. “_I am -here to-day_” was his legend, and like everything else associated -with his name it is faintly ironic and exactly right. The man who, -of all the men of our time, seems most assured of immortality, chose -that particularly transient announcement of his presence, “I am here -to-day,” with its emotional overtone of “gone to-morrow,” and there is -always something in Charlie that slips away. “He does things,” said -John S. Sargent once, “and you’re lucky if you see them.” Incredibly -lucky to live when we have the chance to see them. - -It is a miracle that there should arise in our time a figure wholly -in the tradition of the great clowns--a tradition requiring creative -energy, freshness, inventiveness, change--for neither the time nor the -country in which Charlie works is exceptionally favourable to such a -phenomenon. Stranger still is the course he has run. It is simple to -take _The Kid_ as the dividing line, but it is more to the point to -consider the phases of Charlie’s popularity, for each phase corresponds -to one of the attacks now being made upon his integrity. He is on the -top of the world, an exposed position, and we are all sniping at him; -even his adherents are inclined to say that “after all” he is “still” -this or the other thing. One goes to his pictures as one went to hear -Caruso, with a ghoulish speculation as to the quantity of alloy in the -“golden voice.” It is because Charlie has had all there ever was of -acclaim that he is now surrounded by deserters. - -[Illustration: CHARLIE CHAPLIN. By E. E. Cummings] - -That he exists at all is due to the camera and to the selective genius -of Mack Sennett. It is impossible to dissociate him entirely from the -Keystone comedy where he began and worked wonders and learned much. -The injustice of forgetting Sennett and the Keystone when thinking -of Chaplin has undermined most of the intellectual appreciation of -his work, for although he was the greatest of the Keystone comedians -and passed far beyond them, the first _and decisive_ phase of his -popularity came while he was with them, and the Keystone touch remains -in all his later work, often as its most precious element. It was -the time of Charlie’s actual contact with the American people, the -movie-going populace before the days of the great moving pictures. -He was the second man to be known widely by name--John Bunny was the -first--and he achieved a fame which passed entirely by word of mouth -into the category of the common myths and legends of America, as the -name of Buffalo Bill had passed before. By the time the newspapers -recognized the movie as a source of circulation, Charlie was -already a known quantity in the composition of the American mind and, -what is equally significant, he had created the first _Charlot_. The -French name which is and is not Charlie will serve for that figure -on the screen, the created image which is, and at the same time is -more than, Charlie Chaplin, and is less. Like every great artist in -whatever medium, Charlie has created the mask of himself--many masks, -in fact--and the first of these, the wanderer, came in the Keystone -comedies. It was there that he first detached himself from life and -began to live in another world, with a specific rhythm of his own, as -if the pulse-beat in him changed and was twice or half as fast as that -of those who surrounded him. He created then that trajectory across the -screen which is absolutely his own line of movement. No matter what -the actual facts are, the curve he plots is always the same. It is of -one who seems to enter from a corner of the screen, becomes entangled -or involved in a force greater than himself as he advances upward and -to the centre; there he spins like a marionette in a whirlpool, is -flung from side to side, always in a parabola which seems centripetal -until the madness of the action hurls him to refuge or compels him to -flight at the opposite end of the screen. He wanders in, a stranger, an -impostor, an anarchist; and passes again, buffeted, but unchanged. - -The Keystone was the time of his wildest grotesquerie (after _Tillie’s -Punctured Romance_, to be sure), as if he needed, for a beginning, -sharply to contrast his rhythm, his gait, his gesture, _mode_, with -the actual world outside. His successes in this period were confined -to those films in which the world intruded with all its natural -crassness upon his detached existence. There was a film in which -Charlie dreamed himself back into the Stone Age and played the God of -the Waters--wholly without success because he contrasted his fantasy -with another fantasy in the same tempo, and could neither sink into -nor stand apart from it. But in _His Night Out_ the effect is perfect, -and is intensified by the alternating coincidence and syncopation of -rhythm in which Ben Turpin worked with him. Charlie’s drunken line -of march down a stairway was first followed in parallel and then -in not-quite-parallel by Turpin; the degree of drunkenness was the -same, then varied, then returned to identity; and the two, together, -were always entirely apart from the actuality of bars and hotels and -fountains and policemen which were properties in their existence. -In this early day Charlie had already mastered his principles. He -knew that the broad lines are funny and that the fragments--which -are delicious--must “point” the main line of laughter. I recall, -for example, an exquisite moment at the end of this film. Turpin is -staggering down the street, dragging Charlie by the collar. Essentially -the funny thing is that one drunkard should so gravely, so soberly, -so obstinately take care of another and should convert himself into a -policeman to do it; it is funny that they should be going nowhere, and -go so doggedly. The lurching-forward body of Turpin, the singular angle -formed with it by Charlie’s body almost flat on the ground, added to -the spectacle. And once as they went along Charlie’s right hand fell -to one side, and as idly as a girl plucks a water-lily from over the -side of a canoe he plucked a daisy from the grass border of the path, -and smelled it. The function of that gesture was to make everything -that went before, and everything that came after, seem funnier; and it -succeeded by creating another, incongruous image out of the picture -before our eyes. The entire world, a moment earlier, had been aslant -and distorted and wholly male; it righted itself suddenly and created -a soft idyll of tenderness. Nearly everything of Charlie is in that -moment, and I know no better way to express its elusive quality than -to say that as I sat watching the film a second time, about two hours -later, the repetition of the gesture came with all the effect of -surprise, although I had been wondering whether he could do it so -perfectly again. - -This was the Charlie whom little children came to know before any other -and whose name they added to their prayers. He was then popular with -the people; he was soon to become universally known and admired--the -Charlie of _The Bank_ and of _Shoulder Arms_; and finally he became -“the great artist” in _The Kid_. The second period is pure development; -the third is change; and the adherents of each join with the earlier -enthusiasts to instruct and alarm their idol. No doubt the middle phase -is the one which is richest in memory. It includes the masterpieces _A -Dog’s Life_, _The Pawnshop_, _The Vagabond_, _Easy Street_, as well as -the two I have just mentioned, and, if I am not mistaken, the _genre_ -pictures like _The Floorwalker_, _The Fireman_, _The Immigrant_, and -the fantastic _Cure_. To name these pictures is to call to mind their -special scenes, the atmosphere in which they were played: the mock -heroic of _The Bank_ and its parody of passion; the unbelievable scene -behind the curtain in _A Dog’s Life_; Charlie as policeman in _Easy -Street_, which had some of the beginnings of _The Kid_; Charlie left -marking time alone after the squad had marched away in the film which -made camp life supportable. Compare them with the very earliest films, -_The Pile Driver_ and the wheel-chairman film and so on: the later ones -are richer in inventiveness, the texture is more solid, the emotions -grow more complex, and the interweaving of tenderness and gravity -with the fun becomes infinitely more deft. In essence it is the same -figure--he is still a vagrant, an outsider; only now when he becomes -entangled in the lives of other people he is a bit of a crusader, too. -The accidental does not occur so frequently; the progress of each -film is plotted in advance; there is a definite rise and fall as in -_A Dog’s Life_, where the climax is in the curtain scene toward which -tends the first episode of the dog and from which the flight and the -rustic idyll flow gently downward. The pace in the earlier pictures -was more instinctive. In _The Count_ the tempo is jerky; it moves from -extreme to extreme. Yet one gets the sense of the impending flight -beautifully when, at the close, Charlot as the bogus count has been -shown up and is fleeing pell-mell through every room in the house; -the whole movement grows tense; the rate of acceleration perceptibly -heightens as Charlot slides in front of a vast birthday cake, pivots on -his heel, and begins to play alternate pool and golf with the frosting, -making every shot count like a machine gunner barricaded in a pill-box -or a bandit in a deserted cabin. - -It was foreordained that the improvised kind of comedy should give way -to something more calculated, and in Charlie’s case it is particularly -futile to cry over spilled milk because for a long time he continued to -give the _effect_ of impromptu; his sudden movements and his finds in -the way of unsuspected sources of fun are exceptional to this day. In -_The Pawnshop_[5] Charlie begins to sweep and catches in his broom the -end of a long rope, which, instead of being swept away, keeps getting -longer, actively fighting the broom. I have no way to prove it, but I -am sure from the context that this is all he had originally had in mind -to do with the scene. Suddenly the tape on the floor creates something -in his mind, and Charlie transforms the back room of the pawnshop into -a circus, with himself walking the tight rope--a graceful, nimble -balancing along the thin line of tape on the floor, the quick turn -and coming forward, the conventional bow, arms flung out, smiling, -to receive applause at the end. Again, as ever, he has created an -imaginary scene out of the materials of the actual. - -The plotting of these comedies did not destroy Charlie’s inventiveness -and made it possible for him to develop certain other of his -characteristics. The moment the vagrant came to rest, the natural -man appeared, the paradoxical creature who has the wisdom of simple -souls and the incalculable strength of the weak. Charlie all through -the middle period is at least half Tyl Eulenspiegl. It is another -way for him to live apart from the world by assuming that the world -actually means what it says, by taking every one of its conventional -formulas, its polite phrases and idioms, with dreadful seriousness. -He has created in Charlot a radical with an extraordinarily logical -mind. Witness Charlot arriving late at the theatre and stepping on the -toes of a whole row of people to his seat at the far end; the gravity -of his expressions of regret is only matched by his humiliation when -he discovers that he is, after all, in the wrong row and makes his -way back again and all through the next row to his proper place. -It is a careful exaggeration of the social fiction that when you -apologise you can do anything to anyone. The same feeling underlies -the characteristic moment when Charlot is fighting and suddenly stops, -takes off his hat and coat, gives them to his opponent to hold, and -then promptly knocks his obliging adversary down. Revisiting once an -old Charlie, I saw him do this, and a few minutes later saw the same -thing in a new Harold Lloyd; all there is to know of the difference -between the two men was to be learned there; for Lloyd, who is a clever -fellow, made it seem a smart trick so to catch his enemy off guard, -while Chaplin made the moment equal to the conventional crossing of -swords or the handshake before a prize fight. Similarly, the salutation -with the hat takes seriously a social convention and carries it as far -as it can go. In _Pay Day_ Charlot arrives late to work and attempts -to mollify the furious construction-gang boss by handing him an Easter -lily. - -_The Kid_ was undoubtedly a beginning in “literature” for Charlie. I -realize that in admitting this I am giving the whole case away, for -in the opinion of certain critics the beginning of literature is the -end of creative art. This attitude is not so familiar in America, but -in France you hear the Charlot of _The Kid_ spoken of as “theatre,” -as one who has ceased to be of the film entirely. I doubt if this is -just. Like the one other great artist in America (George Herriman, with -whom he is eminently in sympathy), Charlie has always had the Dickens -touch, a thing which in its purity we do not otherwise discover in our -art. Dickens himself is mixed; only a part of him is literature, and -that not the best, nor is that part essentially the one which Charlie -has imported to the screen. _The Kid_ had some bad things in it: the -story, the halo round the head of the unmarried mother, the quarrel -with the authorities; it had an unnecessary amount of realism and its -tempo was uncertain, for it was neither serious film nor Keystone. Yet -it possessed moments of unbelievable intensity and touches of high -imagination. The scenes in and outside the doss-house were excellent -and were old Charlie; the glazier’s assistant was inventive and the -training of Coogan to look like his foster-father was beautiful. Far -above them stood the beginning of the film: Charlot, in his usual -polite rags, strolling down to his club after his breakfast (it would -have been a grilled bone) and, avoiding slops as Villon did, twirling -his cane, taking off his fingerless gloves to reach for his cigarette -case (a sardine box), and selecting from the butts one of quality, -_tamping it_ to shake down the excess tobacco at the tip--all of this, -as Mr Herriman pointed out to me, was the creation of the society -gentleman, the courageous refusal to be undermined by slums and poverty -and rags. At the end of the film there was the vision of heaven: -apotheosis of the long suffering of Charlot at the hands of the police, -not only in _The Kid_--in a hundred films where he stood always against -the authorities, always for his small independent freedom. The world in -which even policemen have wings shatters, too; but something remains. -The invincible Charlot, dazed by his dream, looking for wings on the -actual policeman who is apparently taking him to jail, will not down. -For as they start, a post comes between them, and Charlot, without the -slightest effort to break away, too submissive to fight, still dodges -back to walk round the post and so avoid bad luck. A moment later comes -one of the highest points in Charlie’s career. He is ushered into a -limousine instead of a patrol wagon--it is the beginning of the happy -ending. And as the motor starts he flashes at the spectators of his -felicity a look of indescribable poignancy. It is frightened, it is -hopeful, bewildered; it lasts a fraction of a second and is blurred by -the plate glass of the car. I cannot hope to set down the quality of -it, how it becomes a moment of unbearable intensity, and how one is -breathless with suspense--and with adoration. - -For, make no mistake, it is adoration, not less, that he deserves -and has from us. He corresponds to our secret desires because he -alone has passed beyond our categories, at one bound placing himself -outside space and time. His escape from the world is complete and -extraordinarily rapid, and what makes him more than a figure of -romance is his immediate creation of another world. He has the vital -energy, the composing and the functioning brain. This is what makes -him æsthetically interesting, what will make him for ever a school not -only of acting, but of the whole creative process. The flow of his line -always corresponds to the character and tempo; there is a definite -relation between the melody and the orchestration he gives it. Beyond -his technique--the style of his pieces--he has composition, because he -creates anything but chaos in his separate world. “You might,” wrote Mr -Stark Young, wise in everything but the choice of the person addressed, -“you might really create in terms of the moving picture as you have -already created in terms of character.” As I have said, the surest way -to be wrong about Charlie is to forget the Keystone. - -This is precisely what Mr Stark Young would like him to do--and what -Charlie may do if the intellectual nonsense about him is capable of -corrupting his natural wisdom and his creative gift. Mr Young has -addressed an open letter to “Dear Mr Chaplin”[6] in which he suggests -that Charlie play _Liliom_ and _He Who Gets Slapped_ and _Peer Gynt_. -(Offended as I am by these ideas, I must be fair. Mr Young does say -that better than all of these, “you could do new things written by or -for you, things in which you would use your full endowment, comic -and otherwise ... develop things calculated strictly for it [the -screen] and for no other art, made up out of its essential quality, -which is visual motion and not mere stage drama photographed....”) -This is, of course, corruption. It means that Mr Young has either not -seen the Charlie of before _The Kid_ (as I suspect from the phrase -about creating in terms of character) or not liked him (which I am -sure about); he has failed to recognize in _The Pawnbroker_ “his full -endowment, comic and otherwise.” It implies to me that Mr Young would -prefer a “serious film” and that suggests the complete absence of a -critical sense, of taste and gusto, of wisdom and gaiety, of piety and -wit. “The larger field” ... “serious efforts” ... “a more cultured -audience” ... “the judicious”--O Lord! these are the phrases which -are offered as bribes to the one man who has destroyed the world and -created it in his own image! - -There is a future for him as for others, and it is quite possible that -the future may not be as rich and as dear as the past. I write this -without having seen _The Pilgrim_, which ought to be a test case, -for the two films which followed _The Kid_ (_Pay Day_ and _The Idle -Class_) determined nothing. If the literary side conquers we shall -have a great character actor and not a creator; we shall certainly -not have again the image of riot and fun, the created personage, the -annihilation of actuality; we may go so far as to accomplish Mr Stark -Young’s ideal and have a serious work of art. I hope this will not -happen, because I do not believe that it is the necessary curve of -Charlie’s genius--it is the direction of worldly success, not in money, -but in fame; it is not the curve of life at all. For the slowing-up -of Charlie’s physical energies and the deepening of his understanding -may well restore to him his appreciation of those early monuments to -laughter which are his greatest achievement. He stood then shod in -absurdity, but with his feet on the earth. And he danced on the earth, -an eternal figure of lightness and of the wisdom which knows that the -earth was made to dance on. It was a green earth, excited with its own -abundance and fruitfulness, and he possessed it entirely. For me he -remains established in possession. As it spins under his feet he dances -silently and with infinite grace upon it. It is as if in his whole life -he had spoken only one word: “I am here _to-day_”--the beginning before -time and the end without end of his wisdom and of his loveliness. - - - - - _Say It With Music_ - - - - -SAY IT WITH MUSIC - - -The popular song is never forgotten--except in public. Great events and -seven-day-wonders pass into oblivion. Hobson, who was a hero, became -a prohibitionist; Aguinaldo, a good citizen; McKinley, a martyr--but -_Good-by, Dolly Gray_, _In the Good Old Summer Time_, and _Just Break -the News to Mother_ are immortal in our private memories and around -them crystallize the sights and sounds and smells, the very quality -of the air we breathed when these songs were in their high day. A -more judicious pen than mine may write about these songs without -sentimentality; I cannot. For in addition to the pathos of time past, -something else brings an air of gentle melancholy to “words and music.” -In recent years a change has come and the popular song is no longer -written to be sung, but to be played. The new song that can’t be sung -has virtues of its own--on the whole they are virtues I prefer. But -I doubt whether it will ever be, as the old song was, a clue to the -social history of our time. - - -The popular song is so varied, so full of interest, that for a -moment at least one can pretend that it isn’t vulgar, detestable, -the ruin of musical taste, and a symptom of degeneracy; we can -pretend also that _Less Than the Dust_ isn’t more artistic than -_Swanee_. Since the Spanish-American War the American popular song -(including the foreign song popular in America) has undergone the -most interesting modulations; it has expressed everything except _fin -de siècle_. Out of the ’nineties persisted a characteristic song: -_Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_, the chorus and tune of which, woven into -mysterious words about “three little niggers in a peanut shell” I -must have heard at the same time as _Daisy_ with its glorification -of the simple life “on a bicycle built for two.” Since then, for a -rough generalization, we have had three types of popular song: the -exotic-romantic, the sentimental, and the raggy-gay. The sentimental -song we have always with us. “That sweet melody with a strong mother -appeal” is advertised on the back of “Those Black Boy Blues” and Irving -Berlin writes _When I Lost You_ between _Alexander’s Ragtime Band_ and -_Some Sunny Day_. At moments it is dominant and a fake ballad, with -a simple and uninteresting tune, makes _After the Ball_, by Charles -K. Harris, a world wonder. Or we have a simplification of the whole -history of romantic love in _Love Me and the World Is Mine_. The -curious about social life in America may compare this song with _I’m -Just Wild About Harry_. - -Beaumarchais, who knew no jazz, makes Figaro say that what can’t be -said can be sung--and this applies far more to the sentimental than to -the obscene. Think of the incredible, the almost unspeakable idea in -the following, presumably spoken by a father to a child: - - Down in the City of Sighs and Tears, - Down by the White Light’s Glare, - Down in the something of wasted years, - You’ll find your mamma there! - -Or consider the pretty imagery and emotion of _I’m Tying the Leaves_, -as sung by a precocious and abominable child who has been told that -mother will die when the leaves begin to fall. It would be easy to say -that these songs are gone never to return; but it was only two years -ago that _They Needed a Songbird in Heaven--so God Took Caruso Away_ -(“idea suggested by George Walter Brown” to the grateful composers). I -do not dare to contemplate _A Baby’s Prayer at Twilight_ or to wonder -what constituted the _Curse of an Aching Heart_; but history has left -on record the chorus of - - My Mother was a Lady - Like yours, you will allow, - And you may have a sister - Who needs protection now; - I’ve come to this great city - To find a brother dear, - And you wouldn’t dare insult me, sir, - If Jack were only here. - -It was for songs like this that a masterpiece in another _genre_, -the burlesque popular song, was created. I have heard _A Working -Girl Was Leaving Home_ credited to the brothers Smith (the boys the -mother-in-law joke invented, according to George Jean Nathan, and for -their sins they should have written this song) and to the late Tiny -Maxwell, and to an unidentified English source. It’s title and chorus -at least are immortal: - -(Then to him these proud words this girl did say): - - Stand back, villain; go your way! - Here I will no longer stay. - Although you were a marquis or an earl. - You may tempt the upper classes - With your villainous de-mi tasses, - But Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl. - -The cure for the sentimental song is the ironic; and irony, it -happens, is not what America lives on. Even so mild an English example -as _Waiting at the Church_ gained its popularity chiefly from the -excellent tag line: - - Can’t get away - To marry you to-day. - My wife won’t let me. - -Yet appearing from time to time we had a sort of frank destruction of -sentimentality in our songs. Some, like _I Picked up a Lemon in the -Garden of Love_, appeal directly to the old “peaches” tradition; but -we went further. In the same year as the romantic _Beautiful Garden of -Roses_--it was one of the early years of the dance craze--we heard _Who -Are You With To-night_ (to-night?...) down to “Will you tell your wife -in the morning, Who you are with to-night?” and the music perceptibly -winked at the words. _I Love My Wife (but, Oh, You Kid!)_ had little -quality, but the dramatization of an old joke in _My Wife’s Gone to the -Country_ rose to a definite gaiety in the cry of “Hooray! Hooray!” So, -too, one line in the chorus of _I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now_, a song -which skilfully builds up a sentimental situation in order to tear it -down with two words: - - Wonder who’s looking into her eyes, - Breathing sighs, telling lies ... - -where the music pretended to make no difference between the last two -phrases, except for softening, sweetening the second. Yet another in -the malicious mould is _Who Paid the Rent for Mrs Rip Van Winkle (when -Rip Van Winkle Went Away)_--unforgettable for the tearing upward phrase -to a climax in the first _Rip_ with a parallel high note on the second. - -The characteristic of these songs is that they were rather like -contemporary fiction in giving form to social phenomena without -expressing approval or disapproval. Eternal love and fidelity go by -the board with “the dreamy, peachy, creamy, Vision of pure delight,” -the companion who will not be mentioned to “your wife in the morning.” -“Tell me, Mister, Is it your sister....” Well, hardly. - -There were, beside these realistic treatments of marriage (I continue -the professorial tone) a few slightly suggestive songs, and these -also were opposed to current morality, and these also were popular. -One was called, I think, _Billy_, and purported to be a statement of -virginal devotion: “And when I walk, I always walk with Billy ...” and -so following, to “And when I sleep, I always--dream of Bill.” There -were delicious implications in _Row, Row, Row_, as Al Jolson sang it; -earlier still was Hattie Williams’s song _Experience_, in _The Little -Cherub_. The persistence of these songs is something of a miracle and -the shade of difference between the permissible and the impossible -is of vast importance in the success of a song. About fifteen years -separate _Who Are You With To-Night?_ (I quote all these songs and -titles from memory, but I am fairly sure about the grammar of this -one; if it was printed “whom” it was sung “who”) and _He May be Your -Man (but he comes to see me sometimes)_, and the second song is more -explicit; when Edith Wilson or Florence Mills sang the repeat chorus -it shocked her audience. Essentially it is the same thing, only, -fifteen years ago, the questionable stanza would have been left to the -unauthorized street version. - -The exotic romantic song in America has little to do with all of this. -Before the professional glorification of our separate states began, -we had the series of Indian songs of which Neil Moret’s _Hiawatha_ -is the outstanding exemplar. The stanza is almost as hard to sing -as _The Star-spangled Banner_; the chorus--it is always the chorus -which makes a song--is banal, a pure rum-tum-tiddy. Yet it was more -than popular, for it engendered a hundred others. _Cheyenne_ and -(musically) _Rainbow_ are its descendants. _Hiawatha_ bewilders and -baffles the searcher after causes; but its badness as a song explains -why the Indian song was submerged presently in the great wave of negro -songs which have shown an amazing vitality, have outlived the Hawaiian -exotic, and with marvelous adaptability (aided by one great natural -advantage) have lived through to the present day. - -The negro song is partly, but not purely, exotic. Remembering that -songs are written on Forty-fifth Street in New York and put over in -New York cabarets, it is easy to see how _California in September_ (a -dreadful song) and _Carolina_ (I recall five songs embodying the name -of that state; the latest is superb) are also exotic; and how _Over on -the Jersey Side_ and songs about Coney Island came to be written to -glorify New York as a summer resort. The rustic period, again, reacts -against sophistication as _In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree_ reacts -against the exoticism of the sheltering palm. Neither rustic nor local, -however, achieves the highest success, and it is left for the Pacific -to give the last setting before the shouting song of the negro and his -plaintive cry are triumphant in our music. - -First, however, the era of the waltz song. In earlier days America -had little to do with the waltz out of comic opera and _The Merry -Widow_ and _My Hero_ and _Beautiful Lady_ and the superb melodies from -_Gypsy Love_ and from _Die Czardas Fürstin_, of which I forget the -American name, and something from _The Arcadians_ came from anywhere -across the sea and captured us. The _Velia Song_ and _The Girl from -the Saskatchewan_ were better than their corresponding waltzes; _The -Chocolate Soldier_ had pages of music as good as _My Hero_--many -better. Only _The Dollar Princess_ managed to put over its less -ostentatious pieces--and that is rather amusing, since Leo Fall is held -by the Viennese to be the true successor of Johann Strauss. - -The mention of that great name makes it clear that the waltz song -itself is a hybrid; for whatever words have been sung to _The Beautiful -Blue Danube_, the music was meant to be played and for the dance; it -was not meant for song. Yet the slow tempo, the softness, the gentle -sentimentality of the waltz lends itself peculiarly to song--and to -memory. I do not think it has anything to do with the really great -things in our popular songs, but I cannot resent its success--any -more than I can resent the success of another song, wholly out of our -American line--_Un Peu d’Amour_. This was the last great song before -the war; it held France and England and America enslaved to its amorous -longing. Something more cheery and more male had to be found for the -English soldier, who eventually picked up _Tipperary_ (also a song -of nostalgia), and for the American something snappier; but _Un Peu -d’Amour_ persisted during the war. To hear a soldier standing on the -fire-step on a dark night, leaning his cheek against the disc of his -Lewis gun, and softly humming _Un Peu d’Amour_, was to recognize that -for actual millions that song and a few others like it, and not the -great music to the condition of which all art aspires, were all of -beauty and all of exaltation they were ever to know. The materials in -this particular case were not tawdry, only equivocal. For it was a -better song as _A Little Love_ than in the French. The word _amour_ -means, but does not signify, the same thing as the word love, and -“_pour t’entendre à ce moment suprême, Murmurer tout bas, tout bas: Je -t’aime_” has connotations not transferred to the English. The song is -a fake French and a good Anglo-Saxon piece of sentiment, precisely the -counterpart of the waltz song. Like them it conquered a world. - -Lehar and Monckton and Caryll and Fall and Kalman followed successes -with moderate failure, and at the same time revues and American musical -comedies stepped out grandly. I note three songs from this source which -actually claimed all of the popular attention. The song to be sung was -at its best in the Princess shows--best of all in _The Siren Song_ -from _Leave it to Jane_. It is Mr Kern’s masterpiece, a sophisticated, -tidy score with amusing and unexpected retards and pauses, with a -fresh freedom of tonalities. _The Siren Song_ never actually came up -to _The Love Nest_ in acclaim; Mr Hirsch’s bid for immortality is -almost contemptible in words and music and has only a single point of -interest--the three notes against two in the second line of the chorus -(“cozyandwarm” instead of, say, nice--and--warm). It is impermissible -in a man who only a year later wrote _It’s Getting Very Dark on Old -Broadway_. - -The third song is _Say It With Music_. Mr Berlin is as much -responsible as any one for the turn from the song-to-be-sung to the -song-to-be-played; yet he is so remarkable that he can reverse himself, -and just as in 1915 he produced a whole revue (_Stop! Look! Listen!_) -from which not one song became really popular, so, seven years later, -when the singing-song had gone out, he produced a revue and gave us one -more of his tributes to the art he adores. It isn’t musically half as -interesting as _I Love a Piano_; but it is much more singable and it -has great virtues. Nothing that a jazz orchestra can do has any effect -on the purity of its musical line. I wonder whether it may not be the -last of the songs; for we are now full in the jazz age and darkness has -set in. - - - - - _Tearing a Passion - to Ragtime_ - - - - -TEARING A PASSION TO RAGTIME - - -There is only one sense in which the word “rag” has any meaning in -connexion with music, and that is not conveyed in the word “ragtime.” -Ragtime is not, strictly speaking, time at all; neither is _tempo -rubato_: and eminently safe composers have been known to score their -music _con alcuna licenza_, which leaves the delicate adjustment of -time to the performer. A certain number of liberties may be taken -with ragtime, and beyond this point no liberties may be taken. Within -its framework, ragtime is definite enough; and you must syncopate at -precisely the right, the indicated and required moment, or the effect -of the syncopation is lost. - -It is only when one looks at the songs that one realizes what ragtime -means. For literally, the music, which has always been with us and -yet arrived only yesterday, has torn to rags the sentimentality of -the song which preceded it. The funeral oration for the popular song -was preached in the preceding chapter. This is the coroner’s inquest, -with the probable verdict that the popular song was unintentionally -killed by ragtime, which is in turn being slowly poisoned by jazz. A -neat, unobtrusive, little man with bright eyes and an unerring capacity -for understanding, appropriating, and creating strange rhythms is in -the foreground, attended by negro slaves; behind him stands a rather -majestic figure, pink and smooth, surrounded by devils with muted -brass and saxophones. They are Irving Berlin and Paul Whiteman, and -they will bear listening to. What is more, they will make listening a -pleasure. - -It seems strange to speak of the great George M. Cohan as a -disappointment in anything he has ever tried; but looking back at the -early years of the century, when it was apparent that he would be our -most popular song writer as well as our most popular everything else, -suddenly calls to mind that our Georgie, the Yankee Doodle Dandy, just -failed to make it. Irish wit and an extraordinary aptitude for putting -into simple song the most obvious of jingo sentiments were not quite -enough. The situation which Cohan faced at the time was beginning to be -complicated: the ballad song was becoming a bore; the substitutes for -it had failed to absorb rhythms fresh enough and swift enough to please -the public. And between dawn and daylight ragtime was upon us. - -_Enfin_ Berlin _vient_! How much ragtime had been sung and played -before, no man may calculate; it had been heard in every minstrel -show, and its musical elements were thoroughly familiar. What was -needed was a crystallization, was one song which should take the whole -dash and energy of ragtime and carry it to its apotheosis; with a -characteristic turn of mind Berlin accomplished this in a song which -had no other topic than ragtime itself. _Alexander’s Ragtime Band_ -appeared with its bow to negro music and its introduction of _Swanee -River_; it was simple and passionate and utterly unsentimental and -the whole country responded to its masterful cry, _Come on and hear!_ -Presently _Waiting for the Robert E. Lee_ is heard--a levee song and -one would say that the South had already conquered; but Berlin is first -of all a writer of rag and the Southern theme is dropped (the negro -music remaining) while he gives the world two further dazzling rags: -_The International_ and _The Ragtime Violin_. Everybody’s doing it -was true of singing and dancing and--composing. For the day which was -awakened with _Alexander’s Ragtime Band_ was a day of extraordinary -energy and _Skeleton Rags_ and _Yiddische Rags_ and _Pullman Porters’ -Balls_, and everything that could be syncopated, and most things -that could not, paid their quota to ragtime. There have been periods -equally definable: the time of the waltz song, of the ballad, of jazz. -What makes the first rag period important was its intense gaiety, -its naïveté, its tireless curiosity about itself, its unconscious -destruction of the old ballad form and the patter song. The music drove -ahead; the half-understood juggling with tempo which was to become -the characteristic of our music led to fresh accents, a dislocation -of the beat, and to a greater freedom in the text. For half a century -syncopation had existed in America, anticipating the moment when the -national spirit should find in it its perfect expression; for that half -century serious musicians had neglected it; they were to study it a -decade later when ragtime had revealed it to them. - -The early rags were made to be sung and they were sung, universally. -What the departing queen of Hawaii offered in _Aloha Ohe_ was swiftly -integrated into the existing form and _On the Beach at Wai-ki-ki_ -is a rag in every respect, using material which is foreign only in -appearance. (The fact that ragtime can without offense adapt the folk -song of nearly every nation--and is only absurd with Puccini and -Verdi’s worst when it takes them seriously--indicates how essentially -decent an art ragtime is.) The nostalgia which later came into -Hawaiian songs does not exist in this first greatly popular song of -those islands any more than it exists in the _Robert E. Lee_ or in -_When that Midnight Chu-chu Leaves for Alabam’_. Berlin himself was -not untouched by the Hawaiian scene and in _The Hula-Hula_ he wrote a -song superior, in my mind, to _Wai-ki-ki_, yet never popular in the -great sense. The rush and excitement of _Wai-ki-ki_ aren’t in _The -Hula-Hula_; some one had told too much about the undulations of the -dance and the sensuousness of the southern Pacific. Louis Hirsch, years -later, did the same thing in _’Neath the South Sea Moon_, a respectable -piece of work. But it remained for Jerome Kern, a decade and more -after _Wai-ki-ki_, to make another Hawaiian song popular. This was -_Ka-lu-a_ (out of _Good Morning, Dearie_) and in every way it showed -cleverness and intelligence. For it was not a song of Hawaii at all. -It was produced in an Englishy garden, sung by women in hoopskirts -surrounding Oscar Shaw in evening clothes; and it is all, all a longing -for--I think it is a longing for Wai-ki-ki the song, as much as for the -beach. The old romantic properties are in the words, slightly set off -in mockery by the premature and internal rhymes; they are suffused with -memory and the music is purely nostalgic. It was not for nothing that -Mr Kern wrote _The Siren Song_. - -The moment Hawaii faded out nothing was left but the South, and here -the music began to drive the words with a hard hand and a high check. -An observer unfamiliar with the nature of ragtime would conclude that -the American people had a complex about nigger mammies and that the -sublimation thereof was in the popular song. The true explanation -is simpler. The mother element is, of course, a sure-fire hit in -the pictures and in song; but the nigger mammy enters for the same -reason as cotton fields and pickaninnies and Georgia--because our -whole present music is derived from the negro and most composers of -popular songs haven’t yet discovered that the musical structure is -applicable to other themes as well. (George Gershwin’s _Walking Home -with Angeline_ in _Our Nell_, Cole Porter’s _Blue Boy Blues_, about -the Gainsborough painting, and Berlin’s _Pack Up Your Sins and Go to -the Devil_ are examples of the transfer successfully accomplished, -and gratifying, too. Best of all is _Limehouse Blues_, by Philip -Braham, a veritable masterpiece in the _genre_.) There exist a number -of natural themes--slavery, the local scene (Swanee River), the cabin, -the food, and the train whereby one arrives. The genius of Tin Pan -Alley has worked upon this material, and in both words and music has -been amazingly imitative, uninventive, and dull. Yet the idea of taking -a theme and so handling it that the slightest variation from the -preceding use of the same material shall give the effect of novelty -and freshness is a sound one--we know from the history of Greek drama. -Alas! there was little novelty and the tradition was never firm enough -to bear what they did to it. Yet they had their reward, if they can -accept it vicariously, for one of them, not at the beginning and not -at the end, which is not yet, took the old material and fashioned a -great song. His name is George Gershwin and the song which, before the -blue-jazz age, achieves pre-eminence is _Swanee_. To have heard Al -Jolson sing this song is to have had one of the few great experiences -which the minor arts are capable of giving; to have heard it without -feeling something obscure and powerful and rich with a separate life -of its own coming into being, is--I should say it is not to be alive. -The verse is simple and direct, with faint foreshadowings of the -subtly divided, subtly compounded elements of the chorus where the -name “Swanee,” with a strong beat, long drawn and tender, ushers -in the swift passages leading to the repetition, slow again, of the -name; and the rest of the song is the proper working out of a problem -in contrasting cadences, and in dynamics. After the chorus, and in -another key, there is a coda, a restatement of the theme with a little -more restraint, and then, surprisingly and gratefully, for the first -time the introduction of the final bars of _Swanee River_. I analyze -this song as if it could be taken apart and the essence of it remain; -the truth is that it bears inspection and is worth inspection because -it has a strongly individual quality, a definite personal touch. Mr -Gershwin has progressed[7] in his technical handling of syncopation, -as in _Innocent Ingénue Baby_ (not primarily a song to be sung or for -the dance, but to hear; it is musically the solution of a problem in -pauses, and the answer is delicious); but in _Swanee_ he is at his -highest point, for he has taken the simple emotion of longing and let -it surge through his music, he has made real what a hundred before him -had falsified. He should “do it again.” - -[Illustration: - - IRVING BERLIN -] - -_Swanee_ was popular, but by no means as popular as _Some Sunny Day_, a -song by Mr Berlin which will simply not bear analysis. I hold Mr Berlin -to be still the foremost writer of popular music in spite of it. Three -years and a masterly technique separate the two songs and _Some Sunny -Day_ is devilishly clever, but most of it isn’t properly singable. -It is a good dance tune; analyzed, it resolves itself into a weak -treatment of _Old Black Joe_ (clever Mr Berlin to take the first bar of -the old _verse_ for the first bar of his _chorus_) and a regrettable -quotation again of _Swanee River_. The arrangement is neat, and the -inversion of the first bar halfway through the chorus, when the song -has dribbled into meaningless fragments, has lost all intensity and is -suddenly revived and refreshed, while the words of the first bar are -repeated--that sufficiently indicates the master hand. The words are -among Mr Berlin’s weakest and it is hard to believe that at the same -moment he was revelling in the two _Music Box Revues_, in _Say It With -Music_ and _Pack Up Your Sins_, which are superb. - -It is not entirely an accident that a consideration of the effect of -ragtime on popular song begins and ends with Irving Berlin. For as -surely as _Alexander’s Ragtime Band_ started something, _Pack Up Your -Sins_ is a sign that it is coming to an end. For this tremendous piece -of music simply cannot be sung; it baffled the trained chorus on its -first appearance, it can hardly be whistled through, and, although -the words are good, they aren’t known. Ragtime is now written for -jazz orchestra; three phrases occupy the time of two; four, five, and -even six notes the time of two or three. The words which are becoming -wittier than ever are too numerous, too jostled, to be sung, and the -melodic structure with arbitrarily changing beat baffles the voice and -the mind as much as it intrigues the pulse and the heel. The popular -song and the ragtime song are vanishing temporarily. But something -terrible and wonderful has already taken their place. Already there is -an indication of how they will return and--I am tired of speaking of -Mr Berlin, but I can’t help it--Mr Berlin has indicated how and where. -His _All by Myself_ is in essence a combination of the sentimental song -with ragtime--so it was sung by Ethel Levey. And it is played with -enthusiasm by jazz orchestras--a perceptible pleasure is ours from -recognizing something entirely simple and sentimental weaving its way -through those recondite harmonies. - -If the song returns in any way the ancient protest against its -vulgarity will also return, and it is worth making up our minds -about it now. The popular song takes its place between the folk song -and the art song. Of these the folk song hardly exists in America -to-day: _Casey Jones_ and _Frankie and Johnny_ are examples of what -we possess and one doesn’t often hear them sung along country roads -or by brown-armed men at the rudder in ships that go down to the sea. -The songs of the Kentucky mountains (English in provenance) and the -old cowboy songs are both the object of antiquarian interest--they -aren’t as alive as the universal _Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here_ or -_We Won’t Go Home ’til Morning_. If we refuse to call our ragtime folk -music, then we must face the fact that we are at a moment in history -when folk songs simply do not occur. (Even the war failed to give -us very much; it is interesting to note that besides _Katy_ and _Mr -Zip_, the songs written by the best and most expert of our composers, -Berlin and Cohan, were both meant to be sung and were sung--and this -took place in the midst of the change to the unsingable type.) At the -opposite extreme is the art song--usually the setting and degradation -of a poem written for its own sake and usually--let us say dull. The -composers of art songs are about fifty paces behind the symphonists -and the symphonists are nearly nowhere. The result is that we aren’t -in any sense _nourished_ by the writers of art songs and, since we are -a musical people, for better or for worse we fall back on the popular -song. It is to me a question whether we would be better citizens and -more noble in the sight of God if we sang _Narcissus_ instead of _The -Girl on the Magazine Cover_. - -Once in a while something between the art and the popular song appears, -and it is called _My Rosary_ or _The End of a Perfect Day_, and it is -unbearable. Because here you have a pretentiousness, a base desire -to be above the crowd and yet to please (it is called “uplift,” but -it does not mean exalt) the crowd; here is the touch of “art” which -makes all things false and vulgar. To be sure, these songs, too, are -popular; the desire for culture is as universal as it is depressing. -And these are the only popular songs which are really vulgar. I will -ask no one to compare them with the real thing. Compare them with -false, trivial, ridiculous imitations of the real thing--it exists in -some of the occasional songs which composers are always trying and -which hardly ever come off. I recall a song written about the Iroquois -fire; another about Harry K. Thaw (“Just because he’s a millionaire, -Everybody’s willing to treat him unfair”). Only the two songs about -Caruso succeeded, and there never was a good one about Roosevelt. Here -is one written for Jackie Coogan in _Oliver Twist_: - - When the troubles came so fast you kept on smiling, - Like a sunbeam ’mid the clouds up in the sky; - Though the rest were deep in crime - You stayed spotless all the time - Though they flayed you - Till they made you - Weep and cry. - - When your little heart was aching for a mother’s tender love, - Then the Lord looked down and heard you and blessed you from above. - Though they tried to make you bad - You stayed good, dear little lad. - Would God I could - Be half as good - As you - _Oliver Twist_. - -The music is just like that, too. Lower than this--much lower, at -least--the popular song never dropped. These songs _never_ become -actually, universally popular because the general taste is too high. -And I cheerfully set the lowest example beside _A Perfect Day_ for -comparison. One type is not obnoxious and the other is; one is common, -the other vulgar; one is strong and foolish, the other silly and weak. -The case for the popular song may as well rest in the solution of this -dilemma as anywhere. - - - - - _Toujours Jazz_ - - - - -TOUJOURS JAZZ - - -The word jazz is already so complicated that it ought not to be -subjected to any new definitions, and the thing itself so familiar -that it is useless to read new meanings into it. Jazz is a type of -music grown out of ragtime and still ragtime in essence; it is also -a method of production and as such an orchestral development; and -finally it is the symbol, or the byword, for a great many elements in -the spirit of the time--as far as America is concerned it is actually -our characteristic expression. This is recognized by Europeans; with -a shudder by the English and with real joy by the French, who cannot, -however, play it. - -The fact that jazz is our current mode of expression, has reference -to our time and the way we think and talk, is interesting; but if -jazz music weren’t itself good the subject would be more suitable -for a sociologist than for an admirer of the gay arts. Fortunately, -the music and the way it is played are both of great interest, both -have qualities which cannot be despised; and the cry that jazz is the -enthusiastic disorganization of music is as extravagant as the prophecy -that if we do not stop “jazzing” we will go down, as a nation, into -ruin. I am quite ready to uphold the contrary. If--before we have -produced something better--we give up jazz we shall be sacrificing -nearly all there is of gaiety and liveliness and rhythmic power in -our lives. Jazz, for us, isn’t a last feverish excitement, a spasm of -energy before death. It is the normal development of our resources, -the expected, and wonderful, arrival of America at a point of creative -intensity. - -Jazz is good--at least good jazz is good--and I propose to summarize -some of the known reasons for holding it so. The summary will take me -far from the thing one hears and dances to, from the thing itself. The -analysis of jazz, musically or emotionally, is not likely to be done -in the spirit of jazz itself. There isn’t room on the printed page for -a glissando on the trombone, for the sweet sentimental wail of the -saxophone, or the sudden irruptions of the battery. Nor is there need -for these--intellectually below the belt--attacks. The reason jazz is -worth writing about is that it is worth listening to. I have heard it -said by those who have suffered much that it is about the only native -music worth listening to in America. - -Strictly speaking, jazz music is a new development--something of the -last two years, arriving long after jazz had begun to be played. I -mean that ragtime is now so specifically written for the jazz band -that it is acquiring new characteristics. Zez Confrey, Irving Berlin, -Fred Fisher, and Walter Donaldson, among others, are creating their -work as jazz; the accent in each bar, for example, is marked in the -text--the classic idea of the slight accent on the first note of each -bar went out when ragtime came in; then ragtime created its own classic -notion,--the propulsion of the accent from the first (strong) note to -the second (weak). In jazz ragtime the accent can occur anywhere in the -bar and is attractively unpredictable. Rhythmically--essentially--jazz -is ragtime, since it is based on syncopation, and even without jazz -orchestration we should have had the full employment of precise and -continuous syncopation which we find in jazz now, in _Pack Up Your -Sins_, for example. It is syncopation, too, which has so liberated jazz -from normal polyphony, from perfect chords, that M Darius Milhaud is -led to expect from jazz a full use of polytonic and atonic harmonies; -he notes that in _Kitten on the Keys_ there exists already a chord of -the perfect major and the perfect minor. The reason why syncopation -lies behind all this is that it is fundamentally an anticipation or -a suspension in one instrument (or in the bass) of what is going to -happen in another (the treble); and the moment in which a note occurs -prematurely or in retard is, frequently, a moment of discord on the -strong beat. A dissonance sets in which may or may not be resolved -later. The regular use of syncopation, therefore, destroyed the fallacy -(as I hold it) of the perfect ear; and this is one reason why Americans -are often readier to listen to modern music than peoples who haven’t -got used to dissonance in their folk and popular music. - -It is not only syncopation that makes us indebted to negro music. -Another element is the typical chord structure found there, the -characteristic variations from the accustomed. Technically described, -one of the most familiar is the subdominant seventh chord with -the interval of a minor instead of a major seventh--a method of -lowering the leading tone which affects so distant a piece as _A -Stairway to Paradise_, where the accented syllable of Par´-adise is -skilfully lowered. (By extension ragtime also uses the “diminished -third.”) The succession of dominant sevenths and of ninths is another -characteristic, and the intrusion of tones which lie outside of our -normal piano scale is common.[8] Still another attack on the perfect -chord comes from the use of the instruments of the jazz band, one -for which ragtime had well prepared us. The notorious slide of the -trombone, now repeated in the slide of the voice, means inevitably that -in its progress to the note which will make an harmonious chord, the -instrument passes through discords. “Smears,” as they are refreshingly -called, are the deadliest enemy of the classic tradition, for the -ear becomes so accustomed to discords in transition that it ceases -to mind them. (We hear them, of course; the pedants are wrong to say -that we will cease to appreciate the “real value” of a discord if -we aren’t pained by it and don’t leave the hall when one is played -without resolution.) In contemporary ragtime, it should be noted, -the syncopation of the tonality--playing your b-flat in the bass just -before it occurs in the voice, let us say--is often purely a method of -warning, an indication of the direction the melody is to take. - -I put the strange harmonies of jazz first, not because they are its -chief characteristic, but because of the prejudice against them. -The suggestion is current that they are sounds which ought never to -be uttered; and with this goes an attack on the trick instruments, -the motor-horns, of the battery-man. The two things have nothing in -common. The instruments of the jazz band are wholly legitimate and its -characteristic instrument was invented by a German, after whom it is -named, in the middle of the last century, and has been used in serious -music by (and since) Meyerbeer--I refer to the saxophone. There is no -more legal objection to the muted trombone than to the violin _con -sordino_. And the opponents of jazz bands will do well to remember that -the pure and lovely D-minor symphony of César Franck was thrown out as -a symphony because it used the English horn. The actual sounds produced -by the jazz band are entirely legitimate. We have yet to see what use -they make of them. - - * * * * * - -In Krehbiel’s book the whole question of rhythm is comparatively taken -for granted, as it should be. Syncopation discovered in classic music, -in the Scot’s snap of the Strathspey reel, in Hungarian folk music, -is characteristic of three-fifths of the negro songs which Krehbiel -analyzed (exactly the same proportion, by the way, as are in the -interval of the ordinary _major_). But it is such a normal phenomenon -that I have never found a composer to be interested in it. Krehbiel, to -be sure, does refer to the “degenerate form” of syncopation which is -the basis of our ragtime, and that is hopeful because it indicates that -ragtime is a development--intensification, sophistication--of something -normal in musical expression. The free use of syncopation has led our -good composers of ragtime and jazz to discoveries in rhythm and to a -mastery of complications which one finds elsewhere only in the great -composers of serious music. In describing the Dahoman war dances at the -Chicago World’s Fair, Krehbiel says: - -“Berlioz in his supremest effort with his army of drummers produced -nothing to compare _in artistic interest_ with the harmonious drumming -of these savages. The fundamental effect was a combination of double -and triple time, the former kept by the singers, the latter by the -drummers, but it is impossible to convey the idea of the wealth of -detail achieved by the drummers by means of exchange of the rhythms, -syncopation of both simultaneously, and dynamic devices.” - -The italics are mine. I am fully aware of the difference between savage -and sophisticated, between folk music and popular music; yet I cannot -help believing that this entire statement, including the Berlioz whom -I greatly admire, could be applied to Paul Whiteman playing _Pack Up -Your Sins_ or his incredible mingling of _A Stairway to Paradise_ with -a sort of _Beale Street Blues_. - -Freedom with rhythm is audible--should I say palpable?--everywhere. -_Stumbling_ (Zez Confrey) is in effect a waltz played against a more -rapid counter-rhythm, and is interesting also for its fixed groups of -uneven notes--triplets with the first note held or omitted for a time, -and then with the third note omitted. A similar effect with other -means occurs in the treatment of three notes in _Innocent Ingénue -Baby_, by George Gershwin, where the same note falls under a different -beat with a delightful sense of surprise and uncertainty. Mr Hooker’s -words are equally tricky, for it isn’t “Innocent-Ingénue-Baby” at -all; it is Innocent Ingénue (_baby_). In _By and By_ Gershwin has -shifted an accent from the first to the second simply by giving the -second the time-value usually given to the first, a fresh, delightful -treatment of a sentimental expression. The variety of method is vastly -interesting. Louis Hirsch, whom I rank fairly low as a composer -for jazz, has done perfectly one obvious, necessary thing: stopped -syncopating in the middle of a piece of ragtime. In the phrase “shake -and shimmy everywhere” in _It’s Getting Very Dark on Old Broadway_, -he presents the whole-tone scale descending in two bars of full -unsyncopated quarter-notes. In the works of Zez Confrey (they are -issued with a snobbish tasty cover, rather like the works of Claude -Debussy) the syncopation and the exploitation of concurrent, apparently -irreconcilable rhythms is first exasperating and eventually exciting. -They are specifically piano pieces and require a brilliant proficiency -to render them. - -It is a little difficult, unless one has the piano score, to determine -what part is the work of the composer, what of the jazz orchestra. -You can only be fairly certain that whatever melody occurs is the -composer’s, and that rhythmically he is followed with some fidelity. -All you need to do is to listen to the violin, piano, or whatever -instrument it is which holds the beat, to realize what the composer has -given. Harmonization is often, and orchestration nearly always, left to -other hands. Mr Berlin makes a habit now of giving credit to his chief -collaborator, and he deserves it.[9] - - * * * * * - -Mr Berlin’s masterpieces (June, 1923, but who shall say?) in jazz are -_Everybody Step_ and _Pack Up Your Sins_. I have written so much about -him in connexion with song and shows that I can say little more. I -see no letting down of his energy, none in his inventiveness. He is, -oddly, one of the simplest of our composers. A good way to estimate his -capacity is to play the more sentimental songs (_I’m Gonna Pin My Medal -on the Girl I Left Behind_, _Someone Else May Be There While I’m Gone_, -_All by Myself_) in slow time and then in fast. The amazing way they -hold together in each tempo, the way in which the sentiment, the flow -of the melody, disengages itself in the slow, and then the rhythm, the -beat takes first place in the fast time, is exceptional. You cannot do -the same with his own _Some Sunny Day_, nor with _Chicago_ or _Carolina -in the Morning_. Berlin’s work is musically interesting, and that means -it has a chance to survive. I have no such confidence in _Dardanella_ -or _Chicago_. The famous unmelodic four notes occur in the latter as -in _Pack Up Your Sins_ (the source is the same, but we need not go -into that); the working out is vastly inferior. Fred Fisher’s work is -sledge hammer in comparison with Berlin’s, and lacks Berlin’s humour. -Of that quality Walter Donaldson has some, and Gershwin much. Donaldson -wrote Al Jolson’s _Mammy_ (I can’t remember which, but I’m afraid -I didn’t like it), and a song I count heavily on: _Carolina in the -Morning_. This song is, incidentally, a startling example of how jazz -is improving the lyrics, for the majority of jazz songs are not meant -primarily for singing, so the balladists take liberties, and not being -held to a definite end-rhyme give us “strolling with your girlie when -the dew is pearly early in the morning.”[10] The music is clean, rapid, -and audacious. It carries the introduction (of the chorus) almost to -the point of exhaustion, suspending the resolution of its phrases until -the last possible moment, and then lets go, with a vast relief on the -long, somewhat yodelly note. Confrey has done the same thing in _Kitten -on the Keys_ where one bar is repeated five times with successive -tightening of interest. - -[Illustration: - - GEORGE GERSHWIN -] - -Two composers are possible successors to Berlin if he ever chooses -to stop. I omit Jerome Kern--a consideration of musical style will -indicate why. I am sure of Gershwin and would be more sure of Cole -Porter if his astonishing lyrics did not so dazzle me as to make me -distrust my estimate of his music. Gershwin is in Berlin’s tradition; -he has almost all the older man’s qualities as a composer (not as a -lyrics writer; nor has he Berlin’s sense of a song on the stage). -That is to say, Gershwin is capable of everything, from _Swanee_ to -_A Stairway to Paradise_. His sentiment is gentler than Berlin’s, his -“attack” more delicate. Delicacy, even dreaminess, is a quality he -alone brings into jazz music. And his sense of variation in rhythm, -of an oddly placed accent, of emphasis and colour, is impeccable. -He isn’t of the stage, yet, so he lacks Berlin’s occasional bright -hardness; he never has Berlin’s smartness; and with a greater musical -knowledge he seems possessed of an insatiable interest and curiosity. -I feel I can bank on him. Banking on Porter is dangerous because -essentially he is much more sophisticated in general attitude of mind -than any of the others, and although he has written ragtime and patter -songs and jazz of exceptional goodness, he has one quality which may -bar him forever from the highest place--I mean that he is essentially a -parodist. I know of no one else with such a sense for musical styles. -A blues, a 1910 rag, a Savoy operetta serio-comic love song, a mother -song--he writes them all with a perfect feeling for their musical -nature, and almost always with satiric intention, with a touch of -parody. It is only the most sophisticated form which is germane to -him; in highly complex jazzing he is so much at home, his curiosity is -so engaged, he feels the problem so much, that the element of parody -diminishes. Yet _The Blue Boy Blues_, almost as intricate a thing as -Berlin ever wrote, with a melody overlaid on a running syncopated -comment, has a slight touch of parody in the very excess of its skill. -Jazz has always mocked itself a little; it is possible that it will -divide and follow two strains--the negro and the intellectual. In the -second case Porter will be one of its leaders and Whiteman will be his -orchestra. The song _Soon_, for example, is a deliberate annihilation -of the Southern negro sentiment carefully done by playing Harlem jazz, -with a Harlem theme, mercilessly burlesquing the _clichés_ of the -Southern song--the Swanee-Mammy element--in favour of a Harlem alley. -Porter’s parody is almost too facile; _Soon_ is an exasperatingly -good piece of jazz in itself. He is a tireless experimenter, and the -fact that in 1923 others are doing things he tried in 1919, makes me -wonder whether his excessive intelligence and sophistication may not -be pointing a way which steadier and essentially more _native_ jazz -writers will presently follow. Native, I mean, to jazz; taking it more -seriously. Whether any of them could compose such a ballet as Porter -did for the Ballet Suédois is another question. - -The other way is still open--the way of Sissle and Blake, of Creamer -and Layton, of A. Harrington Gibbs. The last is a name unknown to me -ten days before the moment of writing; I do not know if it represents -a Southern negro or a Welshman. But--if he has composed anything, if -_Runnin’ Wild_ isn’t a direct transcript of a negro devil-tune--he is -in the school of the negro composers and he has accomplished wonders -already. For _Runnin’ Wild_ is a masterpiece in its _genre_. Note -the cleverness of the execution: the melody is virtually without -accompaniment; it consists of groups of three notes, the interval of -time being simple, and the interval of pitch in the group or between -two successive groups, is quite conventional. Once three groups of -three notes are played in succession; toward the end the group is twice -lengthened to four notes; the orchestra is heard after each group has -been sung, giving an unnerving effect of alternating sound and silence. -But there is something more: There is the complete evocation of the -two negro spirits--the darky (South, slave) and the buck (Harlem); -the negro and the nigger. It ends with a shout which is lyrical and -ecstatic at once, wild and free. It is an enchantingly gay piece, it -expresses its title--one sees our own Gilda Grey stepping out in it -bravely; it is, in a way, a summary of the feeling of negro music which -_Shuffle Along_ and its followers restored to prominence. - -More must be said of the negro side of jazz than I can say here. Its -technical interest hasn’t yet been discussed by anyone sufficiently -expert and sufficiently enthusiastic at the same time. In words and -music the negro side expresses something which underlies a great deal -of America--our independence, our carelessness, our frankness, and -gaiety. In each of these the negro is more intense than we are, and we -surpass him when we combine a more varied and more intelligent life -with his instinctive qualities. _Aggravatin’ Papa_ (don’t you try -to two-time me) isn’t exactly the American response to a suspected -infidelity, yet it is humanly sound, and is only a little more simple -and savage than we are. The superb _I’m Just Wild about Harry_ is, -actually, closer to the American feeling of 1922 than “I Always dream -of Bill”; as expression it is more honest than, say, _Beautiful Garden -of Roses_; and _He May be Your Man_ is simply a letting down of our -reticences, a frankness beyond us. - -I shift between the two teams, Sissle and Blake, Creamer and Layton, -uncertain which has most to give. Sissle and Blake wrote _Shuffle -Along_; the others accomplished the intricate, puzzling rhythm of -_Sweet Angelina_, one or two other songs in _Strut Miss Lizzie_, and -_Come Along, I’m through with Worrying_. Of this song a special word -can be said. It is based on _Swing Low, Sweet Chariot_, and imposes on -that melody a negro theme (the shiftlessness and assurance of “bound -to live until I die”) and a musical structure similar to that applied -to the same original by Anton Dvořak in the _New World Symphony_. I -am only a moderate admirer of this work; I am not trying to put _Come -Along_ into the same category, for its value is wholly independent of -its comparative merits; nor am I claiming that jazz is equal to or -greater or less than symphonic music. But I do feel that the treatment -of a negro melody, by negroes, to make a popular and beautiful song for -Americans ought not to be always neglected, always despised. I say also -that our serious composers have missed so much in not seeing what the -ragtime composers have done, that (like Lady Bracknell) they ought to -be exposed to comment on the platform. - -If they cannot hear the almost unearthly cry of the _Beale Street -Blues_ I can only be sorry for them; the whole of Handy’s work is -melodically of the greatest interest and is to me so versatile, so -changing, in quality, that I am incapable of suggesting its elements. -Observed in the works of others, the blues retain some of this elusive -nature--they are equivocal between simplicity, sadness, irony, and -something approaching frenzy. The original negro spiritual has had -more respect, but the elements have been sparsely used, and one -fancies that even in looking at these our serious composers have -felt the presence of a regrettable vulgarity in syncopation and in -melodic line. _Jesus Heal’ de Sick_ is negro from the Bahamas; its -syncopation, its cry, “Bow low!” are repeated in any number of others; -the spirituals themselves were often made out of the common songs in -which common feeling rose to intense and poetic expression--as in -_Round About de Mountain_, a funeral song with the Resurrection in a -magnificent phrase, “An she’ll rise in His arms.” The only place we -have these things left, whether you call the present version debased -or sophisticated, gain or loss, is in ragtime, in jazz. I do _not_ -think that the negro (in African plastic or in American rag) is our -salvation. But he has kept alive things without which our lives would -be perceptibly meaner, paler, and nearer to atrophy and decay. - -I say the negro is not our salvation because with all my feeling -for what he instinctively offers, for his desirable indifference to -our set of conventions about emotional decency, I am on the side of -civilization. To anyone who inherits several thousand centuries of -civilization, none of the things the negro offers can matter unless -they are apprehended by the mind as well as by the body and the spirit. -The beat of the tom-tom affects the feet and the pulse, I am sure; in -_Emperor Jones_ the throbbing of the drum affected our minds and our -sensibilities at once. There will always exist wayward, instinctive, -and primitive geniuses who will affect us directly, without the -interposition of the intellect; but if the process of civilization -continues (will it? I am not so sure, nor entirely convinced that -it should) the greatest art is likely to be that in which an -uncorrupted sensibility is _worked_ by a creative intelligence. So -far in their music the negroes have given their response to the world -with an exceptional naïveté, a directness of expression which has -interested _our_ minds as well as touched our emotions; they have -shown comparatively little evidence of the functioning of _their_ -intelligence. _Runnin’ Wild_, whether it be transposed or transcribed, -is singularly instinctive, and instinctively one recognizes it and -makes it the musical motif of a gay night. But one falls back on -_Pack Up Your Sins_ and _Soon_ as more interesting pieces of music -even if one can whistle only the first two bars. (I pass the question -of falling farther back, to the music of high seriousness, which is -another matter; it is quite possible, however, that the _Sacre du -Printemps_ of Strawinsky, to choose an example not unaffected by the -jazz age, will outlive the marble monument of the Music Box.) - - * * * * * - -Nowhere is the failure of the negro to exploit his gifts more obvious -than in the use he has made of the jazz orchestra; for although nearly -every negro jazz band is better than nearly every white band, no negro -band has yet come up to the level of the best white ones, and the -leader of the best of all, by a little joke, is called Whiteman. The -negro’s instinctive feeling for colourful instruments in the band is -marked; he was probably the one to see what could be done with the -equivocal voice of the saxophone--a reed in brass, partaking of the -qualities of two choirs in the orchestra at once. He saw that it could -imitate the voice, and in the person of Miss Florence Mills saw that -the voice could equally imitate the saxophone. The shakes, thrills, -vibratos, smears, and slides are natural to him, although they produce -tones outside the scale, because he has never been tutored into a -feeling for perfect tones, as white men have; and he uses these with a -great joy in the surprise they give, in the way they adorn or destroy a -melody; he is given also to letting instruments follow their own bent, -because he has a faultless sense of rhythm and he always comes out -right in the end. But this is only the beginning of the jazz band--for -its perfection we go afield. - -We go farther than Ted Lewis, whom Mr Walter Haviland calls a genius. -M Darius Milhaud has told me that the jazz band at the Hotel Brunswick -in Boston is one of the best he heard in America, and stranger things -have happened. The best of the negro bands (although he is dead, I make -exception for that superb 369th Hell-fighters Infantry Band as it was -conducted by the lamented Jim Europe) are probably in the neighborhood -of 140th street and Lenox avenue in New York and in the negro district -of Chicago. Many hotels and night clubs in New York have good jazz -bands; I limit myself to three which are representative, and, by their -frequent appearances in vaudeville, are familiar. Ted Lewis is one of -the three; Vincent Lopez and Paul Whiteman are the others. There is -a popular band led by Barney Bernie (as I recall the name, perhaps -incorrectly) which is an imitation Ted Lewis, and not a good one. Lewis -must be prepared for imitators, for he does with notorious success -something that had as well not be done at all. He is totally, but -brilliantly, wrong in the use of his materials, for he is doing what he -cannot do--_i.e._, trying to make a negro jazz orchestra. It is a good -band; like Europe’s, it omits strings; it is quite the noisiest of the -orchestras, as that of Lopez is the quietest, and Lewis uses its (and -his) talents for the perpetration of a series of musical travesties, -jokes, puns, and games. I quote a eulogy by Mr Haviland:[11] - - For instance, there is his travesty of the marriage ceremony. - To the jazzed tune of the good old classic “Wedding March” - Lewis puts a snowy, flower-decked bridal veil on the sleek, - pomaded head of the trombone player. He puts it on crooked, - with a scornful flip of his slender, malicious hands. Then - he leads forward the hardest-looking saxophone player, and - pretends to marry “Ham” and “Eggs”--and incidentally draws - the correct conclusion as to marriage as it exists in America - to-day. Perfect satire in less than three minutes. - -Well, this is extraordinarily tedious and would be hissed off the -stage if it were not for the actual skill Lewis has in effecting -amusing orchestra combinations. His own violence, his exaggeration -of the temperamental conductor, his nasal voice and lean figure in -excessively odd black clothes, his pontificating over the orchestra, -his announcement that he is going to murder music--all indicate a lack -of appreciation of the medium. He may be a good vaudeville stunt, but -he is not a great jazz leader. Again Mr Haviland: - - It is not music. It has the form of music, but he has - filled it with energy instead of spirituality. What is the - difference? You’ll understand if you hear his jazz band. It - interprets the American life of to-day; its hard surface, its - scorn of tradition, its repudiation of form, its astonishing - sophistication--and most important, its mechanical, rather - than spiritual civilization. - -And again no. Lewis may have a perfectly trained orchestra, but the -_sense_ of control which one absolutely requires he does not give. -He has violence, not energy, and he cannot interpret those qualities -which Mr Haviland so justly discovers as being of our contemporary life -because he isn’t hard and scornful and sophisticated himself--he is -merely callous to some beauties and afraid of others, and by dint of -being in revolt against a serene and classic beauty pays it unconscious -tribute. (I fear also that Lewis imagines the “Wedding March” classic -in more senses than one.) It may be noted also that the tone of -travesty is not correct for contemporary America; we require neither -that nor irony. Parody, rising to satire, is our indicated medium--Mr -Dooley, not _Ulysses_. - -The orchestra of Vincent Lopez I take as an example of the good, -workmanlike, competent, inventive, adequate band. It plays at the -Hotel Pennsylvania and in vaudeville, and although Lopez lacks the -ingenuity of Lewis in sound, he has a greater sense of the capacities -of jazz, and instead of doing a jazz wedding he takes the entire score -of “that infernal nonsense, _Pinafore_,” cuts it to five characteristic -fragments, and jazzes it--shall I say mercilessly or reverently? -Because he likes Sullivan and he likes jazz. And the inevitable -occurs; _Pinafore_ is good and stands the treatment; jazz is good and -loses nothing by this odd application. The orchestra has verve and, not -being dominated by an excessive personality, has humour and character -of its own. I trust these moderate words will not conceal a vast -admiration. - -Jim Europe seemed to have a constructive intelligence and, had he -lived, I am sure he would have been an even greater conductor than -Whiteman. To-day I know of no second to Whiteman in the complete -exploitation of jazz. It is a real perfection of the instrument, a -mechanically perfect organization which pays for its perfection by -losing much of the element of surprise; little is left to hazard and -there are no accidents. Whiteman has been clever enough to preserve the -sense of impromptu and his principal band--that of the Palais Royal in -New York--is so much under control (his and its own) that it can make -the slightest variation count for more than all the running away from -the beat which is common _chez_ Lewis. Like Karl Muck and Jim Europe, -Whiteman is a bit of a _kapellmeister_; his beat is regular or entirely -absent; he never plays the music with his hand, or designs the contours -of a melody, or otherwise _acts_. I know that people miss these things; -I would miss them gladly a thousand times for what Whiteman gives in -return. I mean that a sudden bellow or a groan or an improvised cluck -is all very well; but the real surprise is constructive, the real -thrill is in such a moment as the middle of Whiteman’s performance of -_A Stairway to Paradise_ when a genuine Blues occurs. That is real -intelligence and the rest--is nowhere. The sleek, dull, rather portly -figure stands before his orchestra, sidewise, almost somnolent, and -listens. A look of the eye, a twitch of the knee, are his semaphoric -signals. Occasionally he picks up a violin and plays a few bars; but -the work has been done before and he is there only to know that the -results are perfect. And all the time the band is producing music with -fervour and accuracy, hard and sensitive at once. All the free, the -instinctive, the wild in negro jazz which could be integrated into his -music, he has kept; he has added to it, has worked his material, until -it runs sweetly in his dynamo, without grinding or scraping. It becomes -the machine which conceals machinery. He has arrived at one high point -of jazz--the highest until new material in the music is provided for -him. - - * * * * * - -The title of this essay is provoked by that of the best and bitterest -attack launched against the ragtime age--Clive Bell’s _Plus de Jazz_. -(In _Since Cézanne_.) “No more jazz,” said Mr Bell in 1921, and, “Jazz -is dying.” Recalling that Mr Bell is at some pains to dissociate from -the movement the greatest of living painters, Picasso; that he concedes -to it a great composer, Strawinsky, and T. S. Eliot, whom he calls -“about the best of our living poets,” James Joyce whom he wofully -underestimates, Virginia Woolf, Cendrars, Picabia, Cocteau, and the -musicians of _les six_,--remembering the degree of discrimination and -justice which these concessions require, I quote some of the more -bitter things about jazz because it would be shirking not to indicate -where the answer may lie: - - Appropriately it (the jazz movement) took its name from - music--the art that is always behind the times.... Impudence - is its essence--impudence in quite natural and legitimate - revolt against nobility and beauty: impudence which finds its - technical equivalent in syncopation: impudence which rags.... - After impudence comes the determination to surprise: you shall - not be gradually moved to the depths, you shall be given such a - start as makes you jigger all over.... - - ... Its fears and dislikes--for instance, its horror of the - noble and the beautiful are childish; and so is its way of - expressing them. Not by irony and sarcasm, but by jeers and - grimaces, does Jazz mark its antipathies. Irony and wit are - for the grown-ups. Jazz dislikes them as much as it dislikes - nobility and beauty. They are the products of the cultivated - intellect and jazz cannot away with intellect or culture.... - Nobility, beauty, and intellectual subtlety are alike ruled - out.... - - ... And, of course, it was delightful for those who sat - drinking their cocktails and listening to nigger bands, to be - told that, besides being the jolliest people on earth, they - were the most sensitive and critically gifted. They ... were - the possessors of natural, uncorrupted taste.... Their instinct - might be trusted: so, no more classical concerts and music - lessons.... - - The encouragement given to fatuous ignorance to swell with - admiration of its own incompetence is perhaps what has turned - most violently so many intelligent and sensitive people against - Jazz. They see that it encourages thousands of the stupid and - vulgar to fancy that they can understand art, and hundreds of - the conceited to imagine that they can create it.... - -It is understood that Mr Bell is discussing the whole of the jazz -movement, not ragtime music alone. I do not wish to go into the other -arts, except to say that if he is jazz, then Mr Joyce’s sense of form, -his tremendous intellectual grasp of his æsthetic problem, and his -solution of that problem, are far more proof than is required of the -case for jazz. Similarly for Mr Eliot. It is not exactly horror of -the noble that underlies Mr Joyce’s travesty of English prose style, -nor is it to Mr Eliot that the reproach about irony and wit is to be -made. In music it is of course not impudence, but emphasis (distortion -or transposition of emphasis) which finds its technical equivalent in -syncopation, for syncopation is a method of rendering an emotion, not -an emotion in itself. (Listen to Strawinsky.) Surprise, yes; but in -the jazz of Lewis and not in that of Whiteman, which does not jeer or -grimace, which has wit and structure--_i.e._, employs the intellect. -Nobility--no. But under what compulsion are we always to be noble? The -cocktail drinkers may have been told a lot of nonsense about their -position as arbiters of the arts; precisely the same nonsense is taught -in our schools and preached by belated æsthetes to people whose claims -are not a whit better--since it doesn’t matter what their admirers -think of themselves--it is what jazz and Rostand and Michelangelo are -in themselves that matters. I have used the word art throughout this -book in connexion with jazz and jazzy things; if anyone imagines that -the word is belittled thereby and can no longer be adequate to the -dignity of Leonardo or Shakespeare, I am sorry. I do not think I have -given encouragement to “fatuous ignorance” by praising simple and -unpretentious things at the expense of the fake and the _faux bon_. -I have suggested that people do what they please about the gay arts, -about jazz; that they do it with discrimination and without worrying -whether it is noble or not, or good form or intellectually right. I -am fairly certain that if they are ever actually to see Picasso it -will be because they have acquired the habit of seeing--something, -anything--without _arrière-pensée_, because they will know what the -pleasure is that a work of art can give, even if it be jazz art. Here -is Mr Bell’s conclusion, with most of which I agree: - - Even to understand art a man must make a great intellectual - effort. One thing is not as good as another; so artists - and amateurs must learn to choose. No easy matter, that: - discrimination of this sort being something altogether - different from telling a Manhattan from a Martini. To select as - an artist or discriminate as a critic are needed feeling and - intellect and--most distressing of all--study. However, unless - I mistake, the effort will be made. The age of easy acceptance - of the first thing that comes is closing. Thought rather than - spirits is required, quality rather than colour, knowledge - rather than irreticence, intellect rather than singularity, - wit rather than romps, precision rather than surprise, dignity - rather than impudence, and lucidity above all things: _plus de - Jazz_. - -It is not so written, but it sounds like “Above all things, no more -jazz!” A critic who would have hated jazz as bitterly as Mr Bell does, -wrote once, alluding to a painter of the second rank: - - But, beside those great men, there is a certain number of - artists who have a distinct faculty of their own, by which - they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we - cannot get elsewhere; and these, too, have their place in - general culture, and must be interpreted to it by those who - have felt their charm strongly, and are often the objects of a - special diligence and a consideration wholly affectionate, just - because there is not about them the stress of a great name and - authority. - ---and beside the great arts there is a certain number of lesser arts -which have also a pleasure to give; and if we savour it strongly and -honestly we shall lose none of our delight in the others. But if we -fear and hate _them_, how shall we go into the Presence? - - - - - _Mr Dooley, - Meet Mr Lardner_ - - - - -MR DOOLEY, MEET MR LARDNER - - -One of the most illuminating things Van Wyck Brooks ever said, about -himself, was that Mr Dooley is already forgotten. It was particularly -illuminating because Mr Brooks was in England when he made that -statement, and it was some time before 1914--and it happens that it was -in England, in 1917 that I was made to understand how living Mr Dooley -is, how relevant to affairs and situations of the moment, and how much -English men and women consider him as one of the better items in the -heritage of Americans. The writer of _The Ordeal of Mark Twain_ is an -invaluable critic for America; yet one wishes that he, too, could see -Mr Dooley’s place in our literature; one still hopes that he will begin -to enjoy Ring Lardner. - -The juxtaposition of these two names would be reasonable even if both -of them did not write in slang, for one is the greatest of our retired -satirists and the other has every chance (if not every intention) of -becoming the greatest of our active ones. I should like to say at once -that I am not addressing an open letter to Dear Mr Lardner, bidding -him, while there is yet time, to think on higher things. I do not want -him to forswear for a moment his hold on the popular imagination, nor -to write for a more judicious _clientèle_. I am satisfied to have Mr -Lardner amuse me; if the strain of satire in him is an accident and he -prefers to go on with his slang humour--I can always read Mr Dooley or -Dean Swift. But if the growing vein of satire in all of Lardner’s work -is what I think it is, he has much to learn from Mr Dooley. I shall -presently come to Mr Dooley and indicate what it is Lardner can learn -in those beautiful pages; the main thing is that he is probably the -only man in America with the capacity of learning the lesson of the -master, and happily he can learn it without ceasing for a moment to -live in his own world. I do not wish to force upon him the ordeal of -being worried about. - -There may have been a time when Mr Lardner gave cause for worry. -Perhaps when _You Know Me, Al_ had run as long as it needed to run, -one might have feared that Mr Lardner, having discovered the American -language as his medium, simply didn’t know what to do with it. If his -humour was going to depend for ever on “1-sided” and “4-taste” and odd -misspellings, it might cease to be funny. It was necessary, in short, -that Mr Lardner should have something personal to say. He has answered -the question of his future by showing the beginnings of a first-rate -satirist, continuing the tradition of Mark Twain and Mr Dooley. And -having these tentatives in mind we can begin to look back and wonder -whether he wasn’t always something of a satirist, unconsciously. - -The dates may confound my argument, so I will omit them; substantially -Lardner began writing the letters of a busher just when the more -serious magazines were exploiting the intellectual idea of “inside -baseball.” Those were the days--and they must have been funny, we feel -_circa_ 1923 when the bought and sold world’s series and the letters -of the fishing pitcher and suchlike scandal are in our memories, -carefully tucked away because the honour of the national game is safe -in the hands of a dictator--those were the days when the manager -of a baseball team was regarded as a combination of a captain of -finance (later events rather justified that assumption) a Freud, and -an unborn Einstein. A fine body of college graduates, clean-living, -sport-loving, well-read boys were the players; and a sport-loving, -game-for-the-game’s sake body of men the enthusiasts. Hughie Fullerton -and Paul Elmer More might be seen any day in the same column, and -John J. McGraw, who allowed himself to be called Muggsy to show what -a good democrat he was, lunched daily at the President’s table. Into -this pretentious parade Mr Lardner injected the busher--and baseball -has never recovered. The busher was simply a roughneck and a fool, a -braggart and a liar; he was on occasions a good ball player, and he -seemed to be inflated with the hot air which had been written about -him. He pricked the bubble, and I do not wonder that Heywood Broun, -despairing of making interesting his accounts of a recent world’s -series, publicly prayed to God to change places with him for duration. -Nothing short of divine power could save them. - -It is a long time since the days of the busher and when Lardner -returned to baseball it was clear that the subject interested him in no -degree, and that he had changed much as a writer. It is not necessary -to belittle the earlier work; only to note that in 1922 the Lardner -touch was much more deft, that the language was both richer and more -accurate, and that he was continually writing parodies, sometimes of a -phrase, often of a whole style. Three or four of the reports he wrote -for the New York _American_ were jewels--and, although they had little -to do with baseball, they must have been written in the few hours which -intervene between the end of a game and the moment of going to press. -The whole series of articles ought to be reprinted; I am limited to -snatches from two of them. The first set the theme: that Lardner had -promised his wife a fur coat from his winnings--he had bet on the -Yankees. The headline was - - Rings’ Mrs. - _Outa Luck_ - On Fur Coat - -and then followed: - - Well friends you can imagine my surprise and horror when I - found out to-night that the impression had got around some way - another that as soon as this serious was over I was planning - to buy a expensive fur coat for my Mrs. and put a lot of money - into same and buy a coat that would probably run up into - hundreds and hundreds of dollars. - - Well I did not mean to give no such kind of a impression and - I certainly hope that my little article was not read that way - by everybody a specially around my little home because in the - first place I am not a sucker enough to invest hundreds and - hundreds of dollars in a garment which the chances are that - the Mrs. will not wear it more than a couple times all winter, - as the way it looks now we are libel to have the most openest - winter in history, and if women folks should walk along the st. - in expensive fur coats in the kind of weather which it looks - like we are going to have, why, they would only be laughed at - and any way I believe a couple can have a whole lot better time - in winter staying home and reading a good book or maybe have a - few friends in to play bridge. - - Further and more, I met a man at supper last night that has - been in the fur business all his life and ain’t did nothing you - might say only deal in furs and this man says that they are a - great many furs in this world which is reasonable priced that - has got as much warmth in them as high price furs and looks a - great deal better. - - For inst. he says that a man is a sucker to invest thousands - and thousands of dollars in expensive furs like Erminie, - mule-skin, squirrel skin and Kerensky when for a hundred - dollars, or not even that much, why a man can buy a owl skin or - horse skin or weasel skin garment that looks like big dough and - practically prostrates people with the heat when they wear them. - - So I hope my readers will put a quietus on the silly rumour - that I am planning to plunge in the fur market. I will see - that my Mrs. is dressed in as warm a style as she has been - accustomed to but neither her or I is the kind that likes to - make a big show and go up and down Fifth ave. sweltering in a - $700 hog-skin garment in order so as people will turn around - and gap at us. Live and let live is my slocum. - -If this were not funny its secondary qualities would not be worth -noting. The single sentence which makes up the second paragraph is a -miracle of condensation, for it contains the whole mind and character -of the individual created behind it (it is not Ring Lardner, obviously) -and at the same time it is a miracle of the ear, for the rhythm and -intonation of the American spoken language is perfectly caught and -held in it. What is the use of _Babbitt_ in five hundred pages if we -have Lardner in five hundred words? The fur episode was continued two -days later, the Yankees continuing to lose and three kittens--“three -members of what is sometimes referred to as the feline tribe”--out at -Mr Lardner’s “heavily mortgaged home in Great Neck ... is practically -doomed you might say ...” because Mr Lardner has met a man “who has -did nothing all his life but sell and wear fur coats” and who assured -him that catskin garments no bigger than a guest towel were all the -rage and had been seen on “some of the best-dressed women in New York -strolling up and down Tenth avenue....” - -“These 3 little members of the feline tribe is the cutest and best -behaved kitties in all catdom, their conduct having always been -above reproaches outside of a tendency on the part of Ringer to bite -strangers’ knuckles. Nowhere on Long Island is there a more loveable -trio of grimalkins, and how it pierces my old heart to think that some -day next week these 3 little fellows must be shot down like a dog so as -their fur can be fashioned into a warm winter coat for she who their -antics has so often caused to screech with laughter.” - -The annihilation of the whole Black Beauty-Beautiful Joe style of -writing in the last sentence is complete, and is accomplished with the -retention of Lardner’s own peculiarities. It may shock Mr Lardner to -know that he has done in little what Mr Joyce has done on the grand -scale in _Ulysses_. - -Indeed I feel that there must be hidden parody in the earlier writings -of Mr Lardner, too, because he is so clean in handling it now. Satire -in detail he had--there is a dictionary of it in his one word “he-ll.” -Elsewhere, in a series later than _You Know Me, Al_ he has described a -half-fatuous, half-hardheaded roughneck dragging his silly and scheming -wife and sister-in-law through the hotels and apartments of the -backwash of society, and the story grew more and more sardonic, more -and more entertaining; little of the aimless, sickly, trivial life of -the merely prosperous escaped him. Unlike Mr Dooley, his chief concerns -were private ones; it is only recently that he has touched upon public -affairs. For a long time his only “universal” was baseball--a form -of entertainment which now bores him exceedingly. He is also bored, -I gather from an interview in the New York _Globe_, with the sort of -fiction he has been writing, and amuses himself with writing plays. But -as a satirist he is turning slowly towards matters of pith, and the -question of his ultimate rank depends on this: Can he, as he broadens -out, retain the swift, destructive, and tremendously funny turn of -phrase, the hard and resistant mind, the gaiety of spirit which have -made him a humorist? Can he, in short, learn from Mr Dooley and remain -Mr Lardner? For many reasons I think he can. - -Between the busher and these newspaper reports Mr Lardner has written -much; among his ephemera, even, there are many pages not to be lost. I -shall return to them after drawing a long course with Mr Dooley as my -centre, for it is one of the significant things about Mr Dooley that -you must always keep him in your eye when you are scanning the horizon -for an American satirist. - -Mr Dooley was a satirist of the highest order and an excellent -humorist. The combination is interesting. Psycho-analysts may determine -at a later date that the reason he wrote in dialect was that he was -afraid to attack the American people directly; I prefer to believe that -the good sense of his creator (Finley Peter Dunne, to be sure; but -one always thinks of Martin Dooley in his independent existence) saw -that a benevolent humour was the correct medium for a satire adequate -to America. And that is America’s good fortune. Read the criticism -of American warfare and politics as developed in the satire of Mr -Dooley and compare it with the satire of French politics and warfare -as expressed in the irony of Anatole France; without measuring the -quality of the one by the other, think only that each is _adequate_ -to the subject. Less than the bitterness of _Penguin Island_ and the -_Histoire contemporaine_ would not have served for France; more than -the laughter of Dooley would have been disproportionate and unmanly for -us. - -Satire is like parody in admitting the integrity of the subject; it is -a pruning knife applied for the good of the tree; and irony is a dagger -with corrosive poison at the tip. Satire is proper to America because -essentially the satirist believes that life is all right, and that -only the extravagances and frailties of American life, at the moment -of writing, need correction or are subject to mockery. The Frenchman, -in a highly organized society, which he takes to be not only the best -expression of life, but life itself, turns to irony as his natural mode -when he is confronted with the ineluctable vision of its evil. - -The danger is, to be sure, that our satirists remain superficial. When -the thing is done roughly, without much humour, with no rich sense of -the vastness and variety of the comic carnival, we get little more than -the eternal “wise crack”; and the wise crack is no more entertaining -in misspelled English than it is in capital letters, no more in pidgin -than in Yiddish. I do not mean that George Ade and Wallace Irwin and -Bill Nye and Montague Glass haven’t each a special quality which makes -for amusement; I do mean that they lack the great general qualities -of knowing and understanding which create humour. An illustration -will do more than any defining to make the difference clear. The -Japanese Schoolboy used to begin his letters, “To Hon. Editor” and Ring -Lardner is, I suppose, the only man in America who can begin, “Well, -friends....” - -Ambrose Bierce is generally supposed to have had this quality; -certainly he had intelligence and wrote respectable English with a -cold pen. His _Dictionary_ does not impress me as the work of a spirit -naturally ironical. Ade wrote satirically a long time ago; once in -a while something occurs in the _Fables_ to justify the acclaim of -which F. P. A. is the curator. There is much more in Artemas Ward, -whose glory is kept alive, worthily, by the sardonic leader-writer -of _The Freeman_, Mr Albert Jay Nock. As language neither Ade nor -Ward approaches in interest the studies of Mark Twain in _Life on the -Mississippi_, nor those of Dooley and Lardner. The difference between -Bill Nye and Ward on one side and Montague Glass and Lardner on the -other, is that the former did not use an actually viable language or -dialect, but used distortions of English for a specific effect. (I am -far from suggesting that Ward did not use American notably, nor that -his language is the better part of his work; he was a real satirist.) -It is my guess that in the beginning the misspelled words signified -that the speaker was the hard sensible common man with none of “your” -refinements. Juvenal and Johnson may have been superior to the thing -attacked; it pleased the democratic American to pretend to be beneath -it. The literary success of the dialects is another matter, which -anyone who believes that ours is still an Anglo-Saxon country will do -well to consider. Montague Glass is particularly interesting in this -respect. He impresses me as being neither a wise nor a foolish man, but -a smart one. What gave him his vogue was his conformity with the norm -of business acuteness and his use of a highly complex private racial -idiom, which expresses a highly complex integrated almost secret racial -life; he transferred, almost transliterated it into recognizable, at -least understandable English, with such a climax as “I wish I were -dead, God forbid!” which was recognized by the populace as a part of -American life ten years before Mr Henry Ford bought the Protocols. The -racial dialect is also exploited, but not with so reliable an ear, by -Hugh Wiley in his negro stories; it is possible that the stories of -Octavus Roy Cohen are more accurate (they are not so entertaining); -but the life they represent is, in any case, too near to America to be -surprising to us. - -I am convinced that nearly all of Mr Dooley and nearly all of the later -Lardner would stand without dialect. It is not an odd-looking word that -impresses most in Mr Dooley’s masterpieces about the Dreyfus case. “The -witness will confine himself to forgeries” is English as Swift would -have written it, and is neither better nor worse than, “How th’ divvle -can they perjure thimsilves if they ain’t sworn?” or - -“’‘Let us proceed,’ says th’ impartial an’ fair-minded judge, ‘to -th’ thrile iv th’ haynious monsther Cap Dhry-fuss’ he says. Up jumps -Zola, an’ says he in Frinch: ‘Jackuse,’ he says, which is a hell of a -mane thing to say to anny man. An’ they thrun him out. ‘Judge’ says -th’ attorney f’r th’ difinse, ‘an’ gintlemen iv’ th’ jury’ he says. -‘Ye’re a liar,’ says th’ judge. ‘Cap, ye’re guilty, an’ ye know it,’ he -says.... ‘Let us pro-ceed to hearin’ th’ tisti-mony,’ he says.... Be -this time Zola has come back; an’ he jumps up, an’, says he, ‘Jackuse,’ -he says. An’ they thrun him out.” - -It is no wonder that this passage was reprinted by the New York -_Evening Post_ after the expulsion of the Socialists from Albany. -Nearly everything serious in Dooley has the same relevance, and one -reads about war experts and “disqualifying the enemy” (in relation to -the Spanish-American and Boer Wars) with a slightly dizzying sensation -that this man has said everything that needed to be said twenty years -in advance of his time. We needed him badly during the war, but a comic -song about him had somehow withdrawn his name from the rank of great -literature and we had to do with sad second-bests. There isn’t a chance -in the world that he will be forgotten, because he is recognized in -England and we shall some day reimport his reputation. For he has -the great advantage of being at the same time a humorist and a social -historian, an every-day philosopher and the _homme moyen sensuel_. - -His qualities are so immediate that analyzing them appears superfluous. -He gets his effects by distortion, not by exaggeration. When he -told Mr Roosevelt to call the next edition of his book _Alone in -Cubia_ he extracted an essence from it, rather than inflated it. -His adversatives are surprising and devastating. He conceives a -Blood-is-thicker-than-Water speech in these terms (from the English to -the American): “Foolish and frivolous people, cheap but thrue-hearted -and insincere cousins.... Ye ar-re savage but inthrestin’.” Sometimes -he leaves out the “but”: “They was followed be th’ gin’rals iv th’ -Fr-rinch ar-rmy, stalwart, fearless men, with coarse, disagreeable -faces.” His unexpectedness goes farther; he once said that left alone -General Shafter could have taken “Sandago” without losing an ounce. - -I do not wish to write a literary essay about Mr Dooley, and having -mentioned Swift I have little to say. I must admit that the Irish of Mr -Dooley is stage-Irish; what makes it acceptable is that it is entirely -Dooley-Irish, and whatever the spelling, whatever the oddities of -words, the intonation is always right. For of course it is possible to -write a dialect without imitation of sound, and to do it effectively -and honestly. Sherwood Anderson has done it in _I Want to Know Why_ and -in _I’m a Fool_; Lardner has done it in _The Golden Honeymoon_; and -the amiable efforts of Mr John V. A. Weaver are ineffective because -in nine out of ten cases he is setting slang words, well observed and -accurately recorded, to the rhythm of literary English. Mr Dooley’s -rhythm is always that of the estimable, easy-going barkeeper who is -speaking. - -One looks back with a certain envy to the time when a barkeeper could -talk about the world. Our present social situation is disjected, and -the period before the war seems incredibly calm and halcyon. It seems -to us that then America was settling into the character it had made -for itself in the Civil War, a time of consolidation and certainty. -A minor passion for social justice seems to have been the only great -force hostile to that sense of security and self-satisfaction without -which no civilization can become sophisticated and refined. It was -pre-eminently the time when a satirist could exist. Mr Dooley is the -proof that he did. He understood his America, as in his time, and -without bitterness he makes it live again. - -Ten years from now, if we settle down, Mr Lardner may have another -such opportunity. For the moment he is driven to the surface; he -has no _point d’appui_ for his attack; in a bewildering and unsure -civilization, he is himself unsure. It is possible that he will become -so accustomed to shallow waters that he will never venture into deep; I -should be sorry, because he has qualities too precious to be wasted. -He is developing a strain of wild imagination, of something approaching -fantasy. And his occasional pieces of fiction are far beyond the -average of stories written in America. _The Golden Honeymoon_ (which Mr -Edward J. O’Brien had the acumen to put in his collection of the best -stories of 1922) is almost a masterpiece; it has a sort of artistic -wisdom, is without tricks, and is beautifully written. He has also -written a burlesque which failed drearily with the 49-ers and a sketch, -_The Bull Pen_, in which the busher reappeared, which was a moderate -success in the Ziegfeld Follies. This piece and _The Golden Honeymoon_ -show a fresh tendency on Lardner’s part to understate; they are -actually quiet, as if he were tired of noisiness. I do not think he is -tired of anything. In an interview recently he said, “Some philosopher -once said that if you want a thing badly when you’re young you’re -likely to get too much of it before you’re old; _I hope to God he knew -what he was talking about_.” He is afraid of nothing; one fancies he -doesn’t care for too many things. - -He grew weary, a little while ago, of the literary diaries published -from week to week by the highbrows, these records “of who they seen and -talked to and what they done since the last time we heard from them” -and so he wrote his own for the New York Sunday _American_. Among the -items chronicled were: - -“When I got home Sousa was there and we played some Brahms and Grieg -with me at the piano and him at one end of a cornet. ‘How well you -play, Lardy,’ was Sousa’s remark. Brahms called up in the evening and -him and his wife come over and played rummy....” (This is grotesque, -but he knows his subject.) “Had breakfast with Mayor Hylan and Senator -Lodge.... Went home and played some Rubinstein on the black keys.... -President Harding called up long distants to say hello. The Mrs talked -to him as I was playing with the cat.... Took a ride on the Long Island -R.R. to study human nature....” And so on. It is a little better than -verbal parody, is it not, Lardy? - -Mr Lardner pretends still to feel some of the he-man’s contempt -for letters, suggesting at the same time the fat-headed pride of a -real-estate broker who has had a patriotic poem printed in the local -paper. He is, as Sherwood Anderson says, “sticking to the gang.” But he -is wise and witty and he has few compunctions about being vulgar. It is -his most precious asset. For in America the fear of vulgarity is the -beginning of deadness. Abase! (if I may quote Mr Dooley). - - - - - _A Tribute to - Florenz Ziegfeld_ - - - - -A TRIBUTE TO FLORENZ ZIEGFELD - - -The incurable romanticist, George Jean Nathan, was the first to -speak boldly in print and establish the rule of the silver-limbed, -implacable Aphrodite in the theatre of Florenz Ziegfeld; and the -equally incurable realist, Heywood Broun, has discovered that it isn’t -so. Mr Nathan, obsessed by the idea that the world in general, and -America in particular, goes to any extreme to conceal its interest -in sex, really did a service to humanity by pointing out that there -_were_ beautiful girls in revues and that these girls constituted one -of the main reasons for the attendance of men at the performances. Mr -Broun, sensing a lack of abandon and frenzy in the modern bacchanale, -says, simply, that it isn’t so, and implies that anyone who could get -a thrill out of that--! Like the king in that story of Hans Christian -Andersen, of which Mr Broun is inordinately fond, the girls haven’t any -clothes on; and this little child, noticing the fact, is dreadfully -disappointed. - -Now Mr Ziegfeld is, in the opinion of those who work for him, a genius, -and can well afford to say, “A plague on both your houses,” for he has -built up what he himself calls a national institution, glorifying, not -degrading, the American girl (_pauvre petite_). He can afford to look -with complacency upon undergraduates charging upon his theatre in the -anticipation of unholy delights, and forced to bear the clownings of -Eddie Cantor or the wise sayings of Will Rogers; then he can turn to Dr -John Roach Straton who, having heard from Mr Broun that the Follies -are chaste, approaches to see some monstrosity of a classic ballet and -hears the vast decent sensuality of a jazz number instead. - -Mr Ziegfeld has lived through so much--through the period when it -was believed indecent to be undressed and through the manlier period -when nudity was contrasted with nakedness (it is the basis of a sort -of Y. M. C. A. æsthetics that the nude is always pure) and through -the long period, 1911–15, when the reviewers discovered the superior -attractiveness of the stockinged leg; art in the shape of Joseph Urban -has left a permanent mark upon him, and he has trafficked in strange -seas for numbers and devices; what was vulgar and what was delicate, -boresome and thrilling, have all passed through his hands; he has sent -genius whistling down the wind to the vaudeville stage and built up new -successes with secondary material; the storehouses are littered with -the gaudy monuments of his imitators. And all the time the secret of -his success has been staring Broadway in the face. - -It is well to speak of Mr Ziegfeld’s success because in the last few -years several things have happened to the revue; for almost as long -as I remember the Ziegfeld Follies, I remember the Winter Garden -opposition, the Passing Show, its exact antithesis.[12] But lately -there have arrived at least two productions which give every guaranty -of permanence, in addition to some others which may turn out to be -equally sure of survival. I mean the Music Box Revue and the Greenwich -Village Follies. The Music Box is only in its third year; its chiefs -assets are one of the most agreeable theatres in New York, assuring a -reputation on the road, and first call on the still unsatisfied talents -of Mr Irving Berlin. The Greenwich Village Follies, even if it lose its -present director, John Murray Anderson, will continue to be successful -for one of the strangest reasons in the world--its reputation for being -“artistic.” The Winter Garden, the two Follies, and the Music Box, are -the four points of the compass in this truly magnetic field. When the -needle points due north, I usually find Mr Ziegfeld fairly snug under -the Pole Star. - -There are, if you count the chorus individually, about a hundred -reasons for seeing a revue; there is only one reason for thinking -about it, and that is that at one point, and only one point, the -revue touches upon art. The revue as a production manifests the same -impatience with half measures, with boggling, with the good enough and -the nearly successful, which every great artist feels, or pretends to -feel, in regard to his own work. It shows a mania for perfection; it -aspires to be precise and definite, it corresponds to those _de luxe_ -railway trains which are always exactly on time, to the millions of -spare parts that always fit, to the ease of commerce when there is a -fixed price; jazz or symphony may sound from the orchestra pit, but -underneath is the real tone of the revue, the steady, incorruptible -purr of the dynamo. And with the possible exception of architecture, -_via_ the back door of construction, the revue is the most notable -place in which this great American dislike of bungling, the real -pleasure in a thing perfectly done, apply even vaguely to the arts. - -If you can bring into focus, simultaneously, a good revue and a -production of grand opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, the -superiority of the lesser art is striking. Like the revue, grand opera -is composed of elements drawn from many sources; like the revue, -success depends on the fusion of these elements into a new unit, -through the highest skill in production. And this sort of perfection -the Metropolitan not only never achieves--it is actually absolved in -advance from the necessity of attempting it. I am aware that it has the -highest-paid singers, the best orchestra, some of the best conductors, -dancers and stage hands, and the worst scenery in the world, in -addition to an exceptionally astute impresario; but the production of -these elements is so haphazard and clumsy that if any revue-producer -hit as low a level in his work, he would be stoned off Broadway. Yet -the Metropolitan is considered a great institution and complacently -permitted to run at a loss, because its material is ART. - -[Illustration: THE SUN’S DWELLING. By Joseph Urban] - -The same thing is true in other fields--in producing serious plays, in -writing great novels, we will stand for a second-rateness we would not -for a moment abide in the construction of a bridge or the making of an -omelette, or the production of a revue. And because in a revue the bunk -doesn’t carry, the revue is one of the few places you can go with the -assurance that the thing, however tawdry in itself, will be well done. -If it is tawdry, it is so in keeping with the taste of its patrons, and -without pretense; whereas in the major arts--no matter how magnificent -the masquerade of Art may be--the taste of a production is usually -several notches below the taste of the patrons. - -The good revue pleases the eye, the ear, and the pulse; the very -good revue does this _so well that it pleases the mind_. It operates -in that equivocal zone where a thing does not have to be funny--it -need only sound funny; nor be beautiful if it can for a fleeting -moment appear beautiful. It does not have to send them away laughing -or even whistling; all it needs to do is to keep the perceptions of -the audience fully engaged all the time, and the evaporation of its -pleasures will bring the audience back again and again. - -The secret I have alluded to is how to create the atmosphere of -seeming--and Mr Ziegfeld knows the secret in every detail. In brief, -he makes everything appear perfect by a consummate smoothness of -production. Undoubtedly ten or fifteen other people help in this--I use -Mr Ziegfeld’s name because in the end he is responsible for the kind of -show put out in his name and because the smoothness I refer to goes far -beyond the mechanism of the stage or skill in directing a chorus. It is -not the smoothness of a connecting rod running in oil, but of a batter -where all the ingredients are so promptly introduced and so thoroughly -integrated that in the end a man may stand up and say, This is a Show. -Everyone with a grain of sense knows that Mr Urban can make all the -sets for a production and Mr Berlin write all the music; Mr Ziegfeld -has the added grain to see that if he’s going to have a great variety -of things and people, he had better divide his _décor_ and his music -among many different talents. - -There have been funnier revues and revues more pleasing to the eye and -revues with far better popular music; nowhere have all the necessary -ingredients appeared to such a high average of advantage. Mr Anderson -could barely keep Bert Savoy within the bounds of a revue; the Music -Box collapses entirely as a revue at a few dance steps by Bobby Clark. -But Ziegfeld as early as 1910 was able to throw together Harry Watson -(Young Kid Battling Dugan, nowadays, in vaudeville), Fannie Brice, -Anna Held, Bert Williams, and Lillian Lorraine and, as if to prove that -he was none the less producing a revue, bring down his curtain on a -set-piece of “Our American Colleges.” And twelve years later, with Will -Rogers and Gilda Grey and Victor Herbert and Ring Lardner, he is still -producing a revue and brings both curtains down on his chorus--once _en -masse_ and the second time undressing for the street in silhouette. - -I cannot estimate the amount of satisfaction which since those early -days Mr Ziegfeld has provided. My own memories do not go back to the -actual productions in which Anna Held figured; I recall only the -virtuous indignation of elderly people and my own mixed feelings of -curiosity and disgust when I overheard reports of the goings-on. -But from the time I begin to remember them until to-day there has -always been a peculiar quality of pleasure in the Ziegfeld shows, and -the uninterrupted supply of things pleasant to see and entertaining -to hear, has been admirable. Mr Ziegfeld has never been actually -courageous; his novelties are never more audacious than, say, radiolite -costumes or an Urban backdrop. He is apparently pledged to the tedious -set-pieces which are supposed to be artistic--the Ben Ali Haggin -effects, the Fan in Many Lands or the ballot of A Night in Statuary -Hall with the discobolus coming to life and the arms of the Venus -de Milo miraculously restored. There are years, too, in which Mr -Ziegfeld, discovering new talent, follows but one vein and leaves his -shows so much in one tone that a slight depression sets in. Mr Edmund -Wilson, in the _Dial_ repeats the plaint of Mr Heywood Broun in the -_World_--that the Follies are frigid--the girls are all straight, the -ballet becomes a drill, the very laughs are organized and mechanical. -Well, it happens to be the function of the Ziegfeld Follies to be -Apollonic, not Dionysian; the leap and the cry of the bacchanale give -way to the song and dance, and when we want the true frenzy we have to -go elsewhere. I doubt whether even the success of the negro shows will -frighten Ziegfeld into mingling with his other elements some that will -be riotous and wild; the best they can do will be to prevent Ziegfeld -from growing too utterly “refined.” He tends at this moment to quiet -fun of the Lardner type and the occasional horseplay with which he -accentuates this murmur, this smile, is usually unsuccessful. I am, -myself, more moved by broader strokes than his, but I recognize that -Ziegfeld, and not the producers of _Shuffle Along_, is in the main -current of our development--that we tend to a mechanically perfect -society in which we will either master the machine or be enslaved by -it. And the only way to master it--since we cannot escape--will be by -understanding it in every detail. That is exactly Mr Ziegfeld’s present -preoccupation. I dissent, however, from the suggestion that the -physical loveliness of the Ziegfeld chorus has ceased to be seductive. -Some, as Mr Lardner once said--some like ’em cold, and there are at -least five other choruses which affect me as pleasurably. But for -those that like the Ziegfeld-type chorus, which has always a deal of -stateliness and a haughty air of being damned well bred, Mr Ziegfeld’s -production of the wares is perfect. He has simply moved his chorus one -step backward in order to make them appear slightly inaccessible and -so a little more desirable. His attack is indirect, but it is no less -certain. - -In the back of the mind there always remains the idea that a revue -ought to be a revue of something, and as far as I know, George M. Cohan -is the last of those who have tried to accomplish that. Weber and -Fields presented burlesque; Mr Cohan’s efforts are not lost in that -dim perspective, and they seem superior, for he wove his amazingly -expert parodies of current successes into a new creation, a veritable -review. The high spirits and sophistication of the Cohan revues have -not frequently been equalled on our stage, for the whole of Cohan’s -talents were poured into them without reserve. The parodies and satire -were merciless and spared not even himself; for he took the old jibe -about his Yankee-Doodleism and wrote apropos of a show of his which -had failed: “Go, get a Flag, For you need it, you need it, you know -you need it!” He took off _Common Clay_ in swift and expert patter; -he destroyed the “song hit” with _Down by the Erie_ ten years earlier -and ten times better than the Forty-niners did; he advertised himself -and ridiculed his own self-advertisement; he was the principal actor -and he played fair with Willie Collier and Charles Winninger and Louise -Dresser. Throughout he was the high point of Cohanism, of that shrewd, -cock-sure, arrogant, wise, and witty man who was the true expression of -the America of Remember the Maine!, the McKinley elections, the Yellow -Kid, and _Coon! Coon! Coon!_ He was always smart, always versatile. To -this day he is smart enough to produce _Mary_ and _Little Nelly Kelly_, -knowing that the old stuff goes biggest and that even in the midst of -his own sophistication he can capture vaster audiences with his own -simplicity. This is an abdication of his proper function, to be sure. -The man who had so much to do with the great-American-drama (I allude -to _Seven Keys to Baldpate_ and the description “great-American” is -deliberate) and who could take any trash (_A Prince There Was_) and -make it go, through the indefatigable energy and the cleverness of -his own acting, and who could fight the world with his preposterous -_Tavern_--this man had no right to give up doing what he did so well. -I care nothing for the famous nasalities of George M. Cohan; after -the Four Cohans I saw him first as actor, so I do not mourn for his -dancing days. But I know that with only a fraction of Berlin’s gifts -as a composer, he had something which even Berlin lacks: the complete -sense of the boards. His revues would have been desirable additions to -each theatrical season if they had done no more than produce himself. -His hard sense, his unimaginative but not unsympathetic response to -everything that took place on the street and at the bar and on the -stage made him a prince of reviewers--he was not without malice and -he was wholly without philosophy. Perhaps that is why his revues -were wonderfully gay. Why they ever stopped I cannot tell; when they -stopped, strangely enough, they left the field to the Winter Garden. I -make no claim that the revues at this house are always pleasing; people -apparently still exist who are enthusiasts for Valeska Surratt. But I -do claim that they are always revues, even if they are sometimes to be -weighed by avoirdupois and not by critical standard. - -[Illustration: - - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - - GEORGE M. COHAN. By Alfred Frueh -] - -The annihilation of all the vast and silly posturing which went on -a few years ago under the name of _The Jest_ was accomplished in a -perfect burlesque by Blanche Ring and Charles Winninger (the latter -played Leo Ditrichstein in one of the Cohan revues) and if _The Sheik_ -never reached the stage it is possibly because Eddie Cantor burlesqued -it in advance on a bicycle and with a time clock for the women of the -harem. What has held the Winter Garden down (except, of course, when Al -Jolson there inhabited) is the lack of good music; for the humour has -always been broad and the slap-stick merry. The shows there always seem -to be hankering a little for the additional vulgarity of out-and-out -burlesque, but the Rath Brothers were as much at home there as the -Avon Comedy Four; if my head were at stake I could not recall a single -thing there which could be called exquisite, but I swear that as the -show girls shuffled precariously up and down the runway I did at times -fancy I heard the stamping of a goatish foot behind the scenes, and if -I didn’t like the sound, I was in the minority. The Winter Garden has -always been, in part, a direct assault on the senses and the method of -art is always indirect; Mr Ziegfeld knows this and always manages to -bathe his scenes in a cool virginal light, to the intensification of -pleasure for the connoisseurs. - -The difference between these two shows can be measured by watching one -figure pass across the stage of each. Last year at the Winter Garden -Conchita Piquer sang a _malagueña_. (You can discover all you need to -know about the _malagueña_ in Mr Santayana’s Soliloquies; to us it is -the perfect exotic, as strange to our ears as Chinese song--stranger -because it remains recognizably Occidental, yet seems to be based on -no intervals known to our scales, and its rhythm is capricious and -uncertain). She sang it “wildly well,” with a pert assured air of -superiority. Yet she cast flowers into the audience as she did so, and -the background and the massing of the chorus behind her were all out of -key and prevented the song from being what at the Ziegfeld Follies it -inevitably must have been, exquisite. - -At the Follies passes Gilda Grey, a performer of limited talents -gifted with unutterable intensity. Against a flaring background in -which all the signs of all of Broadway are crowded together, she sings -a commentary on the negro invasion--_It’s Getting Very Dark on Old -Broadway_--the scene fades and radiolite picks out the white dresses -of the chorus, the hands and faces recede into undistinguishable -black. And while the chorus sings Miss Grey’s voice rises in a deep -and shuddering ecstasy to cry out the two words, “Getting darker!” To -disengage that cry, to insure its repercussion, went all the skill of -production in everything that preceded and in everything that followed. -It was exciting, but it was also exquisite, and that is exactly what -the Winter Garden could not have done. - -Neither of the two Music Box revues has reached that height, because -in neither has production kept pace with Berlin’s music. It is part -of the technique of the revue to have “stunts” and Berlin, being -_capable du tout_, last year set a dining menu to music. Yet nothing -was added when lobster and mayonnaise and celery appeared in the flesh; -even worse, this year something precious is lost when one of Berlin’s -veritable masterpieces, _Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil_, is -produced with an endless number of trapdoors and hoists and all the -other mechanics of the stage. The first of the two revues flourished on -humour--Willie Collier and Sam Bernard were inexpressibly funny--and -on Berlin’s _Say It With Music_; so long as it stayed in New York the -appearance in person of Mr Berlin, explaining to the well-remembered -tunes how he wrote each of his masterpieces of ragtime, added much. - -The tone of this revue was the tone of the building itself--varying -from the cool and well-proportioned exterior to the comfortable, a -little lavish interior. Florence Moore was as outrageous as ever, and -at least as active; she is the most tireless person on the stage and to -me the most tiring, for her vitality affects me as a cyclone in which I -am quite unnecessarily involved. All the more surprising, then, was her -shift from horseplay to burlesque in the house-hunting scene with Sam -Bernard, at the end of which the children were shot by their despairing -parents to remove the one obstacle between them and the perfect -apartment. In an earlier scene Collier had had his chance--the one in -which Bernard tried to explain his difficulties and to read a letter. -All of Bernard’s stutterings and flounderings in the English vocabulary -availed nothing against Collier’s imperturbable indifference. -Collier has always had a divine spark--it was visible even in _The -Hottentot_--and in that scene it glowed beautifully. The show was, -to be sure, held in the matrix of Berlin’s score, and was as much held -_down_ as up to that level--I mean it was not spoiled by the intrusion -of alien theatrical elements. Since then a new hydraulic system has -apparently been added to the equipment of the stage, and Hassard Short, -confusing the dynamics of the theatre with mere hoisting power, moves -everything that can be moved except the audience. The elements are all -there, but they are produced as if it were a benefit, not a revue. - -[Illustration: - - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - -WILLIE COLLIER. By Alfred Frueh] - -John Murray Anderson’s is the hardest case to be sure about. A year -ago he “struck a new note in revues”--by producing one without a -scintilla of interest in any of its proceedings. Nothing quite so -lackadaisical and dull has ever had such a success. Yet he had long -before established a repute for being artistic--and, as far as I can -judge, it was by the exploitation of millions of yards of draperies in -place of the usual canvas scenery. It was a sound notion, and in the -first of these productions, _What’s in a Name?_ there was a pretty air -of the semi-professional, a challenging suggestion of improvisation, as -if the chorus and principals weren’t sure from moment to moment what -the _régisseur_ might suggest for them to do next. - -He has always presented some of the loveliest and some of the ugliest -costumes in New York; and now that draperies are no longer his only -resource, he falls back upon transformations in scenery, or makes a -painted backdrop of the Moonlight Sonata come to life, with music, to -the astonishment of the multitude. - -In short, it would appear that Mr Anderson is introducing into the -revue precisely that element of artistic bunk which has long been the -property of the bogus arts. I resent it, and resent it the more because -he doesn’t need it. In his recent show there were elements beyond -words to praise; the singing of Yvonne George was superb and superbly -arranged; the Widow Brown song, sung and _danced_ by Bert Savoy, had a -quality of tenderness which all the sentimental songs in the Ziegfeld -Follies try vainly to transmit; the two little tumblers, Fortunello and -Cirillino, are by name and manner of the _commedia dell’arte_ and John -Hazzard’s song about Alaska, with slides by Walter Hoban, is the stuff -that Forty-niners are made of. - -It was in this show that the Herriman-Carpenter ballet of Krazy Kat was -tried and dismissed, and the fault here is the fault of Mr Anderson -throughout. Again it was attempted with an artistic dancer, when -everyone who has intelligence of Krazy knows that it should be done by -an American stunt dancer until the time when Mr Chaplin finds time to -do it. Krazy Kat is exquisite and funny--and whether Mr Carpenter lets -him remain so or not, it is clear that Mr Anderson wanted him to be -artistic at all cost. So with his whole production; he has sacrificed -fun all the way down the line; one is pleased, much more than amused, -and the gigantic revelry, the broad levity of Bert Savoy stand apart -from the show like a stranger. It is the one revue in which the mass -dancing entirely fails to remain in the memory, and I am convinced -that if Miss Brice hadn’t, in the Ziegfeld Follies, made _Mon Homme_ a -popular hit, Miss George’s far more fiery and varied and more generally -interesting rendition of it would leave it cold in the ears of the -audiences. For Mr Anderson has so far learned only to put over separate -things, and until you put the whole thing over the individual things -gain but half their victories. - -That completes the circle to Mr Ziegfeld, and, since it is a question -of putting it over, associates with him another man who on at least -one occasion has done as well, Mr Charles Dillingham. If you omit the -one man shows as practised by Ed Wynn, Frank Tinney and Al Jolson, and -the nondescripts of Hitchcock, and pass over _Stop! Look! Listen!_ as -varying too far from the revue type, there remains _Watch Your Step_ as -another high spot in production, with the dancing of the Castles, the -humours of that very great comedian, Harry Kelly, and of Tinney, the -scenery and costumes by Robert McQuinn and Helen Dryden, and the whole -story of contemporary dancing in Mr Berlin’s music. Except for Harry -Kelly, every item was bettered in _Stop! Look! Listen!_, but in spite -of the presence of Gaby Deslys, it was not a revue--whereas _Watch -Your Step_ almost consciously set out to proclaim itself superior in -fineness and slickness to the Follies and almost succeeded. - -I am trying to sketch the main _types_ of revue, not to write a history -of the revue; it is to be hoped that some one sufficiently sentimental -can be found to do the job. Whether in a history the drunken scene of -Leon Errol in the subway would figure largely, I do not know; I am not -even sure that the scene in the Grand Central while it was building, -with Bert Williams as the porter, would be noted; quite possibly the -memory of Lillian Lorraine on the swings--to me merely a bearable -necessity--and Frank Carter singing, (1918) _I’m Going to Pin My -Medal on the Girl I Left Behind_, will seem more important than Ina -Claire’s mimicry of Frances Starr’s _Marie-Odile_. It is possible that -the injection of real humour, like Lardner’s, may make the set scenes -like Laceland or the History of Shoes through the Ages or Our Colleges -more and more dispensable. I do not know. I feel fairly certain only -of this: that the relative importance of the workers in the field is -measured by their mastery of the art of production far more than by -their skill in picking individuals and stunts. I am also convinced that -those who have arrived at this perfection in an effort to give America -pleasure have done more for us than those who haven’t got half way in -trying to give us art. - - - - - _The Darktown Strutters - on Broadway_ - - - - -THE DARKTOWN STRUTTERS ON BROADWAY - - -Anyone so minded can write an entirely false history of American -civilization by setting down in parallel columns the vogues and rages -which have overtaken us and Europe at the same time. The highly -patriotic, but a bit undergraduate, habit of slanging your own -country is always more effective if the facts about any other country -are a little obscure, and, thanks to the cable and the efficacy of -transatlantic mails, we now know virtually everything that isn’t so, -and virtually nothing that is important, about Europe. So it is quite -possible for a critic to say that in literature the taste of Europe is -far beyond ours, on the ground that Harold Bell Wright is the typical -American author and Conrad and Anatole France and Tolstoi the typical -European. I mean that this is possible if a critic has never heard of -the work of Nat Gould and William Le Queux in England, for instance. - -The latest of these false parallels would be this: that while Europe -was going in for the primitive sculpture of the African negro, America -devoted itself and its theatres to musical shows composed and produced -by the nonprimitive negroes of Harlem, New York.[13] The wail of the -saxophone in _Shuffle Along_ had not yet died in my ears when a -Serious Critic made moan in his journal that the authors of that piece -were truckling to the white man’s sense of superiority by exhibiting -their own flesh and blood as a pack of cheats and scoundrels. What -had impressed me as a fairly awkward mechanism for introducing songs -and dances was by him taken as a libel on a race; and forgetting the -picaresque romance from the _Odyssey_ to _Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford_, -forgetting that all peoples seem to take an abundant pleasure -in exposing themselves as delightful rogues, he wept over this -degradation. At about that time Mr Clive Bell, marking a reaction from -the extreme vogue of African plastic, still ranked the sculptures -produced by savage and semicivilized negroes as only a little below -those of the two or three great periods of artistic production. Again -it would seem that Europe had, in its effete way, stolen a march on us. - -In effect the coloured shows were entertaining and interesting to -think about, whether they were good or bad, and most of them were -pretty bad. As shows, that is. As shows in a country which really knows -how to produce soul-satisfying eye-and-ear entertainment. They had -certain attractive qualities, and if they were in essence second rate, -they were at least dynamic, while the first-rate thing in Europe was -static. While Europe remained calm after the war we, hysterically, went -in for an enormous increase of pace in the active arts of the theatre. -I do not know whether we are altogether the losers, and leave the -question to others. I do know that for a moment these pieces seem to -have overshadowed our (can I say?) native revues. - -Of course, in America no one cares for revues except the unenlightened -millions who pay to see them, so there is no one to rise and make -lamentation over this state of affairs. For years we have laboured to -perfect our revues--and the shuffling feet of a barbarian summon up -an evil djinn to banish them. The serene smoothness of manœuvre which -Mr Wayburn prepares for Mr Ziegfeld shrinks from the boards before -the haphazard leaping of unstudied numbers; the sweet gravity of the -dancers is forgotten for the barbarous rhythm of any half dozen darkies -with a sense of syncopation innate in them. Lavishness from Joseph -Urban precariously maintains itself against the smudged backdrop and -the overall; and over the prostrate and flowerlike and seductive -beauty of the chorus-girl, there steps and struts, magnificently -struts, the high-yaller! - -The comparatively sober truth is that the negro cabaret in the theatre -is only a diversion, a necessary and healthful variation from our norm. -It has qualities seldom exquisite and always arresting; and these -qualities, having slowly vanished from the revue, have found themselves -again in burlesque and in these exotics. And I think it highly probable -that their only lasting effect will be to restore certain highly -desirable things to revue and musical comedy. If there is any doubt of -their goodness, another contrast will prove the point. - -The one claim never made for the negro shows is that they are -artistic. Set beside them, then, a professedly artistic revue, the -_Pinwheel_, compounded of native and exotic effects. It had two or -three interesting or exciting numbers; but the whole effect was one -of dreariness. The pall of art was upon it; it died nightly. And -_Shuffle Along_, without art, but with tremendous vitality, not only -lived through the night, but dragged provincial New Yorkers to a -midnight show as well. Facing the other way, one beholds a straight -fake, the untimely efforts of Messrs McIntyre and Heath, who served -only to remind us that in time since overpast the real nigger show, as -practised by Williams and Walker, existed, and that what we are seeing -now is actually a continuation thereof, brought down from Harlem to -Broadway. - -Now it was fairly obvious that _Shuffle Along_ had been conceived as -an entertainment for negroes; that is why it remained solid when it -took Broadway, to the intense surprise of its producers. It was, in -short, an exotic for us, but it wasn’t an exotic for themselves. Its -honesty was its success, and its honesty put a certain stamp upon its -successors. In all of them there is visible a regrettable tendency to -imitate, at moments, the worst features of our usual musical comedy. -But the major portion of each show is native, and so good. - -They have all of them an appearance of unpremeditated violence which -distinguishes them from the calculated and beautiful effects of Mr -Ziegfeld or Mr John Murray Anderson. It goes much beyond the celebrated -(and by this time faked) appearance of “enjoying themselves.” They -may never forgive me for it, but I really do not care whether the -actors and actresses who amuse me are having a good time themselves. -The theatre, for them, is a place for _producing_, not for _enjoying_ -sensations and effects; so the one thing I wish them is that when -they are good they may have the purely moral pleasure of being good. -It is the method that counts, and in the negro shows the method has -been always the maximum pressure in song and dance, and the minimum of -subtlety in the conversations and patter songs. The exceptions are not -notable. - -The songs and dances must be scored _fff_, a _stretto_, and after that -those diverging lines which indicate _crescendo_; the lines of violence -never again approach each other in these numbers, and one has to wait -for the appearance of a fairly silly sentimental song for a moment of -quiet. The strange people who direct these shows and the responsive -animals who sing and dance have with some success controverted the -notion that it is in contrasts that the intelligent man has his -greatest pleasure. One feels that the show is a continuous wild cry and -an uninterrupted joyous rage, that the _élan vital_ is inexhaustible -and unbridled and enormously good. - -The most skilful individual player has been Florence Mills; merely to -watch her walk out upon the stage, with her long, free stride and her -superb, shameless swing, is an æsthetic pleasure; she is a school and -exemplar of carriage and deportment; two other actors I have seen so -take a stage; Cohan by stage instinct, Marie Tempest by a cultivated -genius. Florence Mills is almost the definition of the romantic “_une -force qui va_,” but she remains an original, with little or nothing -to give beyond her presence, her instinctive grace, and her baffling, -seductive voice. Without that endowment, a small one in comparison -with, say, Gilda Grey’s, almost all the others give nothing but energy, -and the trouble there is that if you have nothing but energy to give, -you must give more than you can afford. The wild cry is a little too -piercing at times, the postures and the pattings and the leapings -all a little beyond the necessary measure. It remains simple; but -simplicity, even if it isn’t usually vulgar, can be a bit rough. - -In the past few years the line of development of most of our revues -and musical shows has been clearly marked; the bad old days were -slowly forgotten and whatever was suggestive had to become subtle; -and gradually, as the surface polish grew brighter, the suggestive -humours underneath were forgotten; our revues became denatured in more -senses than one. There is one _risqué_ moment in the whole of a recent -_Follies_, and that is one more than usual. The twittering about love -and a kiss goes on; but the Great Reality of Sex is (quite properly, I -am sure) forgotten. And in an encore stanza of _He May Be Your Man, But -He Comes to See Me--Sometimes_, as sung at the Plantation, the whole -conventionalized fabric of our popular love songs was flung aside and -the gay reality exposed. This amorous frankness is part of a simple -realism--a sophisticated realism couldn’t occur in a musical show, -unless in the manner of Offenbach’s _La Belle Hélène_. It is a fitting -counterpart to the exaggerated postures, the slightly lubricious -gestures and movements, of the dance. Another simplicity, and a very -good one, is in such a song as that about a dog from Tennessee in _Oh, -Joy_--a song which with that one quality, and against indifferent music -and unexceptional words, broke up the show. - -Behind the frankness and the violence and the simplicity there is found -the most important factor of all--the music. And behind that stands -a figure exceedingly attractive and, in its tragedy, almost moving, -that of the late Jim Europe. Of the music itself--of jazz and the use -of spirituals and the whole question of our national music--this is -clearly not the place to write. One wishes to mention a name or two: -Shelton Brooks, least _habile_ of pseudo-Balieffs, wrote long ago _The -Darktown Strutters’ Ball_, which ought not to be forgotten; Creamer -and Layton composed all of _Strut, Miss Lizzie_, and therein appeared -_Sweet Angeline_, as complex a piece of syncopation as Mr Berlin ever -composed. What portion of _Shuffle Along_ was composed by Noble Sissle -and Eubie Blake I do not know, but Sissle in action and Blake at the -piano were wholly satisfying and expert. And all of these composers, -and all of the jazz bands who play for them, have the ineffable -advantage of being assured, in advance, of dancers who in fancy or -straight dancing have the essential feelings for rhythm and broken -rhythm in their bones. - -And that interior response to syncopation Jim Europe had to the highest -possible degree. He had been, before the war, the band leader at the -Castles’; I am told by one who knows of such matters that his actual -vogue was passing when the war came. He returned with the 369th U. S. -Infantry “Hell-Fighters” Band and for a few Sunday nights in March, -1919, he packed the old Manhattan Opera House to the doors. - -Say that what he played had nothing to do with music; say that to -mention the name of a conductor in the same breath with his name is -an atrocity of taste--I cannot help believing that Jim Europe had the -essential quality of music in him, and that, in his field, however -far from any other it may have been, he was as great as Karl Muck in -his. He did have contrast; it was out of the contracting stresses -of a regular beat and a divergent that he created his effects. The -hand kept perfect time, and his right knee, with a sharp and subtle -little motion, stressed the acceleration or retard of the syncope. His -dynamics were beautiful because he knew the value of noise and knew -how to produce it and how to make it effective; he knew how to keep -perfectly a running commentary of wit over the masses of his sound; and -the ease and smoothness of his own performance as conductor had all -the qualities of greatness. He rebuked a drummer in his band for some -infraction of discipline and was killed. - -Whatever the negro show has to give to the perfected Broadway -production has its sources fairly deep in the negro consciousness, -and I put Jim Europe forth as its symbol because in him nearly all -that is most precious came to the surface. He seemed sensitive to the -ecstasy and pathos of the spirituals as he was to the ecstasy and joy -of jazz. He was, as conductor, vigorous and unaffected and clean. In -_Shuffle Along_, Messrs Sissle and Blake paid honour to his memory, -but the unacknowledged debt of the others is greater. I am inclined to -think that, if sterility does not set in for the more notable Broadway -product, it will be because something of what Jim Europe had to give -has been quintessentialized by his successors and adopted. - - - - - _Plan For a Lyric - Theatre in America_ - - - - -PLAN FOR A LYRIC THEATRE IN AMERICA - - -I am going to establish a lyric theatre in America. Not an art theatre -and not a temple of the drama, and not an experimental theatre. A -lyric theatre where there will always be Mozart and Jerome Kern and -Gilbert-and-Sullivan and Lehar--and NEVER by any chance Puccini or -the Ring or Ibsen. I shall avoid the good things and the bad alike in -the serious forms; I shall have Russian Ballets and American ballets. -The chief thing is that it will be a theatre devoted to _all_ the -forms of light musical entertainment and to nothing else. My theatre -will put an end to those disheartening revivals (or resurrections) of -popular musical shows because the shows will be kept alive, just as -“grand” operas are kept alive by appearing in a repertory. Into the -repertory I shall incorporate--as soon as their independent existence -is at an end--such successes as _The Night Boat_ and such failures -as _The Land of Joy_. There will never be a chance for _fashion_ to -destroy things essentially good. I shall produce new pieces, too; and -if they are good they will run along with frequent presentations until -they are absorbed in the general scheme. And I think I shall have -pastiches frequently--of revues and topical productions which aren’t, -as entireties, capable of continuing. - -That is the abridgement of a scheme, and I say I shall do it in the -hope that someone else, even if it be the Messrs Shubert, will do it -instead. Because I like musical comedy and it annoys me that I can -hear _Un bel di_ (which I want never to hear again) fifteen times a -season, and cannot hear _The Sun Shines Brighter_ or _The Ragtime -Melodrama_ ever again. And I know that our present type of musical -comedy is so good, so vigorous and snappy, that it tends to kill -off its predecessors; a repertory is the only thing; and the usual -objections to repertory will fail here, because in this case the -devotees of musical shows will know in advance that “it is going to be -a good show.” I don’t know whether the bill should change every day or -every week; I feel certain that there ought to be half a dozen centres -across the continent, and two or three touring companies. Further -details I cannot give now. I shall try to find some means, however, -of distinguishing between the second-act finale of _The Mottled Mask_ -(“On to the ball at the palace of Prince Gregory”) from the second-act -finale of _The Madcap in Motley_ (“On to the ball at the palace of -Prince Gregory”). It is not part of my scheme to keep bad shows alive. - -The rare entertainment such a theatre will afford can be guessed if -you look for a moment at the changes in musical shows since 1900. We -were then coming out of the Gilbert and Sullivan tradition and (after a -great vogue of extravaganza) coming into the Viennese mode. It is the -fashion now, especially in France, to belittle the Viennese operetta, -to call its waltz song heavy and its structure a bore. Possibly these -things are true; but Vienna has been the home of operetta for over a -century and has done well by itself most of the time. Illumination of -this predominant influence you can get by going to the Redoutensaal -and hearing a performance of _The Marriage of Figaro_, and within the -next few days hearing _Die Fledermaus_ and whatever new piece Lehar -or Fall or Oscar Straus has composed. For what one seldom knows from -its loftier production is that _Figaro_ is in essence and detail a -musical comedy and that almost all we know of the form stems from the -combination effected there by a great composer, a fine dramatist, and -an exceptionally skilful librettist.[14] The imperial ballroom with -its tapestried walls, its small stage on which only conventionalized -scenery can be set, its divided stairway coming down on the stage, is a -setting admirably contrived to give the whole loveliness of operetta. -The last scene is in the garden of the count: six boxed trees and -moonlight create the effect. And at the last moment, the happy ending, -the electric lights are thrown on, the vast crystal chandelier lighting -up over the garden, and the event recedes into its real, its secondary -framework, as entertainment. One recognizes it for what it is--the -gay and exquisite counterpart of grand opera, from which neither the -Savoy nor the Viennese operetta ever departed. Musically the Viennese -type corresponds more clearly to Italian, the Gilbert and Sullivan to -French opera. The absurd conventions of production are taken bodily -from the older and more respected type. The same thing is as obviously -true in Cimarosa’s _Marriage Secret_ as it is in _The Chocolate -Soldier_--the latter being, except for a weaker libretto, a perfect -parallel to _Figaro_. (And nearly as worthy of the perpetual life which -is apparently to be denied it.) - -It is still unnecessary to describe the Viennese operetta in detail, -for immediately after the war it came again into vogue and one or two -excellent examples--_The Last Waltz_ was one of them--re-established -some of its ancient prestige. It is at bottom produced _for the music_. -In one the music may be chiefly sung, in another danced. Everything -else--_décor_, story, humorous episodes--is secondary. Recently an -effort has been made to change this. Oscar Straus’ _Törichte Jungfrau_ -at the Grossesschauspielhaus (Reinhardt’s catacombs in Berlin) was all -production--and nearly all dreadful. Lehar’s latest, _Das Gelbe Jacke_ -(not, however, our _Yellow Jacket_) is entirely in the pure Viennese -mode, and the Vienna production (February, 1923) indicates how Viennese -operetta is improved in transit to our shores. For our production of -musical comedy is almost equal to our production of revue, which is -incontestably the finest in the world. With their emphasis on music the -Viennese shows naturally centre about the famous waltz-song; and one -good waltz has been able to make a show a success. Rudolf Friml made a -success of _High Jinks_ with a fox-trot. - -The English type as we know it, including Caryll and Monckton and -Rubens, has had for thirty years the Savoy tradition. This requires -a plot of more frivolity than the Viennese, and lyrics of greater -humour. The successes have been moderate--“I’ve got a motto” is no -masterpiece. The degree of fun has been higher and the seductiveness -of the music less. It was perfectly natural that (with _Adele_ to -help them on) a combination of virtues should take place in America -in the beautiful _Princess Shows_ of Comstock and Gest, where the -talents of P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern, stage-managed -perfectly by Robert Milton, produced a fresh and attractive type of -musical show which for five years progressed in popularity--but had -few imitators--and suddenly seemed to disappear. It was, in fact, -transformed into something else, something good. But one should look at -the original closely to discern its exceptional virtues. - -Each of the Princess shows had a reasonable, but not serious, plot. -The advantage of a plot isn’t, as one often hears, that it gives the -appearance of reality to the piece, for who should expect that? There -is no reason why a musical comedy should not be wholly preposterous, -dramatically or psychologically, provided, like _Iolanthe_, it has a -logic of its own. No. The advantage is that when there is a definitely -perceptible structure everything else arrives with greater intensity -of effect. The best of the Princess shows had the weakest plot, for -_Leave It to Jane_ was based on Ade’s _College Widow_, which has no -great quality. Since songs and dances had to take up much time, this -plot was gratifyingly reduced to a few essential lines and played -without sentiment. The result was a rush of action in which everything -found place. The later pieces were on librettos by Guy Bolton, -suggesting French farces, and full of neat arrangements. None of them -was stupid. They all gave place for Mr Wodehouse’s exceptional talents -as a lyric-writer. He is as an English humorist superior to most, and -as a master of complicated, original, amusing rhymes is the best man -in the business. A special quality of making fun is discernible in all -his lyrics, and he does good parodies, like _When It’s Nesting Time -in Flatbush_. The Princess type made rather a fetish of simplicity (I -quote from memory): - - Although the thing that’s smart is - To stay out all night on parties, - I’ll be sitting, with my knitting, - In the good old-fashioned way, - -and of sentiment: - - The breeze in the trees brings a scent of orange blossoms - And the skies turn soft and blue, - When there’s no one around except the girl you love - And the girl you love loves you, - -which was often not amorous and rose to as fine a thing as _The Siren -Song_: - - Come to us, we’ve waited so long for you, - Every day we make a new song for you; - Come, come, to us, we love you so. - Leave behind the world and its fretting - And we will give you rest and forgetting, - So sang the sirens ages and ages ago. - -There was also patter as in the Cleopatra song: - - And when she tired, as girls will do, - Of Bill or Jack or Jim, - The time had come, his friends all knew, - To say good-by to him. - She would not stand by any means - Regretful, stormy, farewell scenes, - To such low stuff she would not stoop - So she just put poison in the soup. - - When out with Cleopatterer - Men always made their wills; - They knew they had no time to waste. - When the gumbo had that funny taste - They’d take her hand and squeeze it - And murmur, “Oh, you kid!” - But they none of ’em liked to start to feed - Till Cleopatterer did. - -and in each of these types Wodehouse was faultless. - -Fortunately for him and for us these songs were set to a music which in -addition to being delightful let the words appear, and occasionally -was so fluent, so inevitable, that it made the words seem even simpler -and more conversational than they are. Jerome Kern composed nearly all -of the Princess shows and the collected scores are impressive. He is -the most erudite of our simple composers and he manipulates material -with inordinate skill. He can adapt German folksong (_Freut euch das -Leben_ underlies _Phoebe Snow_); he didn’t do so well by _Kingdom -Comin’_, which was botched and cut; he also understands Sullivan. But -his best work, _The Siren Song_, _The Little Ships_, _The Sun Shines -Brighter_, have a melodious line, a structure, and a general tidiness -of execution which are all their own. _The Siren Song_ corresponds -exactly to the Viennese waltz, but both the words and the music are -impersonal; they are a gentle hymn to seduction, with humour. Scattered -between languorous rhythms are bursts of gaiety, like a handful of -pebbles thrown against a window--which doesn’t open--for the song ends -in a tender melancholy. It is a real achievement. Compare the lines -I have quoted above with “Come, come, I love you only,” from _The -Chocolate Soldier_--phrases you would expect to arrive at the same -musical conclusion. The crash of “_Oh, Hero Mine!_” in the second is -good drama, saved from being too obvious by being sung to the coward -Sergius and not to the protagonist Bluntschli. But in comparison the -gentle ending of _The Siren Song_ is, as song, superior: “So sang the -Sirens, ages and ages ago”--and you take it or leave it. The music, at -least, is not forcing your hand. - -The Princess shows never had any great stars; instead, they had the -one quality which always makes for success--_esprit de corps_. In each -the company was aware of the nature and quality of the piece it was -playing, and it worked in variations of that genial and sophisticated -atmosphere. It was simply against the tone of the Princess shows to -be dull; and I, who like nearly all musical shows, found in them my -greatest delight. - -They passed into something else because they were exquisitely -proportioned on a small scale--the scale, by the way of _The Beggar’s -Opera_, which they resembled--and the whole tendency of the time was -toward elaboration. They involved small choruses, little eccentric -dancing, and required no humorist _hors de texte_. I count it a triumph -for Mr Dillingham, as well as for the others concerned, that they have -been able to preserve so much of the Princess in some of the Globe -productions. The best of these, I think, is _Good-morning, Dearie_. It -has an adequate plot; it has room for Harland Dixon, a fine dancer; for -Ada Lewis, an expert broad comedienne; for Maurice and his partner, -whose name I don’t remember; for a large dancing chorus and for stunts; -better still it did little to hinder Jerome Kern. It was here that he -took the most famous of waltzes and implicated it masterfully in a -blues; and here that all the seductiveness and gaiety of the Princess -music returned with _Ka-lu-a_ and _Didn’t You Believe?_ There were a -few faults in the production; the _décor_ lacked freshness, although -it didn’t actually offend; the Chinese scene was hackneyed. But on the -whole it is the best musical comedy I have seen since the Princess -shows. - -What forced us to be elaborate was not the memory of the Viennese -type, but the growing complexity of revue, always cutting into musical -comedy. It should be noted that _Around the Map_ (which I hold the best -musical comedy--not operetta--I saw before the Princess shows) first -brought Joseph Urban into the field, taking him from the Boston Opera -House and pushing him on the way to Ziegfeld, where he was tardily -recognized by the Metropolitan for whom he has made _Oberon!_ _Around -the Map_ had some twenty scenes, it dealt with a trip around the world -in search of safety socks, and was all gay (with Else Alder), all good -music (Caryll) and only the beginning of elaboration. But Mr Berlin’s -two shows and a host of others indicated that to survive musical -comedy would have to appear lavish. Comparatively simple shows still -occur--_Tangerine_ was one; but we seem to be in for something fairly -elaborate--in music as in the Le-Baron-Kreisler pieces, in _décor_ -as in the Shubert-Century productions, in stars and stunts as in -Dillingham’s. - -I do not pretend to cover the ground, and to name the names, in this -sketch; not even to characterize all the types. I don’t know what to -say about _Mary_, in which George M. Cohan worked a chorus into a -state of frantic energy and Louis Hirsch provided _The Love Nest;_ -nor of twenty other individual successes. One composer remains whose -work is often so good, whose case is so illuminating, that he must be -considered. That is Victor Herbert. It should be said at once that even -long after his early successes he composed a fine musical comedy, _The -Only Girl_. The difficulty about Mr Herbert is that he has succumbed to -the American habit of thinking that grand opera is great opera. I have -heard him at one of his _premières_ speaking from the conductor’s dais -to assure the audience that the present piece was in the high line of -operetta, that more pieces like it would put an end to the vulgarity -of musical shows. The regrettable fact was that _The Madcap Duchess_ -put an end to nothing but itself; I recall the name, that Ann Swinburne -was in it, and that it had a good patter song; the rest was doleful. -Whereas two weeks later in the same house I heard _The Lady of the -Slipper_, in which Mr Herbert, setting out to write an ordinary simple -musical show, was a thoroughly competent composer, full of ingenuity -and interest and taste and invention. If he had only taken his eyes off -the Metropolitan Opera House he would probably have been the best of -the lot to-day. He suffers--although he is vastly respected--because -he failed in respect to the fine art of the musical show. - -The wonderful thing about that art is that it is made up of varied -elements which are fused into something greater than themselves. There -is a song and dance by Julia Sanderson, who is not a great artist; or -the sudden apparition of a little man pursued in a harem, bounding upon -a scarlet pouffe six feet in diameter and nuzzling like a dog--Jimmy -Barton, in fact, who is one; and the rambling story told by Percival -Knight in _The Quaker Girl_ or the drunken scene by Clifton Crawford -in _The Peasant Girl_; there is _In the Night_, from _The Queen of the -Movies_ or Johnny Dooley falling out of the clerk’s desk in _Listen, -Lester_; there is Donald Brian, the perpetual _jeune premier_, or the -amazing Spanish song in _Apple Blossoms_, or a setting designed by -Norman-Bel Geddes or costumes by Helen Dryden or the _Sandman_ song -from _The Dollar Princess_, or the entrance of the Bulgarians in _The -Chocolate Soldier_ or the wickedly expert prosody of Brian Hooker. What -is it takes all of these and composes them into something beautiful and -entertaining? Skill in production is part of it, but not all, for the -same elements: colour, light, sound, movement, can be combined into -other forms which lack that particular air of urbanity, of well-being, -of rich contentment and interest which is the special atmosphere -of musical shows. I can only find a word and say that the secret -resides in it--high spirits. For a musical comedy, even a sentimental -one, must be high-spirited in execution--that was the lesson of an -unsentimental one, _The Beggar’s Opera_; and at the same time there -must be some courage, some defiance of nature and sound sense, a -feeling for fantasy, which means that the life of the spirit is high, -even when the life of the body is in chains. It is for this freedom of -the spirit, released by music as always and diverted by all the other -elements in them, that these shows are cherished. It is, naturally, as -a counter-attack on solemnity that I am going to found my theatre. - - - - - _The One-Man Show_ - - - - -THE ONE-MAN SHOW - - -When all the other grave æsthetic questions about the stage are -answered, some profound theorist may explain the existence of the -one-man show. Since I am not a materialist, I cannot concede the -obvious solution--that a man finds enough money to produce himself in -a Broadway show--because there is something attractive and mysterious -about this type of entertainment which the explanation fails to explain. - -The theory of the one-man show is apparently that there are individuals -so endowed, so versatile, and so beloved, that no other vehicle will -suffice to let them do their work. Conversely, that they are of such -quality that _they_ suffice for the strange entertainment with which -they are surrounded and that nothing else matters provided they are -long and frequent on the stage. Six men and two women are in the first -roster of the one-man show: Fred Stone, Ed Wynn, Raymond Hitchcock, -Eddie Cantor, Frank Tinney, and Al Jolson; below them, leading the -women, Elsie Janis and Nora Bayes. And omitting Jolson because he is so -great that he cannot be put in any company, the greatest one-man show -was one in which none of these appeared--it was one in which even the -man himself didn’t appear. It was a show in which one man succeeded -where all of these, this time not excluding Jolson, had failed: for he -made the whole production _his kind_ of show--and the others have never -quite managed to do more than make themselves. - -The chief example of this failure is Hitchcock, whose series lapses -ever so often, leaving him stranded on the bleak shore of a _Pin Wheel -Revue_--an artistic, an intellectual, an incredibly stupid production -which Hitchy manfully tried first to save and then to abandon. There -were in the better Hitchy shows other first-rate people: one who -masqueraded as Joseph Cook and was none other than Joe Cook the -Humorist out of vaudeville and out of his element; Ray Dooley was with -Hitchy, I believe, and there were always good dancers. Hitchy kept on -the stage a long time, as _conférencier_ and as participant, and his -amiable drollery was always at the same level--just enough. He never -quite concealed the strain of making a production _go_; one always -wanted to be much more amused, and Hitchy never got beyond the episode -of the Captain of the Fire Brigade or trying to buy the middle two-cent -stamp in a sheet of a hundred. A series of vaudeville sketches doesn’t -make a one-man show, even if he plays in all of them; and the moment -Hitchcock was off, _Hitchy-koo_ went to pieces, some good and some bad, -and all trying a little too hard to be something else. - -[Illustration: EDDIE CANTOR - -By Roland Young] - -Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson appear in the two different Winter -Garden types of show--the Jolson and the Winter Garden _in impuris -naturalibus_. Jolson infuses something both gay and broad into his -pieces; even the recurrence of Lawrence D’Orsay cannot win back the -original Winter Garden atmosphere and even the disappearance of -Kitty Doner cannot diminish Jolson’s private quality. Of the straight -Winter Garden shows, the 1922 with Eddie Cantor was the best in ten -years, made so by Cantor and made by him, in spite of the billing, -into a one-man show. The nervous energy of Cantor isn’t sufficient -to animate the active, but indifferent choruses of the Shuberts. One -thing, however, he can do superbly--the lamb led to the slaughter. It -is best when he chooses to play the timid, Ghetto-bred, pale-faced -Jewish lad, seduced by glory or the prospects of pay into competing -with athletes and bruisers. One thing he cannot do and should learn -not to try--the black-face song and comedy of his master, Jolson. The -scenes of violence vary; that of the osteopath was an exploitation of -meaningless brutality; I cared for nothing after Eddie’s frightened -entrance, “Are you the Ostermoor?” But the aviation examination -and the application for the police force were excellent pieces of -construction, holding sympathy all the way through and keeping on the -safe side of nausea. Both of these were before the Winter Garden days -and the Winter Garden exploit was better than either. He played here -a cutter in a hand-me-down clothing store and it was his function to -leap into the breach whenever a customer showed the slightest tendency -to leave without buying a suit. The victim was obsessed by some idea -of having “a belt in the back” and was forced into sailor suits and -fancy costume and was generally made miserable. Eddie’s terrific rushes -from the wings, his appeals to God to strike him dead “on the spot” -if the suit now being tried on wasn’t the best suit in the world, his -helplessness and his, “Well, kill me, so kill me,” as apology when his -partner revealed the damning fact that that happened to be the man’s -old suit--all of this was worth the whole of the Potash-Perlmutter -cycle. And the whole-heartedness of Cantor’s violence--essentially the -bullying of a coward who has at last discovered some one weaker than -himself, was faultless. He sings well the slightly suggestive songs -like _After the Ball_ (new version), and his three broken dance steps -with the sawing motion of his gloved hands create an image exceedingly -precise and palpable. There is in him just enough for the one-man -show, but so far it has been limited by his tendency to imitate and by -failure to develop his own sources of strength. Even in _Kid Boots_ he -just fails to make the grade. - -[Illustration: FRANK TINNEY - -By Roland Young] - -The one-man show _requires_ its leader to leave nothing in himself -unexploited--there is too much for him to do and he must take -everything on himself--the requirements are exactly opposite to those -of the vaudeville act where the actor must work in the briefest -compass, with the utmost concentration, and get his effects in the -shortest time. Frank Tinney’s success in vaudeville marks the -limitations of his success in his shows--for he imposed on vaudeville -that languid easy-going manner of his and was just enough out of -vaudeville tempo (he is very deceptive in this) to appear to be a -novelty there. In essence he isn’t a good one-man, for his line is -limited and his humour and his good-humour (in which he is matched only -by Ed Wynn) are not capable of the strain of a long winter’s evening -entertainment. Tinney was excellent in a quarrel scene with Bernard -Granville (in a Ziegfeld _Follies_, I think) the two pacing in opposite -directions, the width of the stage between them, always from footlights -to backdrop and never crossing the stage; he was disputatious and -entertaining on the negative of the proposition that the Erie railroad -(pronounced for reasons of his own, Ee-righ) is a very expensive -railroad; his appearance in _Watch Your Step_ was almost perfect. -(Consult Mr A. Woollcott’s _Shouts and Murmurs_ for everything about -Tinney; Mr Woollcott’s descriptions are accurate and evocative and he -errs only in his estimate of Tinney’s quality.) Tinney has everything -except the excess of vitality, the surcharge of genius. He has method -nearly to perfection and it is a wholly original, ingratiating, and, up -to a certain point, adaptable method. What he has done is to destroy -the “good joke,” for all of Tinney’s jokes are bad ones and he gets his -effect by fumbling about with them, by lengthening the preliminaries, -by false starts, erasures, corrections--until his arrival at the point -relieves the suspense. I have heard him take at least ten minutes to -put over: “Lend me a dollar for a week, old man.--Who is the weak old -man?” and not a moment was superfluous. He is expert at kidding the -audience, and as he is never in character he never steps out. There -isn’t quite enough of him, that is all. - -There is enough of Fred Stone for versatility and not enough for -specific personal appeal. As acrobat, dancer, ventriloquist, and cut-up -Stone is easily in the lead; but the unnamable quality is lacking. -See him climbing up an arbour to meet his Juliet in the balcony; he -is discovered, hangs head downward in peril of his life, seizes a -potted flower and with it begins to dust the vines--it is Chaplinesque -in conception and beautifully executed. See him on the slack rope -continually on the point of falling off and continually recovering and -seeming to hang on by his boot toe; or in _The Lady of the Slipper_ -making a beautiful series of leaps from chair to divan, from divan to -table, to a triumphant exit through the unsuspected scenery; or in -another quality recall the famous “Very good, Eddie,” of _Chin-Chin_. -He is incredible; one wouldn’t miss him for worlds; yet it is always -what he does and not himself that constitutes the attraction. I wonder -whether I do not wrong him altogether by classing him with the one-men, -for it was always something more than Montgomery and Stone in the days -of _The Red Mill_ and Stone does not exaggerate himself on the stage. -His command of attributes is greater than that of any other player; -he does everything with a beautiful, errorless accuracy--and the -pleasure of seeing things _exactly right_, all the time, is not to be -underestimated. - -[Illustration: ED. WYNN - -By Roland Young] - -It is Ed Wynn’s pleasure to make everything seem utterly haphazard. -Wynn is a surd in the theatre--there is always something left -unresolved in reducing him to the lowest term, and he is -incommensurable because there are no standards for him and no similars. -I prefer to see him wandering through a good revue, changing hats, -worrying about a “rewolwer” in the first scene and stopping dead in -the twentieth to declare that it wasn’t a “rewolwer” at all, but a -pistol. When he came to put on a one-man show he preserved the best -part of this incoherence. He made it his business to appear before a -drop curtain and explain in an amazing vocabulary and with painstaking -gravity exactly what was to occur in the next scene. He affects to be -awkward (to quote him, I might go so far as to call him uncouth.... I -think I _will_ call him uncouth.... He is uncouth); his gestures are -florid and wide, his earnestness makes all things vivid. Each of these -explanations involves a bad pun and none, of course, has anything to -do with the scene that actually follows. Like Jolson and Cantor, he -takes the stage at a given moment and entertains. His famous inventions -seemed to be the crudest form of humour--a typewriter carriage for -eating corn on the cob, a burning candle to set in one’s ears in order -to wake up in time--yet sheer ebullition carried them high into the -field of “nice, clean fun.” Wynn’s words come tumbling out of him, -agglutinated, chaotic, disorderly; he is abashed by his own occasional -temerity, he is timid and covers it with brashness--and all of this -is a carefully created personage; it is _not_ Ed Wynn. He has found a -little odd corner of life which no one else cultivates; it is a sort of -rusticity in the face of _simple_ things; he is a perpetual immigrant -obsessed by hats and shoes and words and small ideas, instead of -bothering about skyscrapers. The deepness of his zanylike appreciation -of every-day things is the secret of his capacity for making them -startling and funny. His one fault is the show with which he surrounds -himself. - -I have never seen Elsie Janis better than she was in _The Lady of the -Slipper_--with the exception of Gaby Deslys I have never seen any woman -comparable to Miss Janis in that piece, and in it she had qualities -which ought to have made her appearance in an individual show a much -greater success than it actually turned out to be. For, except a -voice, Miss Janis has everything. She is a beautiful dancer and her -legs are handsomer than Mistinguett’s, and she is the finest mimic I -have ever seen on the stage, several shades ahead of Ina Claire. An -exceptional intelligence operates in the creation of these caricatures, -for they are all created by seizing upon vital characteristics of -tone, gesture, tempo of movement, spirit; and the arrangement of her -hair and the contortions of her face are only guide-signs to the -accomplished act. She is herself of an abounding grace, a suppleness -of body and of mind, and the measure of her skill is the exact degree -in which her grace and simplicity are transformed into harshness or -angularity or sophistication as she passes one after another of our -stage personalities before her mirror. This year I saw her in a Paris -music-hall take off Mistinguett and Max Dearly. She presented them -singing _Give Me Moonlight_ in their own imagined versions and her -throaty “Give me a gas light” for the creator of _Mon Homme_ was -superb. She offered to sing it, at the end, as she herself ought to -sing it--and danced it without uttering a sound. It reminded one of -Irene Castle in _Watch Your Step_. For an exact calculation of her -capacities and a sensible, modest intention to stay within them and -to exploit them to the limit are parts of Elsie Janis’s intelligence. -To be sure, it isn’t her intelligence--it is her loveliness and her -talent that endear her to us. But it is grateful, for once in a way, -to find a talent so great, a loveliness so irresistible, joined to an -intelligence which sets all in motion and spoils nothing. - -I suspect that in spite of the best of the one-man shows there is -something wrong with the idea--perhaps because the environment requires -more than any man has yet been able to give. And the one perfect -example is, as I have suggested, proof of this. Because _Stop! Look! -Listen!_ which was only a moderate success on Broadway and involved -the talents of Gaby Deslys, Doyle and Dixon, Harry Fox, Tempest and -Sunshine, the beautiful Justine Johnston, Helen Barnes, Helen Dryden -as costumer and Robert McQuinn as scenic designer, a beautiful chorus -and an excellent producer, was actually the one-man show of Irving -Berlin. For once a complete and varied show expressed the spirit of one -man to perfection. In that piece, Berlin wrote two of his masterpieces -and about four other superb songs; and, more than that, suffused the -entire production with the gay spirit of his music. There occurred -_The Ragtime Melodrama_ danced by Doyle and Dixon--only the Common Clay -scene from the Cohan revue ever approached it, and Doyle and Dixon -never danced better (unless, possibly, a quarter of an hour earlier -in _The Hula-Hula_); there was _The Girl on the Magazine Cover_, -perfectly set and costumed, a really good sentimental song with its -quaint introduction of _Lohengrin_ (not the _Wedding March_); there -was _When I Get Back to the U. S. A._ sung against a chorus of _My -Country, ’Tis of Thee_; there was Gaby’s wicked _Take Off a Little -Bit_ and Harry Fox’s _Press-Agent Song_--and finally the second of -Berlin’s three great tributes to his art: _I Love a Piano_, which, -like the mother of Louis Napoleon, he wrote for six pianos and in -which everything in syncopation up to that time was epitomized and -carried to a perfect conclusion. Whatever was gay, light, colourful, -whatever was accurate, assured, confident, and good-humoured, was in -this miraculous production. I saw it twelve times in two weeks--lured -partly, I must confess, by the hope that Harry Pilcer would break at -least a leg in his fall down the golden stairs. He never did; in spite -of which, seeing it again, months later, it still seemed to me the -apotheosis of pure show. I think I could reconstruct every moment of -it, including the useless plot and Justine Johnston’s ankles; it seems -a pity that all of it, the ephemeral and the permanent, should have -already passed from the stage. It was a beginning in ragtime operetta -which Mr Berlin has never followed up; his inexhaustible talents have -been diverted into other things; he is now a maker of revues. Yet when -he saw _The Beggar’s Opera_, Mr Berlin felt something plucking at his -sleeve, reminding him that it was his job, and his alone, to create the -comparable type for America. - -At that moment he thought back to _Stop! Look! Listen!_--but he had -already begun to build the Music Box--and we must wait patiently for -what time will bring as a real successor to his one-man show. At any -rate, we have had it. We know, now, what it can amount to--and it is -enough. Enough, at any rate, to put the veritable one-man show fairly -definitely out of the running. - - - - - _The Dæmonic in the - American Theatre_ - - - - -THE DÆMONIC IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE - - -One man on the American stage, and one woman, are possessed--Al -Jolson and Fanny Brice. Their dæmons are not of the same order, but -together they represent all we have of the Great God Pan, and we -ought to be grateful for it. For in addition to being more or less a -Christian country, America is a Protestant community and a business -organization--and none of these units is peculiarly prolific in the -creation of dæmonic individuals. We can bring forth Roosevelts--dynamic -creatures, to be sure; but the fury and the exultation of Jolson is a -hundred times higher in voltage than that of Roosevelt; we can produce -courageous and adventurous women who shoot lions or manage construction -gangs and remain pale beside the extraordinary “cutting loose” of Fanny -Brice. - -To say that each of these two is possessed by a dæmon is a mediæval and -perfectly sound way of expressing their intensity of action. It does -not prove anything--not even that they are geniuses of a fairly high -rank, which in my opinion they are. I use the word possessed because -it connotes a quality lacking elsewhere on the stage, and to be found -only at moments in other aspects of American life--in religious mania, -in good jazz bands, in a rare outbreak of mob violence. The particular -intensity I mean is exactly what you do not see at a baseball game, but -may at a prize fight, nor in the productions of David Belasco, nor -at a political convention; you may see it on the Stock Exchange and -you can see it, canalized and disciplined, but still intense, in our -skyscraper architecture. It was visible at moments in the old Russian -Ballet. - -In Jolson there is always one thing you can be sure of: that whatever -he does he does at the highest possible pressure. I do not mean that -one gets the sense of his effort, for his work is at times the easiest -seeming, the most effortless in the world. Only he never saves up--for -the next scene, or the next week, or the next show. His generosity is -extravagant; he flings into a comic song or three-minute impersonation -so much energy, violence, so much of the _totality_ of one human being, -that you feel it would suffice for a hundred others. In the days -when the runway was planked down the centre of every good theatre in -America, this galvanic little figure, leaping and shouting--yet always -essentially dancing and singing--upon it was the concentration of our -national health and gaiety. In _Row, Row, Row_ he would bounce up on -the runway, propel himself by imaginary oars over the heads of the -audience, draw equally imaginary slivers from the seat of his trousers, -and infuse into the song something wild and roaring and insanely funny. -The very phonograph record of his famous _Toreador_ song is full of -vitality. Even in later days when the programme announces simply “Al -Jolson” (about 10.15 P.M. in each of his reviews) he appears and -sings and talks to the audience and dances off--and when he has done -more than any other ten men, he returns and, blandly announcing that -“You ain’t heard nothing yet,” proceeds to do twice as much again. He -is the great master of the one-man show because he gives so much while -he is on that the audience remains content while he is off--and his -electrical energy almost always develops activity in those about him. - -[Illustration: - - FANNY BRICE -] - -If it were necessary, a plea could be made for violence _per se_ in the -American theatre, because everything tends to prettify and restrain, -and the energy of the theatre is dying out. But Jolson, who lacks -discipline almost entirely, has other qualities besides violence. He -has an excellent baritone voice, a good ear for dialect, a nimble -presence, and a distinct sense of character. Of course it would be -impossible not to recognize him the moment he appears on the stage; -of course he is always Jolson--but he is also always Gus and always -Inbad the Porter, and always Bombo. He has created a way of being -for the characters he takes on; they live specifically in the mad -world of the Jolson show; their wit and their bathos are singularly -creditable characteristics of themselves--not of Jolson. You may -recall a scene--I think the show was called _Dancing Around_--in which -a lady knocks at the door of a house. From within comes the voice of -Jolson singing, “You made me love you, I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t -wanna do it”--the voice approaches, dwindles away, resumes--it is a -swift characterization of the lazy servant coming to open the door and -ready to insult callers, since the master is out. Suddenly the black -face leaps through the doorway and cries out, “We don’ want no ice,” -and is gone. Or Jolson as the black slave of Columbus, reproached by -his master for a long absence. His lips begin to quiver, his chin -to tremble; the tears are approaching, when his human independence -softly asserts itself and he wails, “We all have our _moments_.” It -is quite true, for Jolson’s technique is the exploitation of these -moments; he has himself said that he is the greatest master of hokum -in the business, and in the theatre the art of hokum is to make each -second count for itself, to save any moment from dulness by the happy -intervention of a slap on the back, or by jumping out of character and -back again, or any other trick. For there is no question of legitimacy -here--everything is right if it makes ’em laugh. - -He does more than make ’em laugh; he gives them what I am convinced -is a genuine emotional effect ranging from the thrill to the shock. I -remember coming home after eighteen months in Europe, during the war, -and stepping from the boat to one of the first nights of _Sinbad_. The -spectacle of Jolson’s vitality had the same quality as the impression -I got from the New York sky line--one had forgotten that there still -existed in the world a force so boundless, an exaltation so high, -and that anyone could still storm Heaven with laughter and cheers. He -sang on that occasion _’N Everything_ and _Swanee_. I have suggested -elsewhere that hearing him sing _Swanee_ is what book reviewers and -young girls loosely call an experience. I know what Jolson does with -false sentiment; here he was dealing with something which by the grace -of George Gershwin came true, and there was no necessity for putting -anything over. In the absurd black-face which is so little negroid that -it goes well with diversions in Yiddish accents, Jolson created image -after image of longing, and his existence through the song was wholly -in _its_ rhythm. Five years later I heard Jolson in a second-rate -show, before an audience listless or hostile, sing this outdated and -forgotten song, and create again, for each of us seated before him, -the same image--and saw also the tremendous leap in vitality and -happiness which took possession of the audience as he sang it. It was -marvelous. In the first weeks of _Sinbad_ he sang the words of _’N -Everything_ as they are printed. Gradually (I saw the show in many -phases) he interpolated, improvised, always with his absolute sense -of rhythmic effect; until at the end it was a series of amorous cries -and shouts of triumph to Eros. I have heard him sing also the absurd -song about “It isn’t raining rain, It’s raining violets” and remarked -him modulating that from sentimentality into a conscious bathos, with -his gloved fingers flittering together and his voice rising to absurd -_fortissimi_ and the general air of kidding the piece. - -He does not generally kid his Mammy songs--as why should he who sings -them better than anyone else? He cannot underplay anything, he lacks -restraint, and he leans on the second-rate sentiment of these songs -until they are forced to render up the little that is real in them. -I dislike them and dislike his doing them--as I dislike Belle Baker -singing _Elie, Elie!_ But it is quite possible that my discomfort at -these exhibitions is proof of their quality. They and a few very cheap -jokes and a few sly remarks about sexual perversions are Jolson’s only -faults. They are few. For a man who has, year after year, established -an intimate relation with no less than a million people, every -twelvemonth, he is singularly uncorrupted. That relation is the thing -which sets him so far above all the other one-man-show stars. Eddie -Cantor gives at times the effect of being as energetic; Wynn is always -and Tinney sometimes funnier. But no one else, except Miss Brice, so -holds an audience in the hollow of the hand. The hand is steady; the -audience never moves. And on the great nights when everything is right, -Jolson is driven by a power beyond himself. One sees that he knows what -he is doing, but one sees that he doesn’t half realize the power and -intensity with which he is doing it. In those moments I cannot help -thinking of him as a genius. - -Quite to that point Fanny Brice hasn’t reached. She hasn’t, to begin -with, the physical vitality of Jolson. But she has a more delicate -mind and a richer humour--qualities which generally destroy vitality -altogether, and which only enrich hers. She is first a great farceur; -and in her songs she is exactly in the tradition of Yvette Guilbert, -without the range, so far as we know, which enabled Mme Guilbert to -create the whole of mediæval France for us in ten lines of a song. -The quality, however, is the same, and Fanny’s evocations are as -vivid and as poignant as Yvette’s--they require from us exactly the -same tribute of admiration. She has grown in power since she sang and -made immortal, _I Should Worry_. Hear her now creating the tragedy -of _Second-Hand Rose_ or of the one Florodora Baby who--“five little -dumbells got married for money, And I got married for love....” These -things are done with two-thirds of Yvette Guilbert’s material missing, -for there are no accessories and, although the words (some of the best -are by Blanche Merrill) are good, the music isn’t always distinguished. -And the effects are irreproachable. Give Fanny a song she can get -her teeth into, _Mon Homme_, and the result is less certain, but not -less interesting. This was one of a series of realistic songs for -Mistinguett, who sang it very much as Yvonne George did when she -appeared in America. Miss Brice took it _lento affetuoso_; since the -precise character of the song had changed a bit from its rather more -outspoken French original. Miss Brice suppressed Fanny altogether in -this song--she was being, I fear, “a serious artist”; but she is of -such an extraordinary talent that she can do even this. Yvonne George -sang it better simply because the figure she evoked as Mon Homme was -exactly the fake apache about whom it was written, and not the “my -feller” who lurked behind Miss Brice. It was amusing to learn that -without a Yiddish accent and without those immense rushes of drollery, -without the enormous gawkishness of her other impersonations, Miss -Brice could put a song over. But I am for Fanny against Miss Brice and -to Fanny I return. - -Fanny is one of the few people who “make fun.” She creates that -peculiar quality of entertainment which is wholly light-hearted and -everything else is added unto her. Of this special quality nothing -can be said; one either sees it or doesn’t, savours it or not. -Fanny arrives on the scene with an indescribable gesture--after -seeing it twenty times I believe that it consists of a feminine -salute, touching the forehead and then flinging out her arm to the -topmost gallery. There is magic in it, establishing her character at -once--the magic must reside in her incredible elbow. She hasn’t so -much to give as Jolson, but she gives it with the same generosity, -there are no reserves, and it is all for fun. Her Yiddish Squow (how -else can I spell that amazing effect?) and her Heiland Lassie are -examples--there isn’t an _arrière-pensée_ in them. “The Chiff is after -me ... he says I appil to him ... he likes my type ...” it is the -complete give away of herself and she doesn’t care. - -[Illustration: - - AL JOLSON -] - -And this carelessness goes through her other exceptional qualities -of caricature and satire. For the first there is the famous Vamp, in -which she plays the crucial scene of all the vampire stories, preluding -it with the first four lines of the poem Mr Kipling failed to throw -into the wastepaper basket, and fatuously adding, “I can’t get over -it”--after which point everything is flung into another plane--the -hollow laughter, the haughty gesture, the pretended compassion, that -famous defense of the vampire which here, however, ends with the -magnificent line, “I may be a bad woman, but I’m awful good company.” -In this brief episode she does three things at once: recites a parody, -imitates the moving-picture vamp, and creates through these another, -truly comic character. For satire it is Fanny’s special quality that -with the utmost economy of means she always creates the original in the -very process of destroying it, as in two numbers which are exquisite, -her present opening song in vaudeville with its reiterations of Victor -Herbert’s _Kiss Me Again_, and her Spring Dance. The first is pressed -far into burlesque, but before she gets there it has fatally destroyed -the whole tedious business of polite and sentimental concert-room -vocalism; and the second (Fanny in ballet, with her amazingly angular -parody of five-position dancing) puts an end forever to that great -obsession of ours, classical interpretative dancing. - -Fanny’s refinement of technique is far beyond Jolson’s; her effects -are broad enough, but her methods are all delicate. The frenzy which -takes hold of her is as real as his. With him she has the supreme -pleasure of knowing that she can do no wrong--and her spirits mount and -intensify with every moment on the stage. She creates rapidly and her -characterizations have an exceptional roundness and fulness; when the -dæmon attends she is superb. - -It is noteworthy that these two stars bring something to America -which America lacks and loves--they are, I suppose, two of our most -popular entertainers--and that both are racially out of the dominant -caste. Possibly this accounts for their fine carelessness about our -superstitions of politeness and gentility. The medium in which they -work requires more decency and less frankness than usually exist in our -private lives; but within these bounds Jolson and Brice go farther, go -with more contempt for artificial notions of propriety, than anyone -else. Jolson has re-created an ancient type, the scalawag servant -with his surface dulness and hidden cleverness, a creation as real as -Sganarelle. And Fanny has torn through all the conventions and cried -out that gaiety still exists. They are parallel lines surcharged with -vital energy. I should like to see that fourth-dimensional show in -which they will meet. - - - - - _These, Too ..._ - - - - -THESE, TOO ... - - -Remy de Gourmont has propounded, somewhere, an interesting theory. If -life is worth anything _per se_, is the substance of the argument, -then we do wrong to live it in a series of high moments separated by -long hours of dulness. We ought to take the _amount_ of energy, or -ecstasy, we possess, and spread it as thin as possible, relishing each -moment for itself, each being as good as any other. (I do not mean that -Gourmont endorsed this philosophy; he discussed it.) It is, of course, -the logical conclusion of burning _always_ with a hard gemlike flame, -for if one is to be always _anything_ it is more likely to be calm and -languorous and reserved; that is the difference between burning and -burning up--of which Pater was aware. - -We have all had these days of halcyon perfection, when the precise -degree of warmth was a miracle, when the aroma of a wine seemed to -have the whole fragrance of the earth, when one could do anything or -nothing and be equally content. In the presence of great works of art -we experience something similar. We are suspended between the sense of -release from life, the desire to die before the image of the supremely -beautiful, and a new-found capacity for living. Our daily existence -gives us no such opportunity; we cannot live languorously because we -have no leisure, and we are compelled to be intense at rare intervals -if life isn’t to be entirely a hoax and a bore. In the preoccupations -of daily life a tragic incident or an outburst of temper or a -perfectly cut street dress or the dark-light before a storm, may give -us, apart from our emotional lives, the intensity we require. We rather -defend ourselves from the impact of great beauty, of nobility, of high -tragedy, because we feel ourselves incompetent to master them; we -preserve our individual lives even if we diminish them. - -The minor arts are, to an extent, an opiate--or rather they trick -our hunger for a moment and we are able to sleep. They do not wholly -satisfy, but they do not corrupt. And they, too, have their moments of -intensity. Our experience of perfection is so limited that even when -it occurs in a secondary field we hail its coming. Yet the minor arts -are all transient, and these moments have no lasting record, and their -creators are unrewarded even by the tribute of a word. A moment comes -when everything is exactly right, and you have an occurrence--it may -be something exquisite or something unnamably gross; there is in it -an ecstasy which sets it apart from everything else. The scene of the -“swaree” in the _Pickwick Papers_ has that quality; nearly the whole -of _South Wind_ has it (I choose examples as disparate as possible). -The whole performance of _Boris_ by Chaliapin (the second time he -sang it at the Metropolitan on his second visit to the United States) -had precisely the same exaltation--and Conrad Veidt as Cesare had one -comparable moment: the breathless second when the draperies seem -to cling to the ravished virgin in the hands of the Somnambulist. It -is an unpredictable event; but there are those on whom one can count -to approach it. All of those I am writing about here have given me -that thrill at least once--and my memory goes back to these occasions, -trying to catch the incredible moment again. - -[Illustration: - - (_Courtesy of A. and C. Boni_) - - LEON ERROL. By Alfred Frueh - -] - -It will be impossible to communicate even the sense of it unless -the material be dissociated from the event. Surely there is nothing -exquisite in the roaring charwoman created by George Monroe. He had -to an inspiring degree the capacity to be one of those vast figures -in Dickens--Mrs Gamp to perfection--and it is odd that another -impersonator, Bert Savoy, should have created, in Margie, Mrs Gamp’s -own confidante and admirer, the devoted Mrs Harris. George Monroe’s -creation was huge and cylindrical--more like a drainpipe than a woman -in shape. There was no effort at realism, for Monroe roared in a deep -bass voice, and his “Be that as it ma-a-y” was a leer in the face -of all logic, order, and decency. There was in it an unrestraint, -a wildness, an independent commonness which rendered it immortal. -The creation of Bert Savoy is at the other extreme. It is female -impersonation and the figure is always the same--the courtesan whose -ambition it is to be a demi-mondaine. Savoy makes capital of all his -defects down to the rakish slanting hat over one eye. His repetitions, -apparently so spontaneous, are beautifully timed and spaced; the -buzz and pause in the voice--“you muzzt com’over ... you don’t know -the ha-ff of it, dear-ie” fix themselves in memory. He is remembered -for the excellent stories he tells, and they are worth it, but the -interpolations are funnier than the climax. The audacity is colossal -and disarming. The occurrence of a character out of Petronius on -our stage is exceptional in itself, that it should at the same time -be slightly vicious and altogether charming, funny and immoral and -delicate, is the wonder. - -Last year there was an added touch, when Savoy danced while he sang a -stanza about the Widow Brown. It was as delicate, it passed as quickly, -as breath on a windowpane.[15] - -I repeat the material doesn’t matter. For Leon Errol has nothing but -the type drunkard to work with, and is wonderful. In his case it is -easy to analyse the basis of the effect--it is in the loping dance -step into which he converts the lurch of the drunkard. The tawdry -moment--funny enough if you can bear it--is always Errol’s breathing -into someone else’s face; the great moment comes directly after, when -the lurch and the fall are worked up into a complete arc of dance -steps, ending in three little hops as a sort of proof of sobriety. -Jimmy Barton has the same quality in his skating scene--he uses less -material and the movement round the rink is beautiful to watch. But of -him it is useless to speak. Someone has pointed out that he can slap -the bare back of a woman and make that funny! - -It is interesting to see how many of the people who give this special -quality arrive out of burlesque. Harry Kelly is another. I recall him -first with Lizzie the Fish Hound in _Watch Your Step_ and last in a -quite useless musical comedy, _The Springtime of Youth_ (textually that -was the title--and in 1922!) For two acts he was wholly wasted. In the -third he was magnificent. He was playing the obdurate father: “No son -of mine shall ever marry a daughter of the Baxters” was his line. He -was informed that she was, in fact, an adopted daughter and that her -uncle had left her the bulk of his fortune. For precisely a minute and -a half Kelly played with the word “bulk”--one saw it registered in his -brain, saw an idea germinating, felt it working forward to the jaw -before the cavernous voice gave it utterance--and again one felt the -inner struggle _not_ to say it a third time, one felt the conflict of -pride and avarice. It was remarkably delicate and fine--so is all of -Kelly’s work when he has a chance. His spare figure, long hands, and -unbelievable voice always create a character--and it isn’t always the -same character. - -Bobby Clarke’s scene with the lion comes at once to mind (it is another -burlesque act), and Bert Williams--in many scenes--always soft spoken, -always understanding his case. There were five minutes of Blanche Ring -and Charles Winninger, once, at the Winter Garden; to my surprise, -there were more than that for Eugene and Willie Howard at the same -house, but they were gained in spite of the Winter Garden technique -which underestimates even the lowest intelligence. Willie is rather -like Fanny Brice at moments; when he cuts loose one has an agreeable -sense of uncertainty. Joe Jackson,[16] actually a great clown, although -one doesn’t recognize this in the highly developed medium he chooses, -has exactly the opposite effect--he doesn’t cut loose at all; he -develops. Everything he does is careful and nothing exaggerated, so you -think at first that, although he will be funny, he will not quite reach -that top notch on which an artist teeters perilously while you wonder -whether he will fall over or keep his balance. Yet Jackson gets there. -As the tramp cyclist his acrobatics are good, his make-up enchanting; -but his expressed attitude of mind is his most precious quality. It -becomes almost too much to watch him worrying with a motor horn which -has become detached from the handlebars and which he cannot replace. He -tries it everywhere; at the end he is miserably trying to hang it up on -the air, and when it fails to catch there he is actually wretched. -His movements are full of grace--like those of the grotesque, Alberto, -among the Fratellini--and the ecstasy he gives comes by a surexcess -of laughter. Another moment of great delicacy, without laughter, -however, is that in which Fortunello and Cirrilino swing about on the -broomstick. They are a lovely pair, and the little one seated on the -palm of the other’s hand is a beautiful picture. - -[Illustration: - - BERT SAVOY -] - -Either few women are brought out of burlesque, or women haven’t the -exceptional quality I care for. In any case they have seldom given me -the excess of emotion by what they have done. Their beauty is quite -another matter on which I fail to commit myself. Ada Lewis, in her -broad and grand way, has the stuff, and Florence Moore. And once in -each performance you can be sure that Gilda Grey will utter a sound -or tremble herself into a bacchanalian revel. For the most part her -singing is undistinguished, and I do not care for the anxious way in -which she regards her members, as if she fancied they would fall off -by dint of shimmying. Yet I have never gone to a show of hers without -hearing some echo of the nymphs pursued, or seeing a movement of -abandon and grace. The dark shuddering voice is sub-human, the movement -divinely animal. - -Different in every way, but exquisite in every way, was Gaby Deslys. -It is good form now to belittle her; she was so vulgar; she came so -much on the crest of a revolution, she was such a bidder for our great -precious commodity--news space. Ah, well! we have given publicity to -less worthy causes. For she was perfect of her type, and in her hard, -calculating, sublimely decent way she made us like the type. It was -gently vicious--the whole manner. It was overdone--the pearls and the -peacock feathers. But behind was a lovely person--lovely to look at -and enchanting to all the senses. No, she couldn’t act--how pitiable -her loyal efforts; she sang badly; she wasn’t one of the world’s great -dancers. But she had something irreducible, not to be hindered or -infringed upon--her definite self. She was, to begin with, outcast -of our moral system, and she made us accept her because she was an -independent human being. She had a sound and accurate sense of her -personal life, of her rights as an individual. Nothing could stand -against her--and it is said that when she was at grips, at the end, -with something more powerful than popular taste, she still held her -own, and died rather than suffer the spoiling of her beauty. If that -were true one could hardly wish even her beauty back again. - - - - - _The “Vulgar” - Comic Strip_ - - - - -THE “VULGAR” COMIC STRIP - - -Of all the lively arts the Comic Strip is the most despised, and -with the exception of the movies it is the most popular. Some twenty -million people follow with interest, curiosity, and amusement the daily -fortunes of five or ten heroes of the comic strip, and that they do -this is considered by all those who have any pretentions to taste and -culture as a symptom of crass vulgarity, of dulness, and, for all I -know, of defeated and inhibited lives. I need hardly add that those who -feel so about the comic strip only infrequently regard the object of -their distaste. - -Certainly there is a great deal of monotonous stupidity in the -comic strip, a cheap jocosity, a life-of-the-party humour which is -extraordinarily dreary. There is also a quantity of bad drawing and the -intellectual level, if that matters, is sometimes not high. Yet we are -not actually a dull people; we take our fun where we find it, and we -have an exceptional capacity for liking the things which show us off -in ridiculous postures--a counterpart to our inveterate passion for -seeing ourselves in stained-glass attitudes. And the fact that we do -care for the comic strip--that Jiggs and Mutt-and-Jeff and Skinnay and -the Gumps have entered into our existence as definitely as Roosevelt -and more deeply than Pickwick--ought to make them worth looking at, -for once. Certainly they would have been more sharply regarded if they -had produced the counterpart of Chaplin in the comic film--a universal -genius capable of holding the multitude and exciting the speculations -of the intellectuals. It happens that the actual genius of the comic -strip, George Herriman, is of such a special sort that even when he is -recognized he is considered something apart and his appearance among -other strips is held to be only an accident. - -It is by no means an accident, for the comic strip is an exceptionally -supple medium, giving play to a variety of talents, to the use of -many methods, and it adapts itself to almost any theme. The enormous -circulation it achieves imposes certain limitations: it cannot be -too local, since it is syndicated throughout the country; it must -avoid political and social questions because the same strip appears -in papers of divergent editorial opinions; there is no room in it for -acute racial caricature, although no group is immune from its mockery. -These and other restrictions have gradually made of the comic strip a -changing picture of the average American life--and by compensation it -provides us with the freest American fantasy. - -In a book which appeared about two years ago, _Civilization in the -United States_, thirty Americans rendered account of our present state. -One of them, and one only, mentioned the comic strip--Mr Harold E. -Stearns--and he summed up the “intellectual” attitude perfectly by -saying that _Bringing Up Father_ will repay the social historian for -all the attention he gives it. I do not know in what satisfactions the -social historian can be repaid. I fear that the actual fun in the -comic strip is not one of them. _Bringing Up Father_, says Mr Stearns, -“symbolizes better than most of us appreciate the normal relation of -American men and women to cultural and intellectual values. _Its very -grotesqueness and vulgarity are revealing_” (italics mine). (Query: Is -it vulgar of Jiggs to prefer Dinty’s café to a Swami’s lecture? Or of -Mrs Jiggs to insist on the lecture? Or of both of them to be rather -free in the matter of using vases as projectiles? What, in short, is -vulgar?) I am far from quarreling with Mr Stearns’ leading idea, for -I am sure that a history of manners in the United States could be -composed with the comic strip as its golden thread; but I think that -something more than its vulgarity would be revealing. - -The daily comic strip arrived in the early ’nineties--perhaps it was -our contribution to that artistic age--and has gone through several -phases. In 1892 or thereabouts Jimmy Swinnerton created _Little -Bears and Tigers_ for the San Francisco _Examiner_; that forerunner -has passed away, but Swinnerton remains, and everything he does is -observed with respect by the other comic-strip artists; he has had more -influence on the strip even than Wilhelm Busch, the German whose _Max -und Moritz_ were undoubtedly the originals of the _Katzenjammer Kids_. -The strip worked its way east, prospered by William Randolph Hearst -especially in the coloured Sunday Supplement, and as a daily feature -by the Chicago _Daily News_, which was, I am informed, the first to -syndicate its strips and so enabled Americans to think nationally. -About fifteen years ago, also in San Francisco, appeared the first work -of Bud Fisher, _Mr Mutt_, soon to develop into _Mutt and Jeff_, the -first of the great hits and still one of the best known of the comic -strips. Fisher’s arrival on the scene corresponds to that of Irving -Berlin in ragtime. He had a great talent, hit upon something which took -the popular fancy, and by his energy helped to establish the comic -strip as a fairly permanent idea in the American newspaper. - -The files of the San Francisco _Chronicle_ will one day be searched by -an enthusiast for the precise date on which Little Jeff appeared in -the picture. It is generally believed that the two characters came on -together, but this is not so. In the beginning Mr Mutt made his way -alone; he was a race-track follower who daily went out to battle and -daily fell. Clare Briggs had used the same idea in his _Piker Clerk_ -for the Chicago _Tribune_. The historic meeting with Little Jeff, a -sacred moment in our cultural development, occurred during the days -before one of Jim Jeffries’ fights. It was as Mr Mutt passed the asylum -walls that a strange creature confided to the air the notable remark -that he himself was Jeffries. Mutt rescued the little gentleman and -named him Jeff. In gratitude Jeff daily submits to indignities which -might otherwise seem intolerable. - -The development in the last twenty years has been rapid, and about two -dozen good comics now exist. Historically it remains to be noted that -between 1910 and 1916 nearly all the good comics were made into bad -burlesque shows; in 1922 the best of them was made into a ballet with -scenario and music by John Alden Carpenter, choreography by Adolph -Bolm; costumes and settings after designs by George Herriman. Most -of the comics have also appeared in the movies; the two things have -much in common and some day a thesis for the doctorate in letters will -be written to establish the relationship. The writer of that thesis -will explain, I hope, why “movies” is a good word and “funnies,” as -offensive little children name the comic pages, is what charming -essayists call an atrocious vocable. - -Setting apart the strip which has fantasy--it is practised by Frueh and -by Herriman--the most interesting form is that which deals satirically -with every-day life; the least entertaining is the one which takes over -the sentimental magazine love-story and carries it through endless -episodes. The degree of interest points to one of the virtues of the -comic strip: it is a great corrective to magazine-cover prettiness. -Only one or two frankly pretty-girl strips exist. _Petey_ is the only -one which owes its popularity to the high, handsome face and the -lovely flanks of its heroine, and even there the pompous awkwardness -of the persistent lover has a touch of wilful absurdity. Mrs Trubble, -a second-rate strip unworthy of its originator, is simply a series -of pictures dramatizing the vampire home-breaker; I am not even sure -she is intended to be pretty. When nearly everything else in the same -newspapers is given over to sentimentality and affected girl-worship, -to advice to the lovelorn and pretty-prettiness, it is notable that the -comic strip remains grotesque and harsh and careless. It is largely -concerned with the affairs of men and children, and, as far as I know, -there has never been an effective strip made by, for, or of a woman. -The strip has been from the start a satirist of manners; remembering -that it arrived at the same time as the Chicago World’s Fair, recalling -the clothes, table manners, and conversation of those days, it is easy -to see how the murmured satiric commentary of the strip undermined our -self-sufficiency, pricked our conceit, and corrected our _gaucherie_. -To-day the world of Tad, peopled with cake-eaters and finale-hoppers, -the world of the _Gumps_ and _Gasoline Alley_, of _Abie the Agent_ and -_Mr and Mrs_ serve the same purpose. I am convinced that none of our -realists in fiction come so close to the facts of the average man, none -of our satirists are so gentle and so effective. Of course they are all -more serious and more conscious of their mission; but--well, exactly -who cares? - -[Illustration: - - (_Copyright by the Star Company. By permission of the - publishers of the_ New York Journal) - - MIKE AND MIKE. By T. E. Powers -] - -The best of the realists is Clare Briggs, who is an elusive creator, -one who seems at times to feel the medium of the strip not exactly -suited to him, and at others to find himself at home in it. His -single pictures: _The Days of Real Sport_ and _When a Feller Needs -a Friend_, and the now rapidly disappearing _Kelly Pool_ which was -technically a strip, are notable recreations of simple life. Few of -them are actively funny; some are sentimental. The children of _The -Days of Real Sport_ have an astonishing reality--and none are more -real than the virtually unseen Skinnay, who is always being urged -to “come over.” They are a gallery of country types, some of them -borrowed from literature--the Huck Finn touch is visible--but all of -them freshly observed and dryly recorded. Briggs’ line is distinctive; -one could identify any square inch of his drawings. In _Kelly Pool_ -he worked close to Tad’s _Indoor Sports_, and did what Tad hasn’t -done--created a character, the negro waiter George whom I shall be -sorry to lose. George’s amateur interest in pool was continually being -submerged in his professional interest: gettings tips, and his “Bad -day ... ba-a-ad day” when tips were low is a little classic. Deserting -that scene, Briggs has made a successful comedy of domestic life in -_Mr and Mrs_. No one has come so near to the subject--the grumbling, -helpless, assertive, modest, self-satisfied, self-deprecating male, -in his contacts with his sensible, occasionally irritable, wife. As -often as not these episodes end in quarrels--in utter blackness with -harsh bedroom voices continuing a day’s exacerbations; again the -reconciliations are mushy, again they are genuine sentiment. And -around them plays the child whose one function is to say “Papa loves -mamma” at the most appropriate time. It is quite an achievement, for -Briggs has made the ungrateful material interesting, and I can recall -not one of these strips in which he has cracked a joke. Tad here -follows Briggs, respectfully. _For Better or Worse_ is considerably -more obvious, but it has Tad’s special value, in sharpness of -caricature. The surrounding types are brilliantly drawn; only the -central characters remain stock figures. Yet the touch of romance -in Tad, continually overlaid by his sense of the ridiculous, is -precious; he seems aware of the faint aspirations of his characters -and recognizes the _rôles_ which they think they are playing while he -mercilessly shows up their actuality. The finest of the _Indoor Sports_ -are those in which two subordinate characters riddle with sarcasm -the pretentions of the others--the clerk pretending to be at ease -when the boss brings his son into the office, the lady of the house -talking about the new motor car, the small-town braggart and the city -swell--characters out of melodrama, some, and others so vividly taken -from life that the very names Tad gives them pass into common speech. -He is an inveterate creator and manipulator of slang; whatever phrase -he makes or picks up has its vogue for months and his own variations -are delightful. Slang is a part of their picture, and he and Walter -Hoban are the only masters of it. - -Ketten’s _Day of Rest_ is another strip of this _genre_, interesting -chiefly as a piece of draughtsmanship. He is the most economical of -the comic-strip artists, and his flat characters, without contours or -body, have a sort of jack-in-the-box energy and a sardonic obstinacy. -The Chicago School I have frankly never been able to understand--a -parochialism on my part, or a tribute to its exceptional privacy and -sophistication. It pretends, of course, to be simple, but the fate -of every metropolis is to enter its small-town period at one time or -another, to call itself a village, to build a town hall and sink a -town pump with a silver handle. The Gumps are common people and the -residents of Gasoline Alley are just folks, but I have never been able -to understand what they are doing; I suspect they do nothing. It seems -to me I read columns of conversation daily, and have to continue to the -next day to follow the story. The campaign of Andy Gump for election to -the Senate gave a little body to the serial story--he was so abysmally -the ignorant Congressman that he began to live. But apart from this, -apart from the despairing cry of “Oh, Min,” one recalls nothing of the -Chicago School except the amusing vocabulary of Syd Smith and that Andy -has no chin. It is an excellent symbol; but it isn’t enough for daily -food. - -The small-town school of comic strip flourishes in the work of Briggs, -already mentioned, in Webster’s swift sketches of a similar nature, -and in Tom MacNamara’s _Us Boys_. The last of these is an exceptional -fake as small-town, but an amusing and genuine strip. It is people by -creation of fancy--the alarmingly fat, amiable Skinny, the truculent -Eaglebeak Spruder, the little high-brow Van with his innocence and his -spectacles, and Emily, if I recall the name, the village vampire at the -age of seven. Little happens in _Us Boys_, but MacNamara has managed to -convey a genuine emotion in tracing the complicated relations between -his personages--there is actual childhood friendship, actual worry and -pride and anger--all rather gently rendered, and with a recognizable -language. - -It is interesting to note that none of these strips make use of the -projectile or the blow as a regular _dénoûement_. I have nothing -against the solution by violence of delicate problems, but since the -comic strip is supposed to be exclusively devoted to physical exploits -I think it is well to remark how placid life is in at least one -significant branch of the art. In effect all the themes of the comic -strip are subjected to a great variety of treatments, and in each of -them you will find, on occasions, the illustrated joke. This is the -weakest of the strips, and, as if aware of its weakness, its creators -give it the snap ending of a blow, or, failing that, show us one -character in consternation at the brilliance of the other’s wit, flying -out of the picture with the cry of “Zowie,” indicating his surcharge of -emotion. This is not the same thing as the wilful violence of _Mutt -and Jeff_, where the attack is due to the malice or stupidity of one -character, the resentment or revenge of the other. - -Mutt is a _picaro_, one of the few rogues created in America. There is -nothing too dishonest for him, nor is there any chance so slim that -he won’t take it. He has an object in life: he does not do mean or -vicious things simply for the pleasure of doing them, and so is vastly -superior to the Peck’s Bad Boy type of strip which has an apparently -endless vogue--the type best known in _The Katzenjammer Kids_. This is -the least ingenious, the least interesting as drawing, the sloppiest -in colour, the weakest in conception and in execution, of all the -strips, and it is the one which has determined the intellectual idea -of what all strips are like. It is now divided into two--and they -are equally bad. How happy one could be with neither! The other -outstanding picaresque strip is _Happy Hooligan_--the type tramp--who -with his brother, Gloomy Gus, had added to the gallery of our national -mythology. _Non est qualis erat_--the spark has gone out of him in -recent years.[17] Elsewhere you still find that exceptionally immoral -and dishonest attitude toward the business standards of America. For -the comic strip, especially after you leave the domestic-relations -type which is itself realistic and unsentimental, is specifically -more violent, more dishonest, more tricky and roguish, than America -usually permits its serious arts to be. The strips of cleverness: -_Foxy Grandpa_, the boy inventor, _Hawkshaw the Detective_, haven’t -great vogue. _Boob McNutt_, without a brain in his head, beloved by -the beautiful heiress, has a far greater following, although it is -the least worthy of Rube Goldberg’s astonishing creations. But Mutt -and Jiggs and _Abie the Agent_, and _Barney Google_ and _Eddie’s -Friends_ have so little respect for law, order, the rights of property, -the sanctity of money, the romance of marriage, and all the other -foundations of American life, that if they were put into fiction the -Society for the Suppression of Everything would hale them incontinently -to court and our morals would be saved again. - -_The Hall-room Boys_ (now known as _Percy and Ferdy_, I think) are -also picaresque; the indigent pretenders to social eminence who do -anything to get on. They are great bores, not because one foresees the -denunciation at the end, but because they somehow fail to come to life, -and one doesn’t care whether they get away with it or not. - -_Abie_ and _Jerry on the Job_ are good strips because they are -self-contained, seldom crack jokes, and have each a significant touch -of satire. Abie is the Jew of commerce and the man of common sense; you -have seen him quarrel with a waiter because of an overcharge of ten -cents, and, encouraged by his companion, replying, “Yes, and it ain’t -the principle, either; it’s the ten cents.” You have seen a thousand -tricks by which he once sold Complex motor cars and now promotes cinema -shows or prize fights. He is the epitome of one side of his race, and -his attractiveness is as remarkable as his jargon. Jerry’s chief fault -is taking a stock situation and prolonging it; his chief virtue, at -the moment, is his funny, hard-boiled attitude towards business. Mr -Givney, the sloppy sentimentalist who is pleased because some one took -him for Mr Taft (“Nice, clean fun,” says Jerry of that), is faced with -the absurd Jerry, who demolishes efficiency systems and the romance of -big business and similar nonsense with his devastating logic or his -complete stupidity. The railway station at Ammonia hasn’t the immortal -character of _The Toonerville Trolley_ (that meets all the trains) -because Fontaine Fox has a far more entertaining manner than Hoban, -and because Fox is actually a caricaturist--all of his figures are -grotesque, the powerful _Katinka_ or _Aunt Eppie_ not more so than the -Skipper. Hoban and Hershfield both understate; Fox exaggerates grossly; -but with his exaggeration he is so ingenious, so inventive that each -strip is funny and the total effect is the creation of character in the -Dickens sense. It is not the method of _Mutt and Jeff_ nor of _Barney -Google_ in which Billy de Beck has done much with a luckless wight, a -sentimentalist, and an endearing fool all rolled into one. - -These are the strips which come to life each day, without forcing, -and which stay long in memory. I am stating the case for the strip in -general and have gone so far as to speak well of some I do not admire, -nor read with animation. The continued existence of others remains -a mystery to me; why they live beyond change, and presumably beyond -accidental death, is one of the things no one can profitably speculate -upon. I do not see why I should concede anything more to the enemies -of the strip. In one of _Life’s_ burlesque numbers there was a page -of comics expertly done by j held in the manner of our most popular -artists. Each of the half dozen strips illustrated the joke: “Who was -that lady I seen you with on the street last night?” “That wasn’t a -lady; that was my wife.” Like so many parodies, this arrived too late, -for the current answer is, “That wasn’t a street; that was an alley.” -Each picture ended in a slam and a cry--also belated. The actual -demolition of the slam ending was accomplished by T. E. Powers, who -touches the field of the comic strip rarely, and then with his usual -ferocity. In a footnote to a cartoon he drew _Mike and Mike_. In six -pictures four represented one man hitting the other; once to emphasize -a pointless joke, twice thereafter for no reason at all, and finally to -end the picture. It was destruction by exaggeration; and no comic strip -artist missed the point. - -At the extremes of the comic strip are the realistic school and the -fantastic--and of fantasy there are but few practitioners. Tad has -some of the quality in _Judge Rummy_, but for the most part the Judge -and Fedink and the rest are human beings dressed up as dogs--they -are out of Æsop, not out of LaFontaine. But the Judge is actually -funny, and I recall an inhuman and undoglike episode in which he and -Fedink each claimed to have the loudest voice, and so in midwinter, -in a restaurant, each lifted up his voice and uttered and shouted and -bellowed the word “Strawberries” until they were properly thrown into -the street. This is the kind of madness which is required in fantasy, -and Goldberg occasionally has it. He is the most versatile of the lot; -he has created characters, and scenes, and continuous episodes--foolish -questions and meetings of ladies’ clubs and inventions (not so good as -Heath Robinson’s) and through them there has run a wild grotesquerie. -The tortured statues of his _décors_ are marvelous, the way he pushes -stupidity and ugliness to their last possible point, and humour into -everything, is amazing. Yet I feel he is _manqué_, because he has never -found a perfect medium for his work. - -Frueh is a fine artist in caricature and could have no such difficulty. -When he took it into his head to do a daily strip he was bound to do -something exceptional, and he succeeded. It is a highly sophisticated -thing in its humour, in its subjects, and pre-eminently in its -execution. His series on prohibition enforcement had infinite -ingenuity, so also his commentaries on political events in New York -city. He remains a caricaturist in these strips, indicating, by his use -of the medium, that its possibilities are not exhausted. Yet for all -his dealing with “ideas” his method remains fantastic, and although -he isn’t technically a comic-strip artist he is the best approach to -the one artist whom I have only mentioned, George Herriman, and to his -immortal creation. For there is, in and outside the comic strip, a -solitary and incomprehensible figure which must be treated apart. The -Krazy Kat that Walks by Himself. - -[Illustration: HOW LONG SHALL THIS GO ON? - - (_Courtesy of_ Life--_from the burlesque Sunday Supplement - Number_) - - A CARTOON. By R. L. Goldberg -] - - - - - _The Krazy Kat That - Walks by Himself_ - - - - -THE KRAZY KAT THAT WALKS BY HIMSELF - - -Krazy Kat, the daily comic strip of George Herriman is, to me, the -most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in -America to-day. With those who hold that a comic strip cannot be a work -of art I shall not traffic. The qualities of Krazy Kat are irony and -fantasy--exactly the same, it would appear, as distinguish _The Revolt -of the Angels_; it is wholly beside the point to indicate a preference -for the work of Anatole France, which is in the great line, in the -major arts. It happens that in America irony and fantasy are practised -in the major arts by only one or two men, producing high-class trash; -and Mr Herriman, working in a despised medium, without an atom of -pretentiousness, is day after day producing something essentially -fine. It is the result of a naïve sensibility rather like that of the -_douanier_ Rousseau; it does not lack intelligence, because it is a -thought-out, a constructed piece of work. In the second order of the -world’s art it is superbly first rate--and a delight! For ten years, -daily and frequently on Sunday, Krazy Kat has appeared in America; in -that time we have accepted and praised a hundred fakes from Europe and -Asia--silly and trashy plays, bad painting, woful operas, iniquitous -religions, everything paste and brummagem, has had its vogue with us; -and a genuine, honest native product has gone unnoticed until in the -year of grace 1922 a ballet brought it a tardy and grudging acclaim. - -Herriman is our great master of the fantastic and his early career -throws a faint light on the invincible creation which is his present -masterpiece. For all of his other things were comparative failures. He -could not find, in the realistic framework he chose, an appropriate -medium for his imaginings, or even for the strange draughtsmanship -which is his natural mode of expression. _The Family Upstairs_ seemed -to the realist reader simply incredible; it failed to give him the -pleasure of recognizing his neighbours in their more ludicrous moments. -_The Dingbats_, hapless wretches, had the same defect. Another strip -came nearer to providing the right tone: _Don Koyote and Sancho Pansy_; -Herriman’s mind has always been preoccupied with the mad knight of -La Mancha, who reappears transfigured in _Krazy Kat_. And--although -the inspirations are _never_ literary--when it isn’t Cervantes it is -Dickens to whom he has the greatest affinity. The Dickens mode operated -in _Baron Bean_--a figure half Micawber, half Charlie Chaplin as man -of the world. I have noted, in writing of Chaplin, Mr Herriman’s acute -and sympathetic appreciation of the first few moments of _The Kid_. It -is only fair to say here that he had himself done the same thing in his -medium. Baron Bean was always in rags, penniless, hungry; but he kept -his man Grimes, and Grimes did his dirty work, Grimes was the Baron’s -outlet, and Grimes, faithful retainer, held by bonds of admiration -and respect, helped the Baron in his one great love affair. Like all -of Herriman’s people, they lived on the enchanted mesa (pronounced: -ma-cey) by Coconino, near the town of Yorba Linda. The Baron was -inventive; lacking the money to finance the purchase of a postage -stamp, he entrusted a love letter to a carrier pigeon; and his “Go, my -paloma,” on that occasion, is immortal. - -Some of these characters are reappearing in Herriman’s latest work: -_Stumble Inn_. Of this I have not seen enough to be sure. It is a -mixture of fancy and realism; Mr Stumble himself is the Dickens -character again--the sentimental, endearing innkeeper who would -rather lose his only patron than kill a favourite turkey cock for -Thanksgiving. I have heard that recently a litter of pups has been -found in the cellar of the inn; so I should judge that fantasy has won -the day. For it is Herriman’s bent to disguise what he has to say in -creations of the animal world which are neither human nor animal, but -each _sui generis_. - -That is how the Kat started. The thought of a friendship between a cat -and a mouse amused Herriman and one day he wrote them in as a footnote -to _The Family Upstairs_. On their first appearance they played marbles -while the family quarreled; and in the last picture the marble dropped -through a hole in the bottom line. An office boy named Willie was the -first to recognize the strange virtues of _Krazy Kat_. As surely as he -was the greatest of office boys, so the greatest of editors, Arthur -Brisbane, was the next to praise. He urged Herriman to keep the two -characters in action; within a week they began a semi-independent -existence in a strip an inch wide under the older strip. Slowly they -were detached, were placed at one side, and naturally stepped into -the full character of a strip when the _Family_ departed. In time the -Sundays appeared--three quarters of a page, involving the whole Krazy -Kat and Ignatz families[18] and the flourishing town of Coconino--the -flora and fauna of that enchanted region which Herriman created out of -his memories of the Arizona desert he so dearly loves. - -In one of his most metaphysical pictures Herriman presents Krazy as -saying to Ignatz: “I ain’t a Kat ... and I ain’t Krazy” (I put dots -to indicate the lunatic shifting of background which goes on while -these remarks are made; although the action is continuous and the -characters motionless, it is in keeping with Herriman’s method to have -the backdrop in a continual state of agitation; you never know when a -shrub will become a redwood, or a hut a church) ... “it’s wot’s behind -me that I am ... it’s the idea behind me, ‘Ignatz’ and that’s wot I -am.” In an attitude of a contortionist Krazy points to the blank space -behind him, and it is there that we must look for the “Idea.” It is -not far to seek. There is a plot and there is a theme--and considering -that since 1913 or so there have been some three thousand strips, one -may guess that the variations are infinite. The plot is that Krazy -(androgynous, but according to his creator willing to be either) is in -love with Ignatz Mouse; Ignatz, who is married, but vagrant, despises -the Kat, and his one joy in life is to “Krease that Kat’s bean with a -brick” from the brickyard of Kolin Kelly. The fatuous Kat (Stark Young -has found the perfect word for him: he is crack-brained) takes the -brick, by a logic and a cosmic memory presently to be explained, as a -symbol of love; he cannot, therefore, appreciate the efforts of Offisa -B. Pupp to guard him and to entrammel the activities of Ignatz Mouse -(or better, Mice). A deadly war is waged between Ignatz and Offisa -Pupp--the latter is himself romantically in love with Krazy; and one -often sees pictures in which Krazy and Ignatz conspire together to -outwit the officer, both wanting the same thing, but with motives all -at cross-purposes. This is the major plot; it is clear that the brick -has little to do with the violent endings of other strips, for it is -surcharged with emotions. It frequently comes not at the end, but -at the beginning of an action; sometimes it does not arrive. It is a -symbol. - -The theme is greater than the plot. John Alden Carpenter has pointed -out in the brilliant little foreword[19] to his ballet, that Krazy Kat -is a combination of Parsifal and Don Quixote, the perfect fool and the -perfect knight. Ignatz is Sancho Panza and, I should say, Lucifer. -He loathes the sentimental excursions, the philosophic ramblings of -Krazy; he interrupts with a well-directed brick the romantic excesses -of his companion. For example: Krazy blindfolded and with the scales -of Justice in his hand declares: “Things is all out of perpotion, -‘Ignatz.’” “In what way, fool?” enquires the Mice as the scene shifts -to the edge of a pool in the middle of the desert. “In the way of -‘ocean’ for a instinct.” “Well?” asks Ignatz. They are plunging head -down into mid-sea, and only their hind legs, tails, and words are -visible: “The ocean is so innikwilly distribitted.” They appear, each -prone on a mountain peak, above the clouds, and the Kat says casually -across the chasm to Ignatz: “Take ‘Denva, Kollorado’ and ‘Tulsa, -Okrahoma’ they ain’t got no ocean a tall--” (they are tossed by a vast -sea, together in a packing-case) “while Sem Frencisco, Kellafornia, -and Bostin, Messachoosit, has got more ocean than they can possibly -use”--whereon Ignatz properly distributes a brick evenly on Krazy’s -noodle. Ignatz “has no time” for foolishness; he is a realist and Sees -Things as They ARE. “I don’t believe in Santa Claus,” says he; “I’m too -broad-minded and advanced for such nonsense.” - -But Mr Herriman, who is a great ironist, understands pity. It is the -destiny of Ignatz never to know what his brick means to Krazy. He does -not enter into the racial memories of the Kat which go back to the days -of Cleopatra, of the Bubastes, when Kats were held sacred. Then, on a -beautiful day, a mouse fell in love with Krazy, the beautiful daughter -of Kleopatra Kat; bashful, advised by a soothsayer to write his love, -he carved a declaration on a brick and, tossing the “missive,” was -accepted, although he had nearly killed the Kat. “When the Egyptian -day is done it has become the Romeonian custom to crease his lady’s -bean with a brick laden with tender sentiments ... through the tide of -dusty years” ... the tradition continues. But only Krazy knows this. -So at the end it is the incurable romanticist, the victim of acute -Bovaryisme, who triumphs; for Krazy faints daily in full possession -of his illusion, and Ignatz, stupidly hurling his brick, thinking to -injure, fosters the illusion and keeps Krazy “heppy.” - -Not always, to be sure. Recently we beheld Krazy smoking an “eligint -Hawanna cigar” and sighing for Ignatz; the smoke screen he produced hid -him from view when Ignatz passed, and before the Mice could turn back, -Krazy had handed over the cigar to Offisa Pupp and departed, saying -“Looking at ‘Offisa Pupp’ smoke himself up like a chimly is werra werra -intrisking, but it is more wital that I find ‘Ignatz’”--wherefore -Ignatz, thinking the smoke screen a ruse, hurls his brick, blacks the -officer’s eye, and is promptly chased by the limb of the law. Up to -this point you have the usual technique of the comic strip, as old -as Shakespeare. But note the final picture of Krazy beholding the -pursuit, himself disconsolate, unbricked, alone, muttering: “Ah, there -him is--playing tag with ‘Offisa Pupp’--just like the boom compenions -wot they is.” It is this touch of irony and pity which transforms -all of Herriman’s work, which relates it, for all that the material -is preposterous, to something profoundly true and moving. It isn’t -possible to retell these pictures; but that is the only way, until -they are collected and published, that I can give the impression of -Herriman’s gentle irony, of his understanding of tragedy, of the -_sancta simplicitas_, the innocent loveliness in the heart of a -creature more like Pan than any other creation of our time. - -Given the general theme, the variations are innumerable, the ingenuity -never flags. I use haphazard examples from 1918 to 1923, for though the -Kat has changed somewhat since the days when he was even occasionally -feline, the essence is the same. Like Charlot, he was always living in -a world of his own, and subjecting the commonplaces of actual life -to the test of his higher logic. Does Ignatz say that “the bird is -on the wing,” Krazy suspects an error and after a careful scrutiny -of bird life says that “from rissint obserwation I should say that -the wing is on the bird.” Or Ignatz observes that Don Kiyote is still -running. Wrong, says the magnificent Kat: “he is either still or either -running, but not both still and both running.” Ignatz passes with a bag -containing, he says, bird-seed. “Not that I doubt your word, Ignatz,” -says Krazy, “but could I give a look?” And he is astonished to find -that it is bird-seed, after all, for he had all the time been thinking -that birds grew from eggs. It is Ignatz who is impressed by a falling -star; for Krazy “them that don’t fall” are the miracle. I recommend -Krazy to Mr Chesterton, who, in his best moments, will understand. -His mind is occupied with eternal oddities, with simple things to -which his nature leaves him unreconciled. See him entering a bank and -loftily writing a check for thirty million dollars. “You haven’t that -much money in the bank,” says the cashier. “I know it,” replies Krazy; -“have you?” There is a drastic simplicity about Krazy’s movements; he -is childlike, regarding with grave eyes the efforts of older people to -be solemn, to pretend that things are what they seem; and like children -he frightens us because none of our pretensions escapes him. A king to -him is a “royal cootie.” “Golla,” says he, “I always had a ida they -was grend, and megnifishint, and wondafil, and mejestic ... but my -goodniss! It ain’t so.” He should be given to the _enfant terrible_ of -Hans Andersen who knew the truth about kings. - -He is, of course, blinded by love. Wandering alone in springtime, he -suffers the sight of all things pairing off; the solitude of a lonesome -pine worries him and when he finds a second lonesome pine he comes in -the dead of night and transplants one to the side of the other, “so -that in due course, Nature has her way.” But there are moments when -the fierce pang of an unrequited passion dies down. “In these blissfil -hours my soul will know no strife,” he confides to Mr Bum Bill Bee, -who, while the conversation goes on, catches sight of Ignatz with a -brick, flies off, stings Ignatz from the field, and returns to hear: -“In my Kosmis there will be no feeva of discord ... all my immotions -will function in hominy and kind feelings.” Or we see him at peace with -Ignatz himself. He has bought a pair of spectacles, and seeing that -Ignatz has none, cuts them in two, so that each may have a monocle. He -is gentle, and gentlemanly, and dear; and these divagations of his are -among his loveliest moments; for when irony plays about him he is as -helpless--as we are. - -[Illustration: - - (_Copyright by The Star Company_) - - FRAGMENT FROM THE KRAZY KAT OF THE DOOR. By George Herriman. - - (The original, of which this reproduces only the central - episodes, is in colour. Cf. text, page 244.) -] - -To put such a character into music was a fine thought, but Mr -Carpenter must have known that he was foredoomed to failure. It -was a notable effort, for no other of our composers had seen the -possibilities; most, I fear, did not care to “lower themselves” -by the association. Mr Carpenter caught much of the fantasy; it was -exactly right for him to make the opening a parody--The Afternoon Nap -of a Faun. The “Class A Fit,” the Katnip Blues were also good. (There -exists a Sunday Krazy of this very scene--it is 1919, I think, and -shows hundreds of Krazy Kats in a wild abandoned revel in the Katnip -field--a rout, a bacchanale, a satyr-dance, an erotic festival, with -our own Krazy playing the viola in the corner, and Ignatz, who has -been drinking, going to sign the pledge.) Mr Carpenter almost missed -one essential thing: the ecstasy of Krazy when the brick arrives at -the end; certainly, as Mr Bolm danced it one felt only the triumph -of Ignatz, one did not feel the grand leaping up of Krazy’s heart, -the fulfilment of desire, as the brick fell upon him. The irony was -missing. And it was a mistake for Bolm to try it, since it isn’t -Russian ballet Krazy requires; it is American dance. One man, one man -only can do it right, and I publicly appeal to him to absent him from -felicity awhile, and though he do it but once, though but a small -number of people may see it, to pay tribute to his one compeer in -America, to the one creation equalling his own--I mean, of course, -Charlie Chaplin. He has been urged to do many things hostile to his -nature; here is one thing he is destined to do. Until then the ballet -ought to have Johnny and Ray Dooley for its creators. And I hope that -Mr Carpenter hasn’t driven other composers off the subject. There is -enough there for Irving Berlin and Deems Taylor to take up. Why don’t -they? The music it requires is a jazzed tenderness--as Mr Carpenter -knew. In their various ways Berlin and Taylor could accomplish it. - -They may not be able to write profoundly in the private idiom of Krazy. -I have preserved his spelling and the quotations have given some sense -of his style. The accent is partly Dickens and partly Yiddish--and -the rest is not to be identified, for it is Krazy. It was odd that in -_Vanity Fair’s_ notorious “rankings,” Krazy tied with Doctor Johnson, -to whom he owes much of his vocabulary. There is a real sense of the -colour of words and a high imagination in such passages as “the echoing -cliffs of Kaibito” and “on the north side of ‘wild-cat peak’ the ‘snow -squaws’ shake their winter blankets and bring forth a chill which rides -the wind with goad and spur, hurling with an icy hand rime, and frost -upon a dreamy land musing in the lap of Spring”; and there is the -rhythm of wonder and excitement in “Ooy, ‘Ignatz’ it’s awfil; he’s got -his legs cut off above his elbows, and he’s wearing shoes, and he’s -standing on top of the water.” - -Nor, even with Mr Herriman’s help, will a ballet get quite the sense of -his shifting backgrounds. He is alone in his freedom of movement; in -his large pictures and small, the scene changes at will--it is actually -our one work in the expressionistic mode. While Krazy and Ignatz talk -they move from mountain to sea; or a tree stunted and flattened with -odd ornaments of spots or design, grows suddenly long and thin; or -a house changes into a church. The trees in this enchanted mesa are -almost always set in flower pots with Coptic and Egyptian designs in -the foliage as often as on the pot. There are adobe walls, fantastic -cactus plants, strange fungus and growths. And they _compose designs_. -For whether he be a primitive or an expressionist, Herriman is an -artist; his works are built up; there is a definite relation between -his theme and his structure, and between his lines, masses, and his -page. His masterpieces in colour show a new delight, for he is as naïve -and as assured with colour as with line or black and white. The little -figure of Krazy built around the navel, is amazingly adaptable, and -Herriman economically makes him express all the emotions with a turn of -the hand, a bending of that extraordinary starched bow he wears round -the neck, or with a twist of his tail. - -And he has had much to express for he has suffered much. I return to -the vast enterprises of the Sunday pictures. There is one constructed -entirely on the bias. Ignatz orders Krazy to push a huge rock off -its base, then to follow it downhill. Down they go, crashing through -houses, uprooting trees, tearing tunnels through mountains, the bowlder -first, Krazy so intently after that he nearly crashes into it when it -stops. He toils painfully back uphill. “Did it gather any moss?” asks -Ignatz. “No.” “That’s what I thought.” “L’il fillossiffa,” comments -Krazy, “always he seeks the truth, and always he finds it.” There is -the great day in which Krazy hears a lecture on the ectoplasm, how “it -soars out into the limitless ether, to roam willy-nilly, unleashed, -unfettered, and unbound” which becomes for him: “Just imegine having -your ‘ectospasm’ running around, William and Nilliam, among the -unlimitliss etha--golla, it’s imbillivibil--” until a toy balloon, -which looks like Ignatz precipitates a heroic gesture and a tragedy. -And there is the greatest of all, the epic, the Odyssean wanderings of -the door: - -Krazy beholds a dormouse, a little mouse with a huge door. It impresses -him as being terrible that “a mice so small, so dellikit” should carry -around a door so heavy with weight. (At this point their Odyssey -begins; they use the door to cross a chasm.) “A door is so useless -without a house is hitched to it.” (It changes into a raft and they go -down stream.) “It has no ikkinomikil value.” (They dine off the door.) -“It lecks the werra werra essentials of helpfilniss.” (It shelters them -from a hailstorm.) “Historically it is all wrong and misleading.” (It -fends the lightning.) “As a thing of beauty it fails in every rispeck.” -(It shelters them from the sun and while Krazy goes on to deliver a -lecture: “You never see Mr Steve Door, or Mr Torra Door, or Mr Kuspa -Door doing it, do you?” and “Can you imagine my li’l friends Ignatz -Mice boddering himself with a door?”) his li’l friend Ignatz has -appeared with the brick; unseen by Krazy he hurls it; it is intercepted -by the door, rebounds, and strikes Ignatz down. Krazy continues his -adwice until the dormouse sheers off, and then Krazy sits down to -“concentrate his mind on Ignatz and wonda where he is at.” - -[Illustration: - - (_Courtesy of the artist and the_ New York American) - - KRAZY KAT. By George Herriman -] - -Such is our Krazy. Such is the work which America can pride itself on -having produced, and can hastily set about to appreciate. It is rich -with something we have too little of--fantasy. It is wise with pitying -irony; it has delicacy, sensitiveness, and an unearthly beauty. The -strange, unnerving, distorted trees, the language inhuman, un-animal, -the events so logical, so wild, are all magic carpets and faery -foam--all charged with unreality. Through them wanders Krazy, the most -tender and the most foolish of creatures, a gentle monster of our new -mythology. - - - - - _The Damned Effrontery - of the Two-a-Day_ - - - - -THE DAMNED EFFRONTERY OF THE TWO-A-DAY - - -The narrator of the following episode is Mr Percy Hammond of the New -York _Tribune_; the stars are Montgomery and Stone; the Mr Mansfield -is Richard himself again, the actor who played _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_ -better than Thomas E. Shea did: - -“As the stars appeared in the last act in evening dress, Mr Mansfield -turned to me and with venomous indignation said, ‘That is damned -effrontery!’ It seemed to be Mr Mansfield’s belief that mere dancers -had no right to wear the vestments of refined society.” - -To me that is a very funny story and the humour of it has nothing to do -with upon what meat has this our Cæsar fed that he is grown so great. -The eminence of Mansfield and the worthlessness of Montgomery and Stone -may be assumed; the recrudescence of the mediæval attitude toward -strolling players, even if it be in the mind of another player, is also -conceivable; snobbism is always conceivable and often interesting. -The story is funny because it so perfectly illustrates the genteel -tradition in America. (I am rather freely applying Mr Santayana’s -phrase, without any effort to do it justice.) Montgomery and Stone were -in revue or extravaganza, and were therefore outcast; they didn’t count -as Art. Whereas Mr Mansfield played Shakespeare and high-school girls -went to see him, and so he was Art. The application to vaudeville -is immediate, because vaudeville is considered on Broadway as the -grave of artistic reputations. An actor of established prestige _may_ -venture into vaudeville; he usually makes his audience feel exactly -how far he has condescended to appear before them and accept, even if -he doesn’t earn, a salary three times as great as usual; but the actor -in the middle distance very well knows that if he goes into vaudeville -he is digging his own grave, because there is a stigma attached to -the two-a-day. Vaudeville players, in short, are not entitled to “the -vestments of refined society.” About every ten years the corrupt desire -to be refined takes hold of vaudeville itself; but it dies out quickly -and vaudeville remains simple and good. - -It is in one of the stages of simple goodness now, and I propose to -discuss it without reference to a possibly more noble past. I am well -acquainted with the other method, which was founded, I believe, by -Arthur Symons, and beautifully practised by him. To him we owe the -peculiarly attractive attitude of sentimental reminiscence which, -invented or borrowed by him, has become classic. It leads to excellent -prose at times, and by showing that there was a golden age even in -vaudeville sometimes creates the suspicion that vaudeville itself -need not be all brass. But the attitude is unsatisfactory because -it invokes, in dealing with the most immediate of the minor arts, -more than a share of the pathos of distance. Vaudeville is brightly -coloured, zestful, with sharp outlines; and the classic attitude -softens and blurs. It is required of you to name and describe the acts -and numbers of a better day; one _must_ say “music-hall” or be slain -in the passages of the Jordan; in America a reference to the _commedia -dell’arte_ is, as scientists say, indicated. Yet the time must come -when it is possible to say, “Vaudeville is. Surely it could never -have been worse than this--or for that matter, never better. Let us -regard it as it is.” The moment must come in the history of general -culture when vaudeville can be taken without comparisons. That is, -it happens, the only way I can take it, for in my youth I saw little -of it and cared less. I recall a skit called _Change Your Act or Go -Back to the Woods_; there were Fours and among them were Cohans; there -was, I remember, The Man Who Made the Shah of Persia Laugh; once I -saw an artist in pantomime. Yet I am not moved to beat my breast and -begin _Einst in meinen Jugendjahren_. Nothing I have heard leads me -to believe that there were better days in vaudeville than those which -open benignant and wide over Joe Cook and Fanny Brice and the Six Brown -Brothers, over the two Briants and Van and Schenck and the four Marxes -and the Rath Brothers and the team of Williams and Wolfus; over Duffy -and Sweeney and Johnny Dooley and Harry Watson, Jr., as Young Kid -Battling Dugan, and Messrs Moss and Frye, who ask how high is up. - -I shall arrive in a moment at the question of refined vaudeville, a -thing I dislike intensely; there is another sort of refinement in -vaudeville which demands respect. It is the refinement of technique. -It seems to me that the unerring taste of Fanny Brice’s impersonations -is at least partly due to, and has been achieved through, the purely -technical mastery she has developed; I am sure that the vaudeville -stage makes such demands upon its artists that they are compelled to -perfect everything. They have to do whatever they do swiftly, neatly, -without lost motion; they must touch and leap aside; they dare not -hold an audience more than a few minutes, at least not with the same -stunt; they have to establish an immediate contact, set a current in -motion, and exploit it to the last possible degree in the shortest -space of time. They have to be always “in the picture,” for though the -vaudeville stage seems to give them endless freedom and innumerable -opportunities, it holds them to strict account; it permits no fumbling, -and there are no reparable errors. The materials they use are trivial, -yes; but the treatment must be accurate to a hair’s breadth; the wine -they serve is light, it must fill the goblet to the very brim, and not -a drop must spill over. There is no great second act to redeem a false -entrance; no grand climacteric to make up for even a moment’s dulness. -The whole of the material must be subsumed in the whole of the -presentation, every page has to be _written_, every scene _rendered_, -every square inch of the canvas must be _painted_, not daubed with -paint. It is, of course, obvious, that the responsibility in this case -is exactly that of the major arts. It is at least tenable that in this -case, as in the major arts, the responsibilities are fulfilled. - -And nothing could be more illuminating than the moments in vaudeville -when the tricky and the bogus appear. I face here willingly the protest -of intelligent men and women who have gone to vaudeville to see or -hear one turn and have sat through some of the dreariest æsthetic -dancing,[20] have heard the most painfully polite vocalism, have -witnessed “drama.” If vaudeville requires half of what I have said, how -do these things get in and get by? Largely as a concession to debased -public taste. Note well that all the culture elements in vaudeville, -the dull and base and truly vulgar ones, are importations. The dance -appropriate to the vaudeville stage is the stunt dance; its proper -music is ragtime or jazz; the playlet which belongs to it (witness -the success of _A Slice of Life_) is burlesque. Yet like every other -popular art in America, vaudeville is required, by the tradition of -gentility, to be cultural; and its dull defenders often make it their -boast that it does give culture to the masses (the same sort of thing -is heard in connexion with the music played at moving-picture houses) -because among its native acts appear _tableaux vivants_ out of Landseer -or because a legitimate actor brings to the common herd scraps and -snatches of _Les Misérables_. The process continues, regrettably, and -extends to the spoiling of good vaudeville material. It isn’t a loss -of anything precious, except time which could be filled by something -better, when Mr Lou Tellegen struts about on the variety stage; it is -a defamation of something good in the major line and equally a loss of -moments when the _“Affairs of” Anatol_ are inexpertly and tastelessly -produced “for vaudeville.” But what shall we say of such a real -disaster as the return of Miss Ethel Levey to vaudeville, still so rich -in attraction that she plays four weeks at the Palace in New York, -wholly spoiled for variety because she has had a triumph abroad and has -become a “great actress” or is it “an _artiste_”? There was in Miss -Levey something roughly elemental, something common and pure; whatever -she did had broadness and sharpness both. Corrupted by her success -abroad, she returns still magnificent, the voice still throbbing, -the form heavy but dominant--yet no longer vaudeville. She has the -grandeur of a star and appears in full stage with a grand piano and -silk-shaded lamps and draperies and sings _All by Myself_ with shocking -bad sentimental _acting_, and gets all she can out of _Love’s Old -Sweet Song_ before the touch of her old spirit protests--and recites -a dramatic monologue entitled _Destiny!_ Now and again flashes of -burlesque reveal her ancient flavour; but it is an axiom in vaudeville -that you can’t be good in it if you are too good for it. - -[Illustration: - - VAUDEVILLE. By Charles Demuth -] - -I omit the people who aren’t, simply, good enough; there are -second-rate people in vaudeville as in everything else, and first-rate -people of _its_ second order. The part that is pure, I am convinced, is -rarely matched on our other stages. Certainly not in the legitimate, -nor in the serious artistic playhouse where knowing one’s job perfectly -and doing it simply and unpretentiously are the rarest things in the -world. Revue and musical comedy require and often attain the pitch -of technical accuracy which vaudeville sets as a standard, and these -two forms draw heavily upon vaudeville for material and stars, whom -they incorporate only in so far as the stars are not pure variety -themselves. They are as much entitled to the jazz bands as any other -stage, but to me a jazz band is not essentially variety, although it -has a legitimate place there. That is why I reject Mr Walter Haviland’s -ranking of Ted Lewis as one of the greatest of vaudeville acts, for -the great acts in vaudeville are those which could not be perfectly -appreciated elsewhere. (The æsthetics of the question have been -canvassed in Laokoön, I believe.) Johnny Dooley, who always breaks up -the show in musical comedy, is a real vaudeville player, and Jack -Donahue, who was the sole attraction of another such piece, is always -right, his fumbling for words is inspired, and so is his dancing, and -altogether it is a completely realized act. Among the most popular -of the big-time acts I am left cold by Van and Schenck, who are -perpetually stopping short of perfection; their songs are funny, but -not witty; their music is current, no more; their rendition is always -near enough right to be passed. The Four Marx Brothers do better in -creating their special atmosphere of low comedy; the Six Brown Brothers -are at the very top with their saxophones. It is an independent -act, wholly self-contained, not nearly so appropriate in any other -framework, except possibly a one-ring circus; it is a real variety -turn where a jazz band is only half and half; and in the case of these -performers everything they do is exquisite. - -It isn’t possible to describe the acts, nor even to suggest the -distinctive quality of the head-liners. There are inexplicable things -in vaudeville, things no rational explanation can touch, such as the -persistence of sawing a woman in half, or the terrific impact of the -singing of Belle Baker, who destroys you with _Elie! Elie!_ Houdini -is variety as all magicians are and all tricksters--the circus side -of vaudeville, to be sure, and the sensational side. Here belong the -acrobats; I have written elsewhere of the Rath Brothers, who alone -are in the spirit and tone of vaudeville, without any intrusion of the -circus. At the present moment nearly everything in vaudeville which -is best has a touch of parody; not infrequently it burlesques itself. -Herbert Williams, of Williams and Wolfus, exaggerates wholly in the -manner of a clown; his despairing cry for the “spot_li-i-i-ght_,” his -wail of unhappiness, with his appearance, his gesture, his shambling -walk, make him a figure out of the _commedia dell’arte_--one of the few -in vaudeville. Duffy and Sweeney are parodists of their _métier_; their -whole fun is in their elaborate pretense of not caring to amuse the -audience. Harry Watson, Jr., has taken out of burlesque the accentuated -form, the built-up face, the wide and fatuous gesture peculiar to -that type, and in his broken-down prize-fighter has created a real -character with his jumping the rope “fi’ thousand conseggitiv times” -and “tell ’em what I did to Philadelphia Jack O’Brien.” I am dragged -into a catalogue of names, which I want to avoid; but I cannot omit -the macabre Moving-Man’s Dream of the Briants, the rustic studies of -Chic Sale, the elaborate burlesque of melodrama by Charles Withers, -and the exceptional mad magician of Frank Van Hoven. Van Hoven carries -farther than anyone else the appearance of not knowing the audience -is to be amused. He complains in a mutter of the presence of human -beings, individually probably all right, but _en masse_...! He leaves -the stage and passes out of the auditorium, bidding the audience amuse -itself while he’s gone. And his great finale, with a bowl of goldfish, -a handkerchief in a trunk, a table covered with a cloth, an inflated -paper bag, and a revolver shot--at the sound of which exactly nothing -happens, is the last word in destroying the paraphernalia of the -magician and all his works. - -I have committed myself to the statement that Joe Cook is perfect -and am in no mood to withdraw it. As vaudeville he is perfect; I can -see him in no other _milieu_ because he lacks the gift--not needed -in vaudeville, though useful there--of holding the audience in his -hand. He is liked, not loved; his act is met with continuous chuckles, -smiles, and laughter; seldom with guffaws. This is not necessarily -to his credit; it means that he does one sort of thing, and does it -extremely well. It happens to be just the thing for which vaudeville -is made. As Ethel Levey is what most vaudeville players aspire to be, -so Cook is what they ought to be. He is exactly right. Yet to give the -quality of his rightness is difficult. To recognize it is easier. - -He is versatile, but not in the manner of Sylvester Schaeffer. He is -a master of parody and burlesque, yet not in the fashion of Charles -Withers; his delicate impersonations have an ease and certainty far -beyond the studies of Chic Sale. Essentially what distinguishes Joe -Cook is that he is very wise and slightly mad, and his madness is not -the “dippy” kind so admirably practised by Frank Van Hoven. It is -structural. Mr Cook’s is probably the longest single act in vaudeville, -and after it is over he saunters into one or more of the acts that -follow his on the programme, as his fancy takes him. - -His own starts as a running parody of old-time vaudeville, beginning -with the musicians coming out of the pit, through the magician and the -player of instruments to--but no one has ever discovered where it does -go to. For after the card tricks--the ace of spades is asked for and, -as he remarks after five minutes of agonized fumbling behind his back, -the ace of spades is asked for and practically at a moment’s notice the -ace of spades is produced; and it never is--Mr Cook finds it necessary -to explain to the audience in one of the most involved pieces of -nonsense ever invented why he will not imitate four Hawaiians playing -the ukulele. After that literally nothing matters. He might be with -Alice in Wonderland or at a dada ballet or with the terribly logical -clowns of Shakespeare. I think that Chaplin would savour his humours. - -In an art which is hard and bright and tends to glitter rather than -radiate, he has a gleam of poetry; but he is like the best of poets -because there are no fuzzy edges, no blurred contours; he is exact and -his precision is never cold. He holds conversations of an imbecile -gravity: How are you? How are _you_? Fine, how’s yourself? Good. And -you? Splendid. How’s your uncle? I haven’t got an uncle. Fine, how is -he? He’s fine. How are _you_? He is amazingly inventive, creating new -stunts, writing new lines, doing fresh business from week to week. His -little bits are like witty epigrams in verse, where the thing done and -the skill of the method coincide and pleasing separately please more by -their fusion. His sense of the stage is equalled by but one man I have -ever seen: George M. Cohan. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: - - JOE COOK -] - -Had I had any doubts about vaudeville as we practice it in the United -States they would have been dispelled in the past two years by one -great success and one notable failure: the _Chauve-Souris_ of Balieff -and the show of the Forty-niners. Balieff seemed for a moment to be -destroying B. F. Keith; here was something certainly vaudeville, with -turns and numbers, appealing to every grade of intelligence; here were -good music, exciting scenery, and good fun; here were voices caressing -the ear and dancers dazzling the eye; here was a gay burlesque and a -sophisticated _conférencier_. Now if our native product were only like -that ... (the implication was, Wouldn’t we just go every day to the -nearest vaudeville house!). Then, to be sure, a reaction. Put Ed Wynn -and Leon Errol and ... I omit the list--Wynn was almost unanimously -chosen as _conférencier_--and we could give the Russians at least a -good run for the money--and it _was_ money, loads of it, much to -their surprise. And then, without Ed Wynn and the list, the attempt; -for the Forty-niners were cheerfully setting out to be a company of -Americans stranded in Russia, giving the Russians to understand what -the folk and popular arts of America were. Months earlier the thing had -been perfectly done, as a game, in the _No-Siree_, a wholly amateur -single performance which was without doubt the gayest evening of the -year in New York. (The tribute is not exactly wrung from me, for -friends of mine were concerned in it; it was the high moment of the -Algonquin Circle and they should have disbanded the following morning. -Since I was not an adherent of the group, my advice was not asked; I -do not know whether it still exists, has passed to further triumphs, -or has repeated the Forty-niners.) Put on professionally, high class -vaudeville showed all the weaknesses of the commercial kind, and had -a dulness of its own. The Dance of the Small-town Mayors was exactly -right, but most of the parodies were outdated, the burlesques were -too _voulus_, the strain too great. There was lacking that technical -proficiency which is essential to vaudeville, and the adjustment of -means to material was sloppy. One fell back on Balieff and discovered, -as the exoticism wore off, that he too had his weak points. Sentimental -songs in however beautiful voices, the choreographics of figures come -to life from Copenhagen plate however accurately the footfall coincided -with Anitra’s Dance, and a number of other things suggested that in -Russia, too, refinement could corrupt and stultify. There remained -elements we could not match: we hadn’t encouraged our legitimate -stage sufficiently to be justified in expecting cubist settings in -vaudeville; nor when we heard American folk music (and its contemporary -form in ragtime) did we so earnestly applaud as to keep them fresh in -variety shows. Balieff never was “variety,” and we asked of variety -that it be like him; we missed the meaning of Balieff as surely as we -appreciated the fun. For he was a lesson not to vaudeville, but to us, -to those of us who left vaudeville in the hands of the least cultivated -audiences. We have asked nothing of vaudeville simply because we -haven’t suspected what it had to give. Yet week after week at the -Palace Theatre in New York there have been bills equal in entertainment -to the average Balieff programme; there has been evident an expertness -in technique, a skill in construction, a naturalness of execution, -a soundness of sense and judgement, which ought to have appealed to -all who had taste and discrimination. The people who do go there have -something, at least; and lack snobbism generally. If the audiences of -the Theatre Guild and the Neighborhood Playhouse were to add themselves -to their number, were to accept what is given and be receptive to -something more, it could not hurt vaudeville. Because like everything -else variety must grow, and there is no reason why it should shut -itself off from the direction of civilized life. It can exist very well -without the Theatre Guild audience; I wonder whether that audience can -exist as well without variety. - - - - - _They Call It Dancing_ - - - - -THEY CALL IT DANCING - - -One of the most tiresome of contemporary intellectual sentimentalities -is the cult of “the dance”--a cult which has almost nothing in the -world to do with dancing. “The dance” is “art”; dancing is a form of -popular entertainment, one of the very few which can be practised by -its admirers. It is also one of the arts which can be “polite” without -danger of atrophy, the danger in this case being that the technical -refinement may eventually make dancing a trick, a rather graceful sort -of juggling. - -In any case, we shall not have in America anything corresponding to -folk dances; the ritual dance, the dance as religion, simply isn’t our -type, and none of the tentatives in favour of that kind of dancing -has made me regret our natural bent toward ballroom and stunt dancing -as a mode of expression. In the rue Lappe in Paris nearly every other -house is a _Bal Musette_ and in all but one of these dance halls the -floor is taken by men and women of that quarter, working men and -women who come in and dance and pay a few _sous_ for each dance. They -do this every night and enjoy it; they enjoy the sometimes wheezing -accordeon and the bells which, on the right ankle of the player, -accentuate the beat. They dance waltzes and polkas and, since the Java -is forbidden, the mazurka. Once I saw two couples rise and dance the -_bourrée_, presumably as it was danced in their native province of -Auvergne; it is possible to see other provincial dances of France, -as they are remembered, in the Bal Musette of this district and -elsewhere--occasionally and not by pre-arrangement. The ancient dances -of America haven’t such roots, nor such vitality; and we may have to -become much more simple, or much more sophisticated, before we will -proceed naturally to buck-and-wing and cakewalk and the ordinary -breakdown on the floor of the Palais Royal. There are Kentucky mountain -and cowboy dances which the moving picture inadequately reconstructs, -and I am afraid that even negro levee dancing has lost much of its -own character in the process of influencing the steps of the ordinary -American dance. Undoubtedly those who can should preserve these -provincial and rooted dances; but it is idle to pretend that dancing -itself can be a subject for archæology. It is essentially for action, -not for speculation. - -I do not belittle dancing when I attempt to deprive it of the cachet -of “Art.” Nothing so precise, so graceful, so implicated with music, -can escape being artistic; in the hands of its masters it becomes an -intuitive creative process, but this happens most frequently when -the dancer gives himself to the music and seldom when he tries to -interpret the music. From the waltz to the tango, from the tango to the -current fox-trot or one-step, polite dancing has held more of what is -essentially artistic than the art-dance, and it has had no pretensions. -The old tango and the maxixe were the only ones which could not easily -be danced by those who applauded them on the stage; classic dancing, -on the contrary, has always been an art of professionals--almost a -contradiction in terms in this case, for it is the essence of the -dance that it can be danced. It is not the essence of the dance that -it can be staged, or made into a pantomime. The Russian Ballet has no -reference to the subject for it is essentially the work of mimes and -the dancing is either folk dance or choreography. - -[Illustration: - - IRENE CASTLE -] - -The reason politeness is not fatal to the dance is that there is only -one standard of vulgarity in dancing, which is ugliness. Vulgarity -means actively disagreeable postures and steps not exceptionally -adapted to the music. The relation of the dancers to one another is the -basis of their relation to the music, and that is why the shimmy has -little to do with dancing, whereas the cheek-to-cheek position--the -_bête-noire_ of chaperons a few weeks, or is it years, ago?--is -fundamentally not objectionable, since it brings two dancers to as near -a unit, with the same centre of gravity, as the dance requires. One -doesn’t dance the fox-trot as one danced the Virginia reel, and the -question of morals has little to do with the case. The “indecencies” of -the turkey-trot, as we used to phrase it, disappeared not because we -are better men and women, but because we are dancing more beautifully. - -Two influences have worked to accomplish this. One is that our music -has become more interesting and is written specifically to be danced, -as the waltz-song always was and as our older ragtime was not. The -other is the effect of the stage (through which we have, recently, -learned a vast amount from negro dancing, an active influence for -the last fifteen years at least, touching the dance at every point -in music, and tending always to prevent the American dance from -becoming cold and formal.) Dancing masters go to the stage to perform -the dances they have elaborated in their studios; from the stage the -dance is adapted to the floor. This is what makes it so unnerving -to go through a year seeing nothing but men jumping over their own -ankles, or to witness Carl Randall dancing himself into his evening -clothes. One doesn’t know how soon one will be called upon to do the -same sort of thing in the semi-privacy of the night club. Acrobatic -dancing is interesting as all acrobatics are--brutally for the stunt -and æsthetically for the picture formed while doing the trick. The -dancing of choruses has something of the same interest. The Tiller or -Palace Girls do very little that would merit attention if done by one -of them; done by sixteen, it is entertaining; so are the ranks of heads -appearing over the top step of the Hippodrome or at the New Amsterdam, -and the ranks of knees rhythmically bending as row follows row down the -stairs. But none of these affect actual dancing appreciably. - -Acrobatic or stunt dancing has a tendency to corrupt good exhibition -dancing--the desire to do something obviously difficult displaces -the more estimable desire to do something beautiful. Yet some of -our best stunt dancers can and do combine all the elements and to -watch them is to experience a double delight. George M. Cohan always -danced interestingly; he has sardonic legs and he is, I suppose, the -repository of all the knowledge we have of the 1890–1910 dance. Frisco -took up the same work near the place where Cohan dropped it; he is -(but where I do not know) a character dancer with a specific sense of -jazz, and was, for a moment, the symbolic figure of what was coming. -His eccentricities were premature, his comparative disappearance -unmerited. Eccentric also, and not chiefly dancers, are Leon Errol and -Jimmy Barton. Eccentric and essentially a dancer is the fine comic -Johnny Dooley. The difference is that almost all of Dooley’s comedy -is _in_ his dancing, whereas the others are great comedians and their -dances are also funny. It seems to be Dooley’s natural mode to walk on -the side of his feet and to catch a broken, wholly American rhythm in -every movement--to create dances, therefore, which are untouched by the -Russian Ballet and other trepaks and hazzazzas. The foreign influence -has touched Carl Randall, a gain in expertness, a loss in freshness. -There seems to be nothing he cannot do, nothing he doesn’t do well, -nothing he does superbly. - -The dancing team which ought to have been the best of our time and -wasn’t is that of Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian.[21] The suppleness -of Miss Sanderson’s body, the breathless sway of the torso on the hips, -the suggestion of languor in the most rapid of her movements, are -not to be equalled; and Brian was always smart, decisive, accurate. -It is difficult to define the defect which was always in their work; -probably a reserve, a not giving themselves away to the music, a shade -too much of the stiffness which dancing requires. Miss Sanderson gets -along quite well without the lyric knees (as they were--one doesn’t see -them now) of Ann Pennington; nor has she the exceptional height which -makes the grace of Jessica Brown so surprising and her curve of beauty -so exceptional. Miss Brown, I take it, is one of the best dancers of -the stage, and, unlike Charlotte Greenwood, has nothing to do with -grotesque. Miss Greenwood makes a virtue of her defect--the longest -limbs in the world. Miss Brown is unconscious of hers as defects at -all; like most people’s, her legs are long enough to reach the ground. -It is marvellous to see what she can do when she lifts them off the -ground. - -I choose these names as examples, fully aware that I may be omitting -others equally famous. But what remains is deliberate: two groups of -dancers who were at the very top, I think, of their profession, of -their art. Of Doyle and Dixon only Harland Dixon is now visible; the -team is broken, but Dixon continues to be a wonderful dancer, in the -tradition rather of Fred Stone, and with recent leanings toward acting. -It was 1915 or so when I saw them dance Irving Berlin’s _Ragtime -Melodrama_, and although I have never seen that equalled, I have never -seen the team or Dixon alone dance anything unworthy of that piece. It -was a beautiful duo, perfectly cadenced, creating long grateful lines -around the stage; it was full of tricks and fun and character. And -gradually the duo resolved itself into feats of individual prowess, -in which Dixon slowly surpassed his partner and became a miracle of -acrobatics in rhythm. He is agile, never jerky, with a nice sense of -syncopation; he requires Berlin rather than Kern for his full value. - -Kern gives all (and more) that Maurice can require, and whether with -Florence Walton or Leonora Hughes the dancing of Maurice is always -icily regular, and nearly null. His type of mechanism is exactly wrong -and he sets off in bold relief the accuracy, the inspired rightness -of Irene and Vernon Castle. That these two, years ago, determined -the course dancing should take is incontestable. They were decisive -characters, like Boileau in French poetry and Berlin in ragtime; for -they understood, absorbed, and transformed everything known of dancing -up to that time and out of it made something beautiful and new. Vernon -Castle, it is possible, was the better dancer of the two; in addition -to the beauty of his dancing he had inventiveness, he anticipated -things of 1923 with his rigid body and his evolutions on his heel; but -if he were the greater, his finest creation was Irene. - -No one else has ever given exactly that sense of being freely perfect, -of moving without effort and without will, in more than accord, in -absolute identity with music. There was always something unimpassioned, -cool not cold, in her abandon; it was certainly the least sensual -dancing in the world; the whole appeal was visual. It was as if the eye -following her graceful motion across a stage was gratified by its own -orbit, and found a sensuous pleasure in the ease of her line, in the -disembodied lightness of her footfall, in the careless slope of her -lovely shoulders. It was not--it seemed not to be--intelligent dancing; -however trained, it was still intuitive. She danced from her shoulders -down, the straight scapular supports of her head were at the same time -the balances on which her exquisitely poised body depended. There were -no steps, no tricks, no stunts. There was only dancing, and it was all -that one ever dreamed of flight, with wings poised, and swooping gently -down to rest. I put it in the past, I hardly know why; unless because -it is too good to last. - - - - - _St Simeon Stylites_ - - - - -ST SIMEON STYLITES - - -The most sophisticated of the minor arts in America is that of -the colyumist. It is, except for occasional lapses into the usual -journalistic disrespect for privacy, a decent art, and if it never -rises to the polish and wit of such an outstanding colyumist as -La-Fourchardière of _l’Œuvre_, it never sinks to the pretentious -pseudo-intelligent vulgarity of the English counterpart. The colyumist -is, to begin with, a newspaper humorist, and there are times, when -questions of art and letters are discussed, when one wishes he had -remained one. Phillips, who is now with the _Sun and Globe_ in New -York, sticks to his game manfully; he tells nothing about himself, -discusses no plays, and his colyum, which he illustrates with grotesque -little drawings, is self-contained. You do not have to be in the secret -to read him. His usual manner is to take a notable or obscure item of -news and play with it, in the manner of Mark Twain. When Ambassador -Harvey made a speech on the topic, “Have Women Souls”? Phillips -reported the proceedings and the aftermath: - -“Latest bulletins from Europe and Asia on the conduct of other American -diplomats follow: - - “Warren G. Harding, - President, United States: - - Excellency:-- - - American ambassador here has brought about grave crisis by - speech, “Are Bananas a Fruit or a Flower?” and “Can Fresh - Roasted Peanuts Think?” Understand he has stated publicly his - opinion that John McCormack is greater singer than Caruso. - People are near uprising. Will you recall him or shall we give - him the bum’s rush? - - KING OF ITALY. - - -and so on. - -It is horseplay; but when he is in form it achieves a wild carelessness -and gaiety which the intellectual colyumist entirely forswears. He -has for compeer Arthur “Bugs” Baer, by all odds the funniest of the -colyumists and a too-much-neglected creator of American humour. There -is, also, a considerable number of colyumists of the Phillips type in -other cities. I make no apology for not knowing them, for a colyum -correctly conceived is written for the readers of its paper. It ought -to be partly private, and wholly provincial. Even Mencken when he ran -the colyum of the Baltimore _Sun_, and gathered much material for _The -American Language_, and told of each new consignment of German beer -after the blockade began in 1915, even he was not all things to all men. - -The last man who kept his colyum balanced between the high and low -comic touch was Bert Leston Taylor. He was a very wise and humane -person, wise and humane enough to appreciate and to publish fun of a -sort differing by much from the humour he created. There was something -unnervingly oblique in his vision of the world, perfectly illustrated -by the captions he wrote for clippings from rustic journals. He -would take an item, “Our popular telegraphist Frank Dane had a son -presented to him last week. Frank says he is going to stay home nights -hereafter,” and write over it, “How the Days Are Drawing In.” There was -nothing incongruous in the appearance side by side of his own expert -parodies and the horseplay humour of some of his contributors. Taylor’s -touch made everything light, everything right. In his house there were -indeed many mansions. After him--before his death even--the colyumists -divided and went separate ways. The Chicago _Tribune_ continues the -Field-Taylor tradition indifferently well. Riq of the Chicago _Evening -Post_ comes near the golden mean, but his own character as a colyumist -is jeopardized by his contributors; when he gets a good theme--such as -the necessity for keeping the seam of a stocking straight, he can be -counted on. Calverley indicated his difficulty--or almost: Themes are -so scarce in this world of ours. - -The colyumists are sophisticated, or _faux-naïfs_, or actually _naïf_. -Of the first, F. P. A. of the New York _World_ is the most notable -and Baird Leonard of the _Morning Telegraph_ the best. F. P. A. has -all the virtues of the colyumist in the highest degree; unfortunately -he has almost all the faults, in nearly the same measure. He is a -defeated Calverley, writing the best light verse in America, and the -best parodies in verse. His Persicos Odi, one of several (published -in the quarterly “1910”), seems to me better than Field’s--which had -the lines, “And as for roses, Holy Moses, they can’t be got at living -prices.” Adams’, as I recall it, ran: - - The pomp of the Persian I hold in aversion; - I hate all their gingerbread tricks; - Their garlicky wreathings and lindeny tree-things - Nix. - Boy, us for plain myrtle while under this fertile - Old grapevine myself I protrude - For your old bibacious Quintus Horatius - Stewed. - -and his treatment of the same poem according to Service is perfect -parody. Algernon St. John Brenon used to quarrel magisterially with -Adams about Latin quantities, but he could never undermine Adams’ -feeling for the ease and urbanity of Horace--and Adams isn’t in the -business of preserving the tradition of dignity. - -His trick verse is not exceptional; he has no Dobsonian feeling for -form; in prose parody he is a duffer. His own prose has the one -essential quality for wit--it is not diffuse.[22] His actual character -is that of a civilized man who cannot be imposed upon by the bunk, -and as he is fairly independent he recognizes fake--in the world of -politics, business, and society--wherever it occurs. This is what -prevents him from being a good radical (type: Heywood Broun; other -things in his nature keep him from the insolence of martyrdom), and -what makes his work sympathetic to mature and disillusioned minds. -His exceptional good sense--he seems to have no sensibility--makes -stupidity an irritation to him; he follows half of the biblical precept -and does not suffer fools gladly. The habit of pontificating has grown -on him, and from expressing himself with justifiable arrogance on minor -matters he has proceeded to speak with assurance on manners, art, and -letters. It would be more accurate to say that he speaks without the -humility becoming to one who for many months boosted W. B. Maxwell in -opposition to Joseph Conrad. He hasn’t, essentially, any idea of his -great influence; for if he knew that a vast number of semi-intelligent -people were guided by him he would not so rapidly praise and damn (or -praise with faint damns, if I may quote another colyum). He is the -most exasperating of colyumists; and his triviality when confronted by -things he does not understand--I am thinking of his comment on _The -Waste Land_--is appalling. Yet this same quality is what makes him -precious; he is a gadfly to an exceptionally sluggish beast--the New -York intellectual. He has, inevitably, become the patron saint of the -smart. At any rate, he has done something to destroy the tradition -that what is witty is unsound. It is only when he is serious that he -becomes a little ridiculous. - -I quarrel as much with Baird Leonard’s judgement on art and letters, -but I am not irritated because Miss Leonard (who writes for a paper -devoted to horse-racing and the theatre) is almost always willing to -indicate the path by which she arrives at her discriminations. She -hasn’t F. P. A.’s weak fear of the common, and her own mind is as far -removed as his from the commonplace, it has movements of grace and -lightness, and her humour is smooth and wholly urban. Too often for -me she fills her column with Bridge Table Talk, a sardonic report of -fake intellectualism done with vigour and ferocity, but hampered by -the framework which is not adaptable. I do not, at this moment, recall -a line she has written; I recall the tone of her whole work--it is -unaffected, not self-conscious, brightly aware of everything, keen and -curious and always on the alert. If the stage were what it seems from -out in front, Miss Leonard would be well placed on a theatrical paper. -She is writing for people wise enough to know the place of wit. Adams, -I fear, is beginning to write for people witty enough (and no more) to -despise wisdom. - -The creator of an American legend--I quote from the advertisements--is -certainly a wise man. Don Marquis, who now writes his colyum alone, has -always had a good second-rate talent for verse, and a good first-rate -understanding of humanity. It is the second quality which makes him -appreciate the memoirs of William Butler Yeats, and helps him create -_The Old Soak_. “Here’s richness”! It was right for him to make an -entire second act of that play an ode to hard liquor, with lyric -interludes about the parrot, for he is on the side of humanity, against -the devils and angels alike. Hard liquor, loafing, decency, are his -gods, and he fights grimly, with a tendency to see the devil in modern -art. He is against a great many American fetiches: efficiency and Y. -M. C. A. morality and getting on; and he has a strong, persistent -sentiment for common and simple things. All of these together would not -make him a good colyumist without some expressive gift. He has enough -to render his most endearing qualities fully. And beyond them he has at -times a bitterness which drives him to write like Swift and a fantasy -which creates archie and Captain Fitz-Urse, and these also are parts of -his wisdom. - -Christopher Morley, like Rolla (not, however, Rollo), has come too late -into a world too old, and daily dreams himself back into the time when -a gentle essayist was the noblest man of letters and William McFee a -great novelist. His latest work is bound in Gissing Blue Leather, is -admired by Heywood Broun, and has been compared to nearly everything -except the Four Gospels. Little children should not be permitted to -read his colyum in the New York _Evening Post_, for it is a sort of -literary _boy-scoutisme_, and very wrong! (It has recently ceased to -exist.) - -The influence of the daily column is so great that by this time a -goodly portion of the literary criticism--or book-reviewing--appears -in that form. Keith Preston is partly colyumist, partly literary -critic, estimable if not always just in both departments, and a -writer of excellent verse. Of the literary colyumists Broun is the -most interesting case. He has a peculiar mind, apt to find a trifling -detail the clue to too many great things; he has a great sense for the -pompous and the pretentious; he is actually a humorist when he lets -go. But a strange thing has happened to him. While he was acquiring -a reputation as arbiter of taste in New York by putting down his -simple feelings about books and other things, he was slowly becoming -aware of the existence of the intellect. It was borne in upon him, -as I believe the phrase is, that a work of art is the product of -an intellect working upon materials provided by a sensibility. The -discovery unnerved him--I might almost say deflowered. For Broun has -lost his native innocence; he is a little frightened by the hard young -men who sudden let loose the jargon of æsthetics, of philosophy, of -the intellect in general--and what is worse, he _thinks_ that they may -not be bluffing. He has gone manfully to work, but the middle distance -is dangerous. It is likely to produce more dicta like his notorious -dismissal of rhythmic prose by a reference to verse rhythms in prose. -His characteristic statement is, however, apropos of a flying catch by -Aaron Ward, of which, Broun said that no book had ever so affected him -with the sense that the humanly impossible had been accomplished. He -seems to wonder, now, whether discovering the mind will ever console -him if he loses the catch, whether being an amiable, intelligent, -courageous, radical humorist, with sufficient taste to dislike the -third-rate and a jocular respect for the first rate--whether all this -isn’t enough. And all the while the young men of three nations are -giving him to believe that the really new movement is going to be -intellectual. In the moment of hesitation he does one thing which may -save him--slowly renouncing literature, he digs into his humour and -works it hard. He or it will be exhausted presently; when that happens -he will be out of the woods--on either side. - -But I doubt whether Broun ever was as simple as Bugs Baer. His is -called roughneck humour--for all I care. The truth is that Baer is one -of the few people writing for the newspapers who have a distinct style. -K. C. B. has a form which becomes a formula--it is exasperating to -read it--one continues as one continues to read the Bull Durham signs -along a railroad track. Baer writes like the speech of Falstaff and his -companions, with a rowdy exaggeration. His comparisons are far fetched, -his conceptions utterly fantastic. His daily commentaries on sport -are concise and entertaining, his best work occurs there,[23] but in -_The Family Album_, a Sunday feature of the Hearst papers, he succeeds, -despite the subject and the length, in communicating his peculiar -quality. It is mingled with banalities like “he was hunting quail on -toast up in Canada,” but you also get: - - So he felt better and met a friend of his and they skipped the - Eighteenth Amendment a couple of times and uncle came home and - challenged pop to anything. Pop wanted to know what, and uncle - said, “Anything at all. There ain’t one thing that you can do - that I can’t do better than you.” - - He kept up his anonymous boasting and pop said to mom, “Your - escaped brother is loose again. That’s him. He takes one drink - of that radio liquor and he starts broadcasting.” - - Uncle said, “I’ll broadcast you for a row of weather-beaten - canal boats. I’m mad and hungry. I’m as hot and hollow as a - stovepipe.” - - Mom said to pop, “Don’t turn Abimelech away hungry. What does - the Good Book say about--” - - Pop said, “Oh! That’s been vetoed by the President.” - -There follows what he calls “another quaint tribal quarrel” in which -“pop laughed a whole octave above sarcastic” and “Mom said, ‘Stop that -debate before I take the negative.’” - -Everything of Bugs Baer is foreshortened; he is elliptical, omits the -middle step. His language is syncopation. His points of reference are -all in the common life; I don’t suppose that he has ever touched -a book or a play in his column. For all that, he impresses me as a -naturally subtle spirit. I may be wrong. He is certainly a joyful one. - - - - - _Burlesque, Circus, - Clowns, and Acrobats_ - - - - -BURLESQUE, CIRCUS, CLOWNS, AND ACROBATS - - -This is a footnote in the interest of justice more than anything else. -The general scheme of this book is that it is to be an outline, for -each of its major chapters is devoted to a subject about which a book -ought to be written--but not by me. In such an outline there is no -specified allotment of space, and I have written most on the lively -arts in which I myself take the liveliest pleasure. Burlesque is not -of these--and I confess to enjoying it most in the person of those -artists who come out of it into revue, or vaudeville, or any other -framework with which I am familiar and which I admire. I can understand -an enthusiast feeling the same way about them as I feel about revue and -vaudeville players who try to enter the legitimate stage--that they are -corrupted by a desire to be refined. The great virtues of burlesque as -I (insufficiently) know it are its complete lack of sentimentality in -the treatment of emotion and its treatment of appearance. The harsh -ugliness of the usual burlesque make-up is interesting--I have seen -sinister, even macabre, figures upon its stage--and the dancing, which -has no social refinement, occasionally develops angular positions -and lines of exciting effect. I find the better part of burlesque -elsewhere, notably in clowns. And instead of trying to be fair to a -medium I do not know well, nor care too much about, I have put in a -picture which I greatly admire and which probably is more to the point -than anything I could write. - -I shall try to find a picture for the circus, too. Because the circus -is a mixed matter and some of it is superb. The _jeux icariens_ I -have never seen except in France: they are really exquisite. They -are usually performed by a whole family. The training is exceedingly -arduous, must be begun in childhood, and the art is dying out. In -this act the essential thing is the use of human bodies as maniable -material. The small boy I saw rolled himself into a tight round -ball and was caught on the upturned feet of his father, flat on his -back, and tossed to another grownup in the same position, the little -rolled-up body spinning like a ball through the air. The beauty of the -movements, the accuracy and the finesse of the exploitation of energy, -delighted. Trained elephants, however, haven’t exactly this quality; -and trained seals, agreeable to watch because they are graceful and -supple of body, lack something. I have seen a diabolo player who was -beautiful to follow, and a juggler who placed two billiard cues end to -end on his forehead, threw a ball and caught it at the top of the cues, -then dislodged the ball and put it into play with three others. This -extraordinary mixture of good and dull things, this lack of character, -makes the circus easy to like and useless to think about. The special -atmosphere of the circus, the sounds and sights, and smells, are, of -course, another matter. - -[Illustration: - - CIRQUE MEDRANO. By Henri Toulouse-Lautrec -] - -Two of its actual features justify speculation: acrobats and clowns. -The American vaudeville player can say nothing worse of an audience -than “they like the acrobats.” When they hang by their teeth I cannot -respect them; the development of any part of the human body is -interesting, no doubt, and I do not wish to insist that there _must_ be -an æsthetic interest in every act. But I feel about them as the Chinese -philosopher felt about horse-racing: that it is a well-established -fact that one horse can beat another, and the proof is superfluous. -But there are trapeze workers whose technique is a joy to see and who -exploit all the possible turns, leaps, somersaults in air, so that one -is pleased and dazzled. I do not wonder that painters in every age -have found them a lovely subject. But a lady balanced on one leg of a -trapeze bar, smoking a cigarette, fanning herself, _not holding on to -anything_--means exactly nothing to me unless it is accomplished with -some other quality than nerve. I am sure she will never fall and do not -care to be present when she does. - -Clowns are different. Even those poor nameless ones who dash in between -major acts and with noise and toy balloons divert little children, -have some quality. They partake of our tradition about masks, they -can’t help having background. Everything exaggerated and ugly in -burlesque is here put to the uses of laughter; even the dullest has -some gaiety in make-up, in a mechanical contrivance, in gait or -gesture. Marceline helping the attendants with Powers’ Elephants at -the _Hippodrome_, so busy, so in the way, so unconscious of hindering, -always created a little world around himself. Grock is incredible in -the faultlessness of his method; as musical-eccentric he surpasses all -other clowns, and his simple attitude before chairs and pianos and the -other complications of life is a study in creativeness. I have written -elsewhere of Fortunello and Cirillino, also great clowns; and they -complete this sketchy footnote, since for the greatest clowns I have -ever seen, nothing short of a separate title will suffice.[24] - -[Illustration: - - NATIONAL WINTER - GARDEN BURLESQUE. - - By E. E. Cummings - (_Courtesy of_ The Dial) -] - - - - - _The True and Inimitable - Kings of Laughter_ - - - - -THE TRUE AND INIMITABLE KINGS OF LAUGHTER - - -Clowns are the most traditional of all entertainers and one of the most -persistent of the traditions about them is that those who have just -died were better than those one has laughed at a moment ago. A very -obvious reason is that the clowns of the recent past are the clowns -of our own childhood. It is my fortunate position never to have seen -a clown when I was a child, and all those I have ever laughed at are -alive and funny. One of them, the superb Grock, was a failure in New -York; the remarkable Fortunello and Cirillino who arrived with the -_Greenwich Village Follies_ of 1922 are acrobats of an exceptional -delicacy and humour; there isn’t a touch of obvious refinement -about them and they are exquisite. And the real thing in knockabout -grotesquerie are the three who call themselves, justifiably, the true -and inimitable kings of laughter, the brothers Fratellini at the Cirque -Medrano in Paris. - -[Illustration: FRANCESCO] - -The Cirque Medrano is a one-ring circus in a permanent building near -the Place Pigalle; ten times a week it fills the vast saucer of its -seating capacity at an absurdly low price--the most expensive seats, -I believe, are six francs--and presents something a little above the -average European circus bill. There are more riding and a few more -stunts than at others, and there are less trained animals. And ten -times weekly the entire audience shouts with gratification as Francesco -Fratellini steps gracefully over the ring, hesitates, retreats, and -finally sits down in a ringside seat and begins a conversation with the -lady sitting beside him. - -[Illustration: PAOLO] - -The thing which distinguishes the Fratellini and makes them great is a -sort of internal logic in everything they do. When the spangled figure -with the white-washed face sits down by the ring and chats a moment -it is merely disconcerting; at once the logic appears--he is waiting -for the show to begin. An attendant approaches and tells him to stop -stalling, that the people are waiting to be amused. He replies in an -odd English that he has paid his “mawney” and why doesn’t the show -begin. Promptly another attendant repeats the message of the first in -English; Francesco replies in Italian. By the time the process has -been gone through in five languages the clown has changed his tack -entirely; you realize that since he doesn’t understand what all these -uniformed attendants are saying to him, he thinks that _they_ are the -show and he is trying to conceal his own irritation at being made the -object of their addresses and at the same time he is pretending to be -amused at their antics. The last time he speaks in what seems to be -gibberish (it is credibly reported to be rather fair Turkish) and the -attendants fall back. From the opposite entrance to the ring arrives -a figure of unparalleled grotesqueness--garments vast and loose in -unexpected places, monstrous shoes, squares like windowpanes over -his eyes, a glowing and preposterous nose. His gait is of the utmost -dignity, he senses the situation and advances to Francesco’s seat; and -as a pure matter of business he delivers a terrific slap, bows nobly, -and departs. Francesco enters the ring. At the same time a third figure -appears--a bald-headed man in carefully arranged clothes, a monocle, -and a high hat, a stick. The three Fratellini are on the scene.[25] - -[Illustration: ALBERTO] - -It is impossible to say what happens there, for the Fratellini have an -inexhaustible repertoire. The materials are always of the simplest, -and the effects, too; they have hardly any “props,” the costumes, the -smiles, the movements, the gestures, are almost exactly alike from -day to day. Much of their material is old, for they are the sons and -grandsons of clowns as far back as their family memory can carry; I -have seen them once appear armed for a fight with inflated bladders, -looking precisely like contemporary pictures in Maurice Sand’s book -about the _commedia dell’arte_, and on another occasion have seen them -so carried away with the frenzy of their activity that they actually -improvised and proved their descent from this ancient form. They do -burlesque sketches--a barber shop, a bull fight, a human elephant, a -magician, or a billiard game; the moment they stop the entire audience -roars for “la musique,” the most famous of their acts, remarkable -because it has a minimum of physical violence. - -_La Musique_ is all a matter of construction and is a wonderful example -of the use of material. For at bottom it consists of the efforts of -two men to play a serenade and the continual intrusion of a third. -Francesco and Paolo arrive, each carrying a guitar or a mandoline, and -place two chairs close together exactly in the centre of the ring. -They step on the chairs and prepare to sit on the backs, but even this -simple process is difficult for them, as neither is willing to sit -down before the other, nor to remain seated while the other is still -erect, and they must be continually rising and apologizing until one -flings the other down and keeps him there until he himself is seated. -Ready then, they blow out the electric lights and strike the first -notes; but the spotlight deserts them; they are left in the dark and -puzzled; they regard one another with dismay and suspicion. Suddenly -they see it across the ring and, descending with great gravity, carry -their chairs across. Again they start, and again the spotlight goes; -their irritation mounts, but their dignity remains and they follow it. -It flits back to where they had come from. There is a consultation and -the two chairs are returned to their original place in the centre of -the ring. Then the two musicians take off their coats, prowl around the -ring stalking the light, and fall upon it; then slowly and with much -labour they lift the light by its edges and carefully carry it back -to their chairs. And as they begin to play the grotesque marches in -behind them, unconscious of them, intent only upon his vast horn and -the enormous musical score he carries. Unseeing and unseen, he prepares -himself, and at about the tenth bar the great bray of his horn shatters -the melody of the strings. The two musicians are dismayed, but as they -cannot see the source of the disturbance, they try again; again the -horn intrudes. This time there is expostulation and argument with the -grotesque, but, as he reasonably points out, music was desired and he -is doing his share. There is only one issue for such a scene, and it -takes place, in a riot. - -[Illustration: THE FRATELLINI. By Fernand Leger] - -The preparation of these riots is a work of real delicacy, for the -Fratellini know that two things are equally true: violence is funny -and violence ceases to be funny. Like Chaplin, they infuse into -their violence the sense of reason--they are violent only when no -other means will suffice. In the photographer scene they call into -action the “august” a stock character of the European circus, played -at the Medrano with exceptional skill by M Lucien Godart. The august -is a man of great dignity whose office it is to parley with clowns, -be the butt of their jokes, and in M Godart’s version, set off their -grotesque appearance by an excellent figure and the most correct of -evening clothes. (He is in addition a rather good tumbler, and it is -part of the Medrano tradition for the audience to hiss him until he -grows seemingly furious and turns twenty difficult somersaults around -the ring.) The Fratellini, armed with a huge black box and a cloth, -ask him to sit for his photograph. Francesco takes it upon himself to -explain the apparatus, Paolo standing close by with the three fence -posts which represent the tripod, and Alberto, the grotesque waiting -near by. Suddenly the tripod falls on Alberto’s feet and he howls -with pain; Paolo picks the posts up again, and again they fall, and -again he howls. It is unbelievable that this should be funny, yet -it is funny beyond any capacity to describe it for one reason which -the spectator senses long before he sees it. That is that the tripod -is not intentionally thrown on the feet of the grotesque. The fault -is Francesco’s, for he is explaining the machine and making serious -errors, and every time he makes a mistake Paolo gets excited and -forgets that he has the tripod in his hand, and simply lets it drop. -One senses his acute regret, and at the next moment one realizes that -his scientific zeal, his respect for his profession of photographer, -simply does not permit him to let a misstatement pass; his gesture as -he turns to set the matter right is so eager, so agonized, that one -doesn’t see what has happened to the tripod until it has fallen. And -to point the moral of the matter, when the grotesque Alberto after the -fifth time picks the tripod up and attempts to slay Paolo, Paolo is -again turning toward the others and the blow goes wide. - -What the Fratellini are doing here is, to be sure, what every great -actor does--they are presenting their effects indirectly. The -difficulty for them is that in the end they must give their effects -with the maximum of directness--they have to strike a man in the face -and make the sound tell. In the scene of the photograph the august is -“he who gets slapped” (the phrase is a common one) and the scene is -carefully built up through his reluctance and stupidity in posing. At -first it is only an exaggeration of the customary difficulties between -a photographer and a little child; but as the august becomes more and -more suspicious of the intentions of the photographer, the clowns -become more and more insistent that he, and nobody but he, shall have -his picture taken. Gradually an atmosphere of hostility is built up; -the august tries to escape from the ring and is hauled back; then -dragged, then forced to sit; the opposing wills grow more and more -violent; the audience senses the good will of the clowns, the obstinacy -of the august; not a push or shove is given without reason and meaning. -And when they see that there is nothing else for it, the three hurl -themselves upon the clown in a frenzy of destructiveness and he is rent -limb from limb. (In actual fact only his exquisite evening clothes were -rent, but the effect is the same.) - -In these scenes and almost all their others, the Fratellini escape -the reproach of being nothing but violent, while they hold every good -element which violence in action can give them. To them are comparable -the best (and only the best) of Eddie Cantor’s scenes--when he applied -for the job of policeman and when he was examined for the army--where -there is a play of motive and a hidden logic. In their world everything -must be sensible, and the most sensible thing in the world is to -hit out. Behind them is a dual tradition--centuries of laughter and -centuries of refining the instruments by which simple laughter can be -produced. For it is opposed to their sense of fitness (as it is to -ours) that the clown should create an effect of subtlety.[26] The kind -of laughter they produce _must_ involve the whole body, but not the -mind. They have to be active all the time, so that you are dazzled and -cannot think; and they must shake the solid ground under your feet, so -that you may shake with laughter. What the critical observer discovers -as method must reach the actual average spectator only as effect. -All of this the Fratellini have accomplished--“these three brothers -who constitute one artist” are the complete and perfect exemplars of -their art. Seeing them sometimes twice a week, and nearly two dozen -times, I find their qualities inexhaustible. Even in the descriptions -of acts noted above it can be seen that they have a definite sense of -pace; their changes from fast to slow in the middle of an act, their -variations from violence to trickery, their complete mastery of climax, -their fertility of invention, are all elements of superiority. But they -are only elements in a composition based on something fundamentally -right--the knowledge that we have almost forgotten how to laugh in the -actual world, and that to make us laugh again they must create a world -of their own. - - - - - _The Great God Bogus_ - - - - -THE GREAT GOD BOGUS - - -If there were an Academy I should nail upon its doors the following -beliefs: - - That Al Jolson is more interesting to the intelligent mind than - John Barrymore and Fanny Brice than Ethel; - - That Ring Lardner and Mr Dooley in their best work are more - entertaining and more important than James B. Cabell and Joseph - Hergesheimer in their best; - - That the daily comic strip of George Herriman (Krazy Kat) is - easily the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of - art produced in America to-day; - - That Florenz Ziegfeld is a better producer than David Belasco; - - That one film by Mack Sennett or Charlie Chaplin is worth the - entire _œuvre_ of Cecil de Mille; - - That _Alexander’s Ragtime Band_ and _I Love a Piano_ are - musically and emotionally sounder pieces of work than _Indian - Love Lyrics_ and _The Rosary_; - - That the circus can be and often is more artistic than the - Metropolitan Opera House in New York; - - That Irene Castle is worth all the pseudo-classic dancing ever - seen on the American stage; and - - That the civic masque is not perceptibly superior to the Elks’ - Parade in Atlantic City. - -Only about half of these are heresies, and I am quite ready to stand by -them as I would stand by my opinion of Dean Swift or Picasso or Henry -James or James Joyce or Johann Sebastian Bach. But I recognize that -they are expressions of personal preference, and possibly valueless -unless related to some general principles. It appears that what I care -for in the catalogue above falls in the field of the lively arts; -and that the things to which I compare them (for emphasis, not for -measurement) are either second-rate instances of the major arts or -first-rate examples of the peculiarly disagreeable thing for which I -find no other name than the bogus. I shall arrive presently at the -general principles of the lively arts and their relation to the major. -The bogus is a lion in the path. - -Bogus is counterfeit and counterfeit is bad money and bad money -is better--or at least more effective--than good money. This is -not a private paradox, but a plain statement of a law in economics -(Gresham’s, I think) that unless it is discovered, bad money will drive -out good. Another characteristic of counterfeit is that, once we have -accepted it, we try to pass it off on some one else; banks and critics -are the only institutions which don’t--or ought not to--continue the -circulation. In the arts counterfeit is known as _faux bon_--the -apparently good, essentially bad, which is the enemy of the good. -The existence of the bogus is not a serious threat against the great -arts, for they have an obstinate vitality and in the end--but only -in the end--they prevail. It is the lively arts which are continually -jeopardized by the bogus, and it is for their sake that I should like -to see the bogus go sullenly down into oblivion. - -Namely: vocal concerts, pseudo-classic dancing, the serious -intellectual drama, the civic masque, the high-toned moving picture, -and grand opera. - -The first thing about them is that a very small percentage of those -who make the bogus arts prosperous really enjoy them. I recall my own -complete stultification after hearing my first concert; and the casual -way in which I made it evident to all my companions that I had been to -a concert is my only clue to the mystery. For at bottom there is a vast -snobbery of the intellect which repays the deadly hours of boredom we -spend in the pursuit of art. We are the inheritors of a tradition that -what is worth while must be dull; and as often as not we invert the -maxim and pretend that what is dull is higher in quality, more serious, -“greater art” in short than whatever is light and easy and gay. We -suffer fools gladly if we can pretend they are mystics. And the fact -that audiences at concerts and opera, spectators at classic dances and -masques, are suffering, is the final damnation, for it means that these -arts are failures. I do not found my belief on any theory that all the -arts ought to be appreciated by all the people. I do mean that most -of those who read _Ulysses_ or _The Pickwick Papers_ do so because -they enjoy it, and they stop the moment they are bored. There is no -superiority in having read a book. The lively anticipation of delights -which one senses in those going to the _Follies_ or to a circus is -wholly absent in the lobby of the Metropolitan or at a performance of -_Jane Clegg_. And the art which communicates no ecstasy but that of -snobbism is irretrievably bogus. - -There is something hopeless about opera as we know it in the United -States; and the fact that ten or fifteen operas are among the permanent -delights of civilized existence does not alter the fact. (Three of -them: _Chovanstchina_, _The Marriage of Figaro_, and _Don Giovanni_, -are not in the repertoire of the Metropolitan; nor are _Falstaff_ -and _Otello_; nor does the ballet proceed beyond _Coq d’Or_; nor it -seems would the Metropolitan hold it within its dignity to produce -_The Mikado_, although Schumann-Heink was ready to sing Katisha.) -Here is an art-form hundreds of years old, prospered by an enormous -publicity, favoured by extraordinary windfalls--the voice of Caruso, -the “personality” of Farrar--able to set into motion nearly every -appeal to the senses in colour, tone, movement--it has song and action -and dance--and what exactly is the final accomplishment? The pale -maunderings of Puccini, the vulgarity of Massenet, and the overpowering -dulness of our domestic try-outs. Wagner? A philosopher drunk with -divine wisdom is reported (by Goethe) to have cried out that he could -discern shortcomings even in God; and the melancholy truth is that the -welding of three arts into one succeeded only in Wagner’s brain, for on -the boards we lose Wagner as we attend to the stage, and regain him as -we return to the music. This is not true of _Boris_ or of _Figaro_--so -much less pretentious, both; and the director may arise who will know -how to fuse Wagner into one harmonious and beautiful object. At the -moment, one takes the Metropolitan with its vast seating capacity, -its endless sources of appeal to the multitude, and one knows that it -isn’t a success. If it isn’t losing money it is paying its way through -social subventions. Eighty per cent of the music heard there is trivial -in comparison with either good jazz or good symphonic music; ninety -per cent of the acting is preposterous; and the settings, costumes, -and properties are so far below popular musical comedy standards -that in the end Urban and Norman-Bel Geddes have had to be called -in to save them, and haven’t been given scope or freedom enough to -succeed. The Metropolitan is, I am told, the finest opera house in -the world and loses money because it is still several leaps ahead of -its clientèle which insists on more Puccini and no _Coq d’Or_. Also -I have had the supreme pleasure of hearing Chaliapin there and I am -not ungrateful. The Metropolitan has difficulties happily unknown to -us and is unquestionably an eminent institution. It is opera as we -know it, that calls down the curse, opera which has to call itself -“grand” to distinguish itself from the popular, superior, kind. For -it is pretentious and it appeals not to our sensibilities but to our -snobbery. It neither excites nor exalts; it does not amuse. Over it and -under it and through it runs the element of fake; it is a substitute -for symphonic music and an easy expiatory offering for ragtime. -_Ecrasez l’infâme!_ - -Audiences at the opera have, however, been thrilled by a voice. What -is there to say for the uncommunicative, uninspired, serious-minded -intellectual drama which without wit, or intensity, “presents a -problem” or drearily holds the mirror up to nature? Those little -scenes from domestic life, those second-hand expositions of other -people’s philosophies, those unflinching grapplings with “the vital -facts of existence” which year by year are held to be great plays? -Let me be frank; let me face my vital facts. I have never found my -brain inadequate to grapple with their grapplings, for it is almost -in the nature of the case that if a man has anything profound to -express he will flee from the theatre where everything is dependent -upon actors usually unintelligent and is reduced to the lowest -common factor of human intelligence. Bernard Shaw writes his ideas -into his prefaces because they can’t be fully stated on the stage; -Henry James tried to be delicate and failed. It remains for Ferencz -Molnar and Augustus Thomas to succeed--with borrowed and diminished -ideas. Still speaking of modern serious plays (because the _Medea_ -of Euripides and the tragedy of _Othello_ are not involved) what is -bogus in them is their spurious appeal to our sentimentality or our -snobbery. It is their pretence to be a great and serious art when they -are simply vulgarizations. I have no quarrel with any man for the -subject matter of his work of art, and I should allow every freedom -to the artist. The whole trouble with our modern serious drama is -that it is usually such bad drama; the tedium of three hours of _Jane -Clegg_ isn’t worthy sitting through because of the desperate effort -of the dramatist and the producer to create the illusion of reality -by reproducing the rhythm of reality. The essential distortion, -caricature, or transposition which you find in a serious work of art or -in a vaudeville sketch, is missing here. And the efforts to ram this -sort of play home by pretending that only morons do not like it is -exactly and precisely bunk. Most plays fail because they are bad plays; -and the greater part of the intellectual drama following this divine -LAW, fails. A good manipulator of the theatre like Molnar can put -over _Liliom_, which has no more of a great idea than _Seven Keys to -Baldpate_ and is almost as good drama, if he knows in what proportion -to mingle his approaches to our meaner and higher sensibilities. For we -are not altogether lost yet. - -If the civic masque and classic dancing continue much longer we will be -lost entirely. These arty conglomerations of middle-high seriousness -and bourgeois beauty are not so much a peril as a nuisance. The former -is the “artistic” counterpart of the Elks Parade and since I cannot -speak with decent calm about its draperies and mummery, I recommend -Mr R. C. Benchley’s chapter on the same subject in _Of All Things!_ -The civic masque is fake mediævalism, the sort of thing which, if -ridicule could kill, should have gone out after W. S. Gilbert’s -couplets appeared in _Patience_. Alas the instinct for trumpery art -persists and on it has been grafted the astounding idea of communal -artistic effort--a characteristic thing, too, for the communal efforts -of ancient Greece were war and Bacchanalia, and of the middle ages, -the crusades; the municipal celebrations after which the civic masque -is patterned were created in cities which were unself-conscious and -were doing something out of vanity and joy. I cannot imagine the six -million of New York or the six thousand of Vineland, Arkansas, growing -suddenly mad with joy over the fact that they live in no mean city. I -neither like the civic consciousness nor believe deeply in its honest -existence. And when it takes to expressing itself as the symbol of the -corn and such-like idiocy it isn’t as funny as the induction scene of -the Ziegfeld Follies (which the Forty-niners took off as “I am the -spirit of Public School Number 146”) and it isn’t any more moving or -intelligent. Certainly it has never been so beautiful. Faced with the -vast myths of the American pasts, our poets simply haven’t found the -medium for projecting them. The dime novel and the Wild West film -both failed for lack of imaginative power, and that treasure remains -undisturbed. It is sealed and guarded and the civic masque nibbles -at it, dislodges a fragment, and comes dancing awkwardly into the -foreground waving the shadow of an illusion like a scarf over its head. - -For obviously classic dancing is the natural form of expression for -this pseudo-civism. I have never had the patience to discover the -beginnings of the fatuous craze for imitations of presumably ancient -dances. Certainly the first of the notable dancers I saw was not before -1907--in the person of Isadora Duncan. It would be absurd to recall -those renditions of the _Seventh Symphony_ and what not at this date. -If Miss Duncan is a great artist and a great personality now, so much -the better, for her early success had much to do with breaking down -the gates of our decent objection to fake and her imitators swept -over us like a flood. Bogus again, these things; they interpret in -dance things which had already been all too clear in music or drama. -They know, it seems, the science of eurhythmics, which ought to mean -good rhythm, and they employ it to produce in pantomime an obvious, -brutally flat version of the Fall of Troy. They haven’t as yet added -one single thing to our stock of interest and beauty--as the Russian -Ballet did, as the old five-position ballet dance did, as modern -ballroom and stage dancing does. The costuming is almost always silly; -the music chosen is almost always obvious; and the postures assumed are -lethally monotonous. The old ballet, based on five definite positions, -made each slight variation count, and Pavlowa with her stricken face -and tenderness of movement knew it by heart, or by instinct. The new -dancers have no internal discipline and no freedom; and only the -accident that the human body is at times not displeasing to look upon -makes them tolerable. One could forgive them much if the pretensions -were not so unutterably lofty and the swank so ignorant and the results -so ugly. Fat women leaping with chaplets in their hair, in garments -of grey gauze, are not the poetry of motion, and Irene Castle in a -black evening dress dancing Irving Berlin’s music is--just as surely -as Nijinsky was. What is more, these two dancers, whom I choose at the -extremes of the dance, both have reference to our contemporary life; -and the classic dancing of Helen Moeller and Marion Morgan and Mr -Chalif and the rest have absolutely nothing to say to us. We’ve lost -that “simplicity,” thank God, or haven’t found it yet. We are an alert -and lively people--and our dance must actually express that spirit as -no fake can do. - -Our existence is hard, precise, high spirited. There is no nourishment -for us in the milk-and-water diet of the bogus arts, and all they -accomplish is a genteel corruption, a further thinning out of -the blood, a little extra refinement. They are, intellectually, -the exact equivalent of a high-toned lady, an elegant dinner or a -refined collation served in the saloon, and the contemporary form of -the vapours. Everything about them is supposed to be “good taste,” -including the kiss on the brow which miraculously “ruins” a perfect -virgin--and they are in the physical sense of the word utterly -tasteless. The great arts and the lively arts have their sources in -strength or in gaiety--and the difference between them is not the -degree of intensity, but the degree of intellect. But the bogus arts -spring from longing and weakness and depression.[27] A happy people -creates folk songs or whistles rag; it does not commit the vast -atrocity of a “community sing-song”; it goes to Olympic games or to a -race track, to _Iphigenia_ or to Charlie Chaplin--not to hear a “vocal -concert.” - -The bogus arts are corrupting the lively ones--because an essential -defect of the bogus is that they pretend to be better than the popular -arts, yet they want desperately to be popular. They borrow and spoil -what is good; they persuade people by appealing to their snobbery -that they are the real thing. And as the audience watches these arts -in action the comforting illusion creeps over them that at last they -have achieved art. But they are really watching the manifestations -of the Great God Bogus--and what annoys me most is that they might -at that very moment be hailing Apollo or Dionysos, or be themselves -participating in some of the minor rites of the Great God Pan. - - - - - _An Open Letter to the - Movie Magnates_ - - - - -AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MOVIE MAGNATES - - - IGNORANT AND UNHAPPY PEOPLE: - -The Lord has brought you into a narrow place--what you would call a -tight corner--and you are beginning to feel the pressure. A voice is -heard in the land saying that your day is over. The name of the voice -is Radio, broadcasting nightly to announce that the unequal struggle -between the tired washerwoman and the captions written by or for Mr -Griffith is ended. It is easier to listen than to read. And it is long -since you have given us anything significant to see. - -You may say that radio will ruin the movies no more than the movies -ruined the theatre. The difference is that your foundation is insecure: -you are monstrously over-capitalized and monstrously undereducated; the -one thing you cannot stand is a series of lean years. You have to keep -on going because you have from the beginning considered the pictures as -a business, not as an entertainment. Perhaps in your desperate straits -you will for the first time try to think about the movie, to see it -steadily and see it whole. - -My suggestion to you is that you engage a number of men and women: an -archæologist to unearth the history of the moving picture; a mechanical -genius to explain the camera and the projector to you; a typical movie -fan, if you can find one; and above all a man of no practical capacity -whatever: a theorist. Let these people get to work for you; do what -they tell you to do. You will hardly lose more money than in any other -case. - -If the historian tells you that the pictures you produced in 1910 were -better than those you now lose money on, he is worthless to you. But -if he fails to tell you that the pictures of 1910 pointed the way to -the real right thing and that you have since departed from that way, -discharge him as a fool. For that is exactly what has occurred. In -your beginnings you were on the right track; I believe that in those -days you still looked at the screen. Ten years later you were too busy -looking at, or after, your bank account. Remember that ten years ago -there wasn’t a great name in the movies. And then, thinking of your -present plight, recall that you deliberately introduced great names and -chose Sir Gilbert Parker, Rupert Hughes, and Mrs Elinor Glyn. If I may -quote an author you haven’t filmed, it shall not be forgiven you. - -Your historian ought to tell you that the moving picture came into -being as the result of a series of mechanical developments; your -technician will add the details about the camera and projector. From -both you will learn that you are dealing with _movement governed by -light_. It will be news to you. You seem not to realize the simplest -thing about your business. Further, you will learn that everything -you need to do _must_ be by these two agencies: movement and light. -(Counting in movement everything of pace and in light everything which -light can make visible to the eye, even if it be an emotion: do you -recall the unnatural splash of white in a street scene in _Caligari_?) -It will occur to you that the cut-back, the alternating exposition of -two concurrent actions, the vision, the dream, are all good; and that -the close-up, dearest of all your finds, usually dissociates a face -or an object from its moving background and is the most dangerous of -expedients. You will learn much from the camera and from what was done -with it in the early days. - -I warn you again they were not great pictures except for _The Avenging -Conscience_ and--one you didn’t make--_Cabiria_. To each of these a -poet contributed. (Peace, Mr Griffith; the poet in your case was E. A. -Poe; and the warrior poet of Fiume contributed the scenario for the -second.) Mr Griffith contrived in his picture to project both beauty -and terror by combining _Annabel Lee_ with _The Telltale Heart_. A -sure instinct led him to disengage the vast emotion of longing and of -lost love through an _action_ of mystery and terror. (I think he made -a happy ending somehow--by having the central portion of his story -appear as a dream. How little it mattered since the _real_ emotion came -through the story.) The picture was projected in a palpable atmosphere; -it was _felt_. After ten years I recall dark masses and ghostly rays -of light. And if I may anticipate the end, let me compare it with a -picture of 1922, a picturization as you call it, of Annabel Lee. It -was all scenery and captions; it presented a detestable little boy and -a pretty little girl doing æsthetic dancing along cliffs by the sea; -one almost saw the Ocean View Hotel in the background. Mercilessly the -stanzas appeared on the screen; but nothing was allowed to _happen_ -except a vulgar representation of calf love. I cannot bear to describe -the disagreeable picture of grief at the end; I do not dare to think -what you may now be preparing with a really great poem. The lesson is -not merely one of taste; it is a question of knowing the camera, of -realizing that you _must_ project emotion by movement and by picture -combined. - -I am trying to trace for you the development of the serious moving -picture as a _bogus_ art, and I can’t do better than assure you that -it was best before it was an “art” at all. (Or I can indicate that -slap-stick comedy, which you despise, is not bogus, is a real, and -valuable, and delightful entertainment.) I believe that you went out -West because the perpetual sun of southern California made taking easy; -there you discovered the lost romance of America, its Wild West and its -pioneer days, its gold rush and its Indians. You had it in your hands, -then, to make that past of ours alive; a small written literature and -a remnant of oral tradition remained for you to work on. On the whole -you did make a good beginning. You missed fine things, but you caught -the simple ones; you presented the material directly, with appropriate -sentiment. You relied on melodrama, which was the rightest thing you -ever did. Combat and pursuit, the last-minute rescue, were the three -items of your best pictures; and your cutting department, carefully -alternating the fight between white men and red with the slow-starting, -distant, approaching, arriving, victorious troops from the garrison -appealed properly to our soundest instincts. You went into the bad-man -period; you began to make an individual soldier, Indian, bandit, -pioneer, renegade, the focus of your interest: still good because you -related him to an active, living background. Dear Heaven! before you -had filmed Bret Harte you had created legendary heroes of your own. - -Meanwhile Mr Griffith, apparently insatiable, was developing small -_genre_ scenes of slum life while he thought of filming the tragic -history of the South after the war. Other directors sought other -fields--notably that of the serial adventure film. Since they made -money for all concerned, you will not be surprised to hear these -serials praised: _The Exploits of Elaine_, the whole Pearl White -adventure, the thirty minutes of action closing on an impossible and -unresolved climax were, of course, infinitely better pictures than your -version of Mr Joseph Conrad’s _Victory_, your _Humoreske_, your _Should -a Wife Forgive_?[28] They were extremely silly; they worked too -closely on a scheme: getting out of last week’s predicament and into -next week’s can hardly be called a “form.” But within their limitations -they used the camera for all it was worth. It didn’t matter a bit that -the perils were preposterous, that the flights and pursuits were all -fakes composed by the speed of the projector. You were back in the days -of Nick Carter and the Liberty Boys; you hadn’t heard of psychology, -and drama, and art; you were developing the camera. You bored us when -your effects didn’t come off and I’m afraid amused us a little even -when they did. But you were on the right road. - -There was very little _acting_ in these films and in the Wild West -exhibitions. There was a great deal of _action_. I can’t recall Pearl -White _registering_ a single time; I recall only movement, which was -excellent. It was later that your acting developed; up to this time -you were working with people who hadn’t succeeded in or were wholly -ignorant of the technique of the stage; they moved before the camera -gropingly at first, but gradually developing a technique suited to -the camera and to nothing else. I am referring to days so far back -that the old Biograph films used to be branded with the mark AB in a -circle, and this mark occurred in the photographed sets to prevent -stealing. In those days your actors and actresses were exceptionally -naïve and creative. You were on the point of discovering mass and line -in the handling of crowds, in the defile of a troop, in the movement -of individuals. Mr Griffith had already discovered that four men -running in opposite directions along the design of a figure 8 gave -the effect of sixteen men--a discovery lightly comparable to that of -Velasquez in the crossed spears of the Surrender of Breda. You would -have done well to continue your experiments with nameless individuals -and chaotic masses; but you couldn’t. You developed what you called -personalities--and after that, actresses. - -Before _The Birth of a Nation_ was begun Mary Pickford had already -left Griffith. I have heard that he vowed to make Mae Marsh a greater -actress--as if she weren’t one from the start, as if acting mattered, -as if Mary Pickford ever could or needed to act. Remember that in _The -Avenging Conscience_ at least four people: Spottiswood Aiken, Henry -Walthall, Blanche Sweet, and another I cannot identify--the second -villain--_played_ superbly without acting. Conceive your own stupidity -in not knowing what Vachel Lindsay discovered: that “our Mary” was -literally “the Queen of my People,” a radiant, lovely, childlike -girl, a beautiful figurehead, a symbol of all our sentimentality. Why -did you allow her to become an actress? Why is everything associated -with her later work so alien to beauty? You did not see her legend -forming; you began to advertise her salary; you have, I believe -unconsciously, tried to restore her now by giving her the palest rôle -in all literature, that of Marguerite in _Faust_. You are ten years too -late. In the same ten years Blanche Sweet has almost disappeared and -Mae Marsh has not arrived; Gishes and Talmadges and Swansons and other -fatalities have triumphed. You have taken over the stage and the opera; -you have filmed Caruso and Al Jolson, too, for all I know. You now have -acting and no playing. - -This is a matter of capital importance and I am willing to come closer -to a definition. Acting is the way of impersonating, of rendering -character, of presenting action which is suitable to the stage; it has, -in the first place, a specific relation to the size of the stage and to -that of the auditorium; it has also a second important relation to the -lines spoken. Good actors--they are few--will always suit the gesture -to the utterance in the sense that their gesture will be on the beat -of the words; failure to know this ruined several of John Barrymore’s -soliloquies in _Hamlet_. Neither of these two primary and determinant -circumstances affect the moving picture. It should be obvious that -if good acting is adapted to the stage, nothing less than a miracle -could make it also suitable to the cinema. The same thing is true of -opera, which is in a desperate state because it failed to develop a -type of representation adapted to musical instead of spoken expression. -Opera and the pictures both needed “playing”--by which I cover _other -forms_ of representation, of impersonation, characterization, without -identifying them. It is unlikely that opera and pictures require the -same kind of playing; but neither of them can bear acting. Chaplin, by -the way, is a player, not an actor--although we all think of him as -an actor because the distinction is tardily made. I should say that -Mae Marsh, too, was a player in _The Birth_. So was H. B. Warner in a -war play called _Shell 49_ (I am not sure of the figure); and there -have been others. I have never seen Conrad Veidt or Werner Kraus on -the stage; in _Caligari_ they were players, not actors. Possibly since -Kraus is considered the greatest of German actors, he acted so well -that he seemed to be playing. But that requires genius and the Gishes -have no genius. - -The emergence of Mary Pickford and the production of _The Birth of -a Nation_ make the years 1911–14 the critical time of the movies. -Nearly all your absurdities began about this time, including your -protest against the word movies as no longer suited to the dignity -of your art. From the success of _The Birth_ sprang the spectacle -film which was intrinsically all right and only corrupted Griffith -and the pictures because it was unintelligently handled thereafter. -From the success of Mary Pickford came the whole tradition of the -movie as a genteel intellectual entertainment. The better side is -the spectacle and the fact that in 1922 the whole mastery of the -spectacular film has passed out of your hands ought to be sufficient -proof that you bungled somewhere. Or, to drive it home, what can you -make of the circumstance that one of the very greatest successes, in -America and abroad, was _Nanook of the North_, a spectacle film to -which the producer and the artistic director contributed nothing--for -it was a picture of actualities, made, according to rumour, in the -interests of a fur-trading company? You will reply that my assertions -are pure theory. It is true that I have never filmed a scenario in my -life. But as a spectator I am the one who is hard headed and you the -theorists. What I and several million others know is that something -wrong crept into the spectacle film. We know absolutely that the -overblown idea of _Intolerance_ was foisted on the simple tale of _The -Mother and the Law_, and that while single episodes of this stupendous -picture were excellent, the whole failed of effect. In _The Birth_ -Mr Griffith had two stories with no perceptible internal relation, -but with sufficient personal interest to carry; even here not one -person in ten thousand saw the significance of the highfalutin title. -But after the time of _Intolerance_ Mr Griffith receded swiftly, and -his latest pictures are merely lavish. It is of no significance that -Mr Griffith treats Thomas Burke as though the latter were a great -writer instead of a good scenario writer; the prettifying of _Broken -Blossoms_ was so consistent, and the fake acting such good fake, that -the picture almost succeeded. Everywhere Mr Griffith now gives us -excesses--everything is big: the crowds, the effects, the rainstorms, -the ice floes, and everything is informed with an overwhelming dignity. -He has long ago ceased to create beauty--only beautiful effects, like -set pieces in fireworks. And he was the man destined by his curiosity, -his honesty, his intelligence, to reach the heights of the moving -picture. - -It is a hard thing to say, but it is literally true that something -in Mr Griffith has been corrupted and died--his imagination. _Broken -Blossoms_ was a last expiring flicker. Since then he has constructed -well; I understand that his success has been great; I am not denying -that Mr Griffith is the man to do _Ben-Hur_. But he has imagined -nothing on a grand scale, nor has he created anything delicate or fine. -People talk of _The Birth_ as if the battle scenes were important; -they were very good and a credit to Griffith, who directed, and to -George Bitzer, who photographed them; the direction of the ride of the -Klansmen was better, it had some imagination. And far better still was -a moment earlier in the piece, when Walthall returned to the shattered -Confederate home and Mae Marsh met him at the door, wearing raw cotton -smudged to resemble ermine--brother and sister both pretending that -they had forgotten their dead, that they didn’t care what happened. -And then--for the honours of the scene went to Griffith, not even to -the exquisite Mae Marsh--then there appeared from within the doorway -the arm of their mother and with a gesture of unutterable loveliness -it enlaced the boy’s shoulders and drew him tenderly into the house. -To have omitted the tears, to have shown nothing but the arm in that -single curve of beauty, required, in those days, high imagination. It -was the emotional climax of the film; one felt from that moment that -the rape and death of the little girl was already understood in the -vast suffering sympathy of the mother. So much Mr Griffith never again -accomplished; it was the one moment when he stood beside Chaplin as a -creative artist--and it was ten years ago. - -Of course if Griffith hasn’t come through there is hardly anything -to hope for from the others. Mr Ince always beat him in advertized -expenditure; Fox was always cheaper and easier and had Annette -Kellerman and did _The Village Blacksmith_. The logical outcome of -Griffithism is in the pictures he didn’t make: in _When Knighthood -Was in Flower_ and in _Robin Hood_, neither of which I could sit -through. The lavishness of these films is appalling; the camera runs -mad in everything but action, which dies a hundred deaths in as many -minutes. Of what use are sets by Urban if the action which occurs in -them is invisible to the naked eye? The old trick of using a crowd -as a background and holding the interest in the individual has been -lost; the trick of using the crowd as an individual hasn’t been found -because we must have our love story. The spectacle film is slowly -settling down to the level of the stereopticon slide. - -Comparison with German films is inevitable. They are as much on the -wrong track as we are; and the exception, _Caligari_, is defective -because in a proper attempt to relieve the camera from the burden of -recording actuality, the producers gave it the job of recording modern -paintings for background. The acting was, however, playing; and the -destruction of realism, even if it was accomplished by a questionable -expedient, will have much to do with the future of the film. Yet even -in the spectacle film the Germans managed to do something. _Passion_ -and _Deception_ and the Pharaoh film and the film made out of _Sumurun_ -were not lavish. And in the manipulation of material (not of the -instrument, where we know much more than they) there came occasionally -flashes of the real thing. In _Deception_ there was a scene where the -courtyard had to be cleared of an angry mob. Every American producer -has handled the parallel scene and every one in the same way, centring -in the mêlée between civilians and police. What Lubitsch did was -to form a single line of pike staffs and to show a solid mass of -crowd--the feeling of hostility was projected in the opposition of -line and mass. And slowly the _space behind_ the pike staffs opened. -The bright calm sunlight fell on a wider and widening strip of the -courtyard. One was hardly aware of struggle; all one saw was that -gradually broadening patch of open, uncontested _space in the light_. -And suddenly one knew that the courtyard was cleared, one seemed to -hear the faint murmur of the crowd outside, and then silence. I am -lost in admiration of this simplicity which involves _every correct -principle of the æsthetics of the moving picture_. The whole thing was -done with movement and light--the movement massed and the light on the -open space. That is the true, the imaginative camera technique, which -we failed to develop.[29] - -The object of that technique is _the indirect communication of -emotion_--indirect because that is the surest way, in all the arts, -of multiplying the degree of intensity. The American spectacle film -still communicates a thrill in the direct way of a highwayman with a -blackjack. But the American serious film drama communicates not even -this: it is at this moment entirely dead, or in other words, wholly -bogus. I may be wrong in thinking that our present position develops -out of the creation of Mary Pickford as a star. The result is the same. - -For as soon as the movie became “the silent drama” it took upon itself -responsibilities. It had to be dignified and artistic; it had to have -literature and actors and ideals. The simple movie plots no longer -sufficed, and stage and novel were called upon to contribute their -small share to the success of an art which seriously believed itself -to be the consummation of all the arts. The obligation remained to -choose only those examples which were suitable to the screen. It was, -however, not adaptability which guided the choice, but the great name. -Eventually everything was filmed because what couldn’t be adapted could -be spoiled. The degree of vandalism passes words; and what completed -the ruin was that good novels were spoiled not to make good films, -but to make bad ones. _Victory_ was a vile film in addition to being -a vulgar betrayal of Conrad; even the good Molnar with his exciting -second-rate play, _The Devil_, found himself so foully, so disgustingly -changed on the screen that the whole idea, not a great one, was lost -and nothing remained but a sentimental vulgarity which had no meaning -of its own, quite apart from any meaning of his. In each of these the -elements are the same: a psychological development through an action. -By corrupting the action the producers changed the idea; bad enough in -itself, they failed to understand what they were doing and supplied -nothing to take the place of what they had destroyed. The actual movies -so produced refused to project any consecutive significant action -whatsoever. - -It would be futile to multiply examples--as futile as to note that -there have been well-filmed novels and plays. The essential thing -is that nearly every picture made recently has borrowed something, -usually in the interest of dignity, gentility, refinement--and the -picture side, the part depending upon action before the camera, has -gone steadily down. Long subtitles explain everything except the lack -of action. Carefully built scenes are settings in which nothing takes -place. The climax arrives in the masterpieces of the de Mille school. -They are “art.” They are genteel. They offend nothing--except the -intelligence. High life in the de Mille manner is not recognizable as -decent human society, but it is refined, and the picture with it is -refined out of existence. Ten years earlier there was another type of -drama: the vamp, in short, and Theda Bara was its divinity. I have -little to say in its defense because it was unalterably stupid (I don’t -say I didn’t like it). But it wasn’t half so pretentious as the de -Mille social drama, and not half so vulgar. What it had to say, false -or banal or ridiculous, it said entirely with the camera. It appealed -to low passions and it truckled to imitative morality; there was in it -a sort of corruption. Yet one could resist that frank ugliness as one -can’t resist the polite falsehood of the new culture of the movies. - -It would be easy to exaggerate your failures. Your greatest mistake was -a natural one--in taking over the realistic theatre. You knew that a -photograph can reproduce actuality without significantly transposing -it, and you assumed that that was the duty of the film. But you forgot -that the rhythm of the film was creating something, and that this -creation adapted itself entirely to the projection of emotion by means -_not realistic_; that in the end the camera was as legitimately an -instrument of distortion as of reproduction. You gave us, in short, -the pleasure of _verification_ in every detail; the Germans who are -largely in the same tradition--they should have known better because -their theatre knew better--improved the method at times and counted -on significant detail. But neither of you gave us the pleasure of -_recognition_. Neither you nor they have taken the first step (except -in _Caligari_) toward giving us the highest degree of pleasure, that of -escaping actuality and entering into a created world, built on its own -inherent logic, keeping time in its own rhythm--where we feel ourselves -at once strangers and at home. That has been done elsewhere--not in the -serious film. - -I would be glad to temper all of this with praise: for Anita Loos’ -captions and John Emerson’s occasionally excellent direction; for -George Loane Tucker, for Monte Katterjohn’s flashes of insight into -what makes a scenario. I have liked many more films than I have -mentioned here. But you are familiar with praise and there remains -to say what you have missed. The moving picture when it became -pretentious, when it went upstage and said, “dear God, make me -artistic” at the end of its prayers, killed its imagination and -foreswore its popularity. At your present rate of progress you will in -ten years--if you survive--be no more a popular art than grand opera -is. You had in your hands an incalculable instrument to set free the -imagination of mankind--and the atrophy of our imaginative lives has -only been hastened by you. You had also an instrument of fantasy--and -you gave us Marguerite Clark in films no better than the “whimsy-me” -school of stage plays. Above all, you had something fresh and clean -and new; it was a toy and should have remained a toy--something for -our delight. You gave us problem plays. Beauty you neither understood -nor cared for; and although you talked much about art you never for a -moment tried to fathom the secret sources, nor to understand the secret -obligations, of art. - -Can you do anything now? I don’t know and I am indifferent to your -future--because there is a future for the moving picture with which you -will have nothing to do. I do not know if the movie of the future will -be popular--and to me it is the essence of the movie that it should be -popular. Perhaps there will be a period of semi-popularity--it will be -at this time that you will desert--and then the new picture will arrive -without your assistance. For when you and your capitalizations and your -publicity go down together, the field will be left free for others. -The first cheap film will startle you; but the film will grow less -and less expensive. Presently it will be within the reach of artists. -With players instead of actors and actresses, with fresh ideas (among -which the idea of making a lot of money may be absent) these artists -will give back to the screen the thing you have debauched--imagination. -They will create with the camera, and not record, and will follow its -pulsations instead of attempting to capture the rhythm of actuality. -It isn’t impossible to recreate exactly the atmosphere of Anderson’s -_I’m a Fool_; it isn’t impossible (although it may not be desirable) to -do studies in psychology; it is possible and desirable to create great -epics of American industry and let the machine operate as a character -in the play--just as the land of the West itself, as the corn must play -its part. The grandiose conceptions of Frank Norris are not beyond the -reach of the camera. There are painters willing to work in the medium -of the camera and architects and photographers. And novelists, too, -I fancy, would find much of interest in the scenario as a new way of -expression.[30] There is no end to what we can accomplish. - -The vulgar prettiness, the absurdities, the ignorances of your films -haven’t saved you. And although the first steps after you take -away your guiding hand may be feeble, although bogus artists and -culture-hounds may capture the movie for a time--in the end all will be -well. For the movie is the imagination of mankind in action--and you -haven’t destroyed it yet. - - - - - _Before a Picture by Picasso_ - - - - -BEFORE A PICTURE BY PICASSO - - For there are many arts, not among those we conventionally call - “fine,” which seem to me fundamental for living. - - HAVELOCK ELLIS. - - -It was my great fortune just as I was finishing this book to be taken -by a friend to the studio of Pablo Picasso. We had been talking on our -way of the lively arts; my companion denied none of their qualities, -and agreed violently with my feeling about the bogus, what we called -_le côté Puccini_. But he held that nothing is more necessary at the -moment than the exercise of discrimination, that we must be on our -guard lest we forget the major arts, forget even how to appreciate -them, if we devote ourselves passionately, as I do, to the lively ones. -Had he planned it deliberately he could not have driven his point home -more deeply, for in Picasso’s studio we found ourselves, with no more -warning than our great admiration, in the presence of a masterpiece. We -were not prepared to have an unframed canvas suddenly turned from the -wall and to recognize immediately that one more had been added to the -small number of the world’s greatest works of art. - -I shall make no effort to describe that painting. It isn’t even -important to know that I am right in my judgement. The significant and -overwhelming thing to me was that I held the work a masterpiece and -knew it to be contemporary. It is a pleasure to come upon an accredited -masterpiece which preserves its authority, to mount the stairs and -see the Winged Victory and _know_ that it is good. But to have the -same conviction about something finished a month ago, contemporaneous -in every aspect, yet associated with the great tradition of painting, -with the indescribable thing we think of as the high seriousness of art -and with a relevance not only to our life, but to life itself--that is -a different thing entirely. For of course the first effect--after one -had gone away and begun to be aware of effects--was to make one wonder -whether it is worth thinking or writing or feeling about anything else. -Whether, since the great arts are so capable of being practised to-day, -it isn’t sheer perversity to be satisfied with less. Whether praise of -the minor arts isn’t, at bottom, treachery to the great. I had always -believed that there exists no such hostility between the two divisions -of the arts which are honest--that the real opposition is between them, -allied, and the polished fake. To that position I returned a few days -later: it was a fortunate week altogether, for I heard the _Sacre du -Printemps_ of Strawinsky the next day, and this tremendous shaking of -the forgotten roots of being gave me reassurance. - -[Illustration: - - A PAINTING. By Pablo Picasso -] - -More than that, I am convinced that if one is going to live fully -and not shut oneself away from half of civilized existence, one must -care for both. It is possible to do well enough with either, and much -depends on how one derives pleasure from them. For no one imagines -that a pedant or a half-wit, enjoying a classic or a piece of ragtime, -is actually getting all that the subject affords. For an intelligent -human being knows that one difference between himself and the animals -is that he can “live in the mind”; to him there need be present no -conflict between the great arts and the minor; he will see, in the end, -that they minister to each other. - -Most of the great works of art have reference to our time only -indirectly--as they and we are related to eternity. And we require -arts which specifically refer to our moment, which create the image -of our lives. There are some twenty workers in literature, music, -painting, sculpture, architecture, and the dance who are doing this -for us now--and doing it in such a manner as to associate our modern -existence with that extraordinary march of mankind which we like -to call the progress of humanity. It is not enough. In addition to -them--in addition, not in place of them--we must have arts which, -we feel, are for ourselves alone, which no one before us could have -cared for so much, which no one after us will wholly understand. The -picture by Picasso could have been admired by an unprejudiced critic -a thousand years ago, and will be a thousand years hence. We require, -for nourishment, something fresh and transient. It is this which makes -jazz so much the characteristic art of our time and Jolson a more -typical figure than Chaplin, who also is outside of time. There must -be ephemera. Let us see to it that they are good. - -The characteristic of the great arts is high seriousness--it occurs -in Mozart and Aristophanes and Rabelais and Molière as surely as in -Æschylus and Racine. And the essence of the minor arts is high levity -which existed in the _commedia dell’arte_ and exists in Chaplin, which -you find in the music of Berlin and Kern (not “funny” in any case). It -is a question of exaltation, of carrying a given theme to the “high” -point. The reference in a great work of art is to something more -profound; and no trivial theme has ever required, or had, or been able -to bear, a high seriousness in treatment. Avoiding the question of -creative genius, what impresses us in a work of art is the intensity -or the pressure with which the theme, emotion, sentiment, even “idea” -is rendered. Assuming that a blow from the butt of a revolver is not -exactly artistic presentation, that “effectiveness” is not the only -criterion, we have the beginning of a criticism of æsthetics. We know -that the method does count, the creativeness, the construction, the -form. We know also that while the part of humanity which is fully -civilized will always care for high seriousness, it will be quick to -appreciate the high levity of the minor arts. There is no conflict. -The battle is only against solemnity which is not high, against -ill-rendered profundity, against the shoddy and the dull. - -I have allowed myself to catalogue my preferences; it is possible to -set the basis of them down in impersonal terms, in propositions: - - That there is no opposition between the great and the lively - arts. - - That both are opposed in the spirit to the middle or bogus arts. - - That the bogus arts are easier to appreciate, appeal to low and - mixed emotions, and jeopardize the purity of both the great and - the minor arts. - - That except in a period when the major arts flourish with - exceptional vigour, the lively arts are likely to be the most - intelligent phenomena of their day. - - That the lively arts as they exist in America to-day are - entertaining, interesting, and important. - - That with a few exceptions these same arts are more interesting - to the adult cultivated intelligence than most of the things - which pass for art in cultured society. - - That there exists a “genteel tradition” about the arts which - has prevented any just appreciation of the popular arts, and - that these have therefore missed the corrective criticism given - to the serious arts, receiving instead only abuse. - - That therefore the pretentious intellectual is as much - responsible as any one for what is actually absurd and vulgar - in the lively arts. - - That the simple practitioners and simple admirers of the lively - arts being uncorrupted by the bogus preserve a sure instinct - for what is artistic in America. - -And now a detour around two of the most disagreeable words in the -language: high- and low-brow. Pretense about these words and what -they signify makes all understanding of the lively arts impossible. -The discomfort and envy which make these words vague, ambiguous, -and contemptuous need not concern us; for they represent a real -distinction, two separate ways of apprehending the world, as if it were -palpable to one and visible to the other. In connexion with the lively -arts the distinction is clear and involves the third division, for -the lively arts are created and admired chiefly by the class known as -lowbrows, are patronized and, to an extent enjoyed, by the highbrows; -and are treated as impostors and as contemptible vulgarisms by the -middle class, those who invariably are ill at ease in the presence of -great art until it has been approved by authority, those whom Dante -rejected from heaven and hell alike, who blow neither hot nor cold, the -Laodiceans. - -Be damned to these last and all their tribe! There exists a small -number of people who care intensely for the major and the minor arts -and they are always being accused of “not caring really” for the lively -ones, of pretending to care, or of running away from “the ancient -wisdom and austere control” of Greek architecture or from the intense -passion of Dante, the purity of Bach, the great totality of what -humankind has created in art. It is claimed, and here the professional -lowbrow agrees, that these others _cannot_ care for the lively arts, -unless they romanticize them and find things in them which aren’t -there--at least not for the “real” patrons of those arts--those who -observe them without thinking about them. - -Aren’t they there, these secondary qualities? I take for example a -sport instead of an art. Nothing about baseball interests me except the -newspaper reports of the games, so I speak without prejudice. In the -days of Babe Ruth I took the sun in the bleachers once and saw that -heavy hitter do exactly what he had to do on his first appearance for -the day--a straight, businesslike home run, much appreciated by the -crowd, as any expert well-timed job is appreciated by Americans. The -game that day went against the Yankees; they were two runs behind in -the ninth, and with two men on base Ruth came up again. Again he hit a -home run. And the crowd roaring its joy in victory exhaled two sighs, -for the dramatic quality of the blow and for the lovely spiralling of -the ball in its flight over the fence. “A beauty--a beauty”--you heard -the expression a thousand times--and “He knows _when_ to hit them.” -They would have roared, too, if he had hit a single, which, muffed, -would have brought in the winning run. But they would not have said, -“a beauty”--and as far as I am concerned that is proof enough that -the appreciation of æsthetic qualities is universal. It isn’t, thank -Heaven, always put into words. - -Take as another instance the fame of the Rath Brothers. They are -acrobats who do difficult things, but there are others doing much the -same sort of thing without approaching the _réclame_ of these two. -Their appearance of ease is a delight; there is no strain, no swelling -muscles, no visible exploitation of strength. The Hellenic philosopher -who held that the arrow shot from the bow is never in motion, but at -rest from second to second at the succeeding points of its trajectory, -might have seen some ancient forerunners of these athletes, for each -of their movements seems at once a sculptured rest and a passage into -another pose. And that is precisely the quality which vaudeville and -revue audiences care for, and in a groping way recognize as distinctive -and fine. They may think that Greeks have been candy-vendors since the -beginning of time and that Marathon was a racecourse; but they _know_ -what they like. - -I do not see, therefore, that recognition of these aspects of the gay -arts can in any way detract from actual enjoyment--on the contrary it -adds. You see Charlie about to throw a mop; the boss enters; without -breaking the line of his movement Charlie swoops to the floor and -begins to scrub. The first, the essential thing, is the fun in the -dramatic turn; but what makes it funny is that there is no jerk, no -break in the line--the two things are so interwoven that you cannot -separate them. And if anyone were actually entirely unconscious of the -line, the fun would be lost; it would be Ham and Bud, not Charlie, -for such a spectator. The question is only to what degree one can be -conscious of it--for I have known intellectuals who so reduced Charlie -to angles that the angles no longer made them laugh. They have done the -same with Massine and Nijinsky; they have followed the score so closely -that they haven’t heard the music and they correspond exactly to the -man who bets on the game and doesn’t see the play. - -The life of the mind is supposed to be a terrible burden, ruining -all the pleasures of the senses. This idea is carefully supported by -“mental workers” (as they call themselves) and by the brainless. The -truth is, of course, that when the mind isn’t afflicted by a desire to -be superior, it does nothing but multiply all the pleasures, and the -intelligent spectator, in all conscience, feels and experiences more -than the dull one. To such a spectator the lively arts have a validity -of their own. He cares for them for themselves, and their relation to -the other arts does not matter. It is only because the place of the -common arts in decent society is always being called into question -that the answer needs to be given. I do not suppose that my answer is -final; but I feel sure that it must be given, as mine is, from the -outside.[31] - -It happens that what we call folk music, folk dance, and the folk arts -in general have only a precarious existence among us; the “reasons” are -fairly obvious. And the popular substitutes for these arts are so much -under our eyes and in our ears that we fail to recognize them as decent -contributions to the richness and intensity of our lives. The result, -strange as it may appear to devotees of culture, is that our major arts -suffer. The poets, painters, composers who withdraw equally from the -main stream of European tradition and from the untraditional natural -expressions of America, have no sources of strength, no material to -work with, no background against which they can see their shadows; they -feel themselves disinherited of the future as well as the past. - -At the same time the contempt we have for the lively arts hurts them -as much as it hurts us. We have all heard of the “great artist of the -speaking stage” who will not lower himself by appearing on the screen; -as familiar is the vaudevillian who will call himself an artist and has -hankerings for the legit; we have seen good dancers become bad actors, -good black-face comedians develop alarming tendencies toward singing -sentimental ballads in whisky-tenor voices, good comic-strip artists -beginning to do bad book illustrations. The “step upward” is never in -the direction of superior work, but toward a more rarefied acclaim. -They are like a notable novelist who has for years tried unsuccessfully -to write a failure, because he has only one standard of artistic -success: popularity--but in reverse. - -As these artists suffer under opprobrium and try to avoid it by -touching the field of the _faux bon_, their work becomes more and more -refined and genteel. The broadness, rough play, vitality, diminish -gradually until a sort of Drama League seriousness and church-sociable -good form are both satisfied. And all the more’s the pity, for the -thinning out of our lives goes on from day to day and these lively -arts are the only things which can keep us hard and robust and gay. -In America, where there is no recognized upper class to please, no -official academic requirements to meet, the one tradition of gentility -is as lethal as all the conventions of European society, and unlike -those of Europe our tradition provides no nourishment for the artist. -It is negative all the way through. - -In spite of gentility the lively arts have held to something a little -richer and gayer than the polite ones. They haven’t dared to be frank, -for a spurious sense of decency is backed by the police, and this -limitation has hurt them; but it has made them sharp and clever by -forcing their wit into deeper channels. There still exists a broadness -in slap-stick comedy and in burlesque, and once in a while vast figures -of Rabelaisian comedy occur. For the most part the lively arts are -inhibited by the necessity to provide “nice clean fun for the whole -family”--a regrettable, but inevitable penalty for their universal -appeal. For myself, I should like to see a touch more of grossness and -of license in these arts; it would be a sign that the blood hadn’t gone -altogether pale, and that we can still roar cheerfully at dirty jokes, -when they are funny. - -What Europeans feel about American art is exactly the opposite of -what they feel about American life. Our life is energetic, varied, -constantly changing; our art is imitative, anæmic (exceptions in both -cases being assumed). The explanation is that few Europeans see our -lively arts, which are almost secret to us, like the mysteries of a -cult. Here the energy of America does break out and finds artistic -expression for itself. Here a wholly unrealistic, imaginative -presentation of the way we think and feel is accomplished. No single -artist has yet been great enough to do the whole thing--but together -the minor artists of America have created the American art. And if -we could for a moment stop wanting our artistic expression to be -_necessarily_ in the great arts--it will be that in time--we should -gain infinitely. - -Because, in the first place, the lively arts have never had criticism. -The box-office is gross; it detects no errors, nor does it sufficiently -encourage improvement. Nor does abuse help. There is good professional -criticism in journals like _Variety_, _The Billboard_, and the -moving-picture magazines--some of them. But the lively arts can bear -the same continuous criticism which we give to the major, and if the -criticism itself isn’t bogus there is no reason why these arts should -become self-conscious in any pejorative sense. In the second place -the lively arts which require little intellectual effort will more -rapidly destroy the bogus than the major arts ever can. The close -intimacy between high seriousness and high levity, the thing that -brings together the extremes touching at the points of honesty and -simplicity and intensity--will act like the convergence of two armies -to squeeze out the bogus. And the moment we recognize in the lively -arts our actual form of expression, we will derive from them the same -satisfaction which people have always derived from an art which was -relevant to their existence. The nature of that satisfaction is not -easily described. One thing we know of it--that it is pure. And in the -extraordinarily confused and chaotic world we live in we are becoming -accustomed to demand one thing, if nothing else--that the elements -presented to us however they are later confounded with others, shall be -of the highest degree in their kind, of an impeccable purity. - - - - - _Appendices_ - - - - -APPENDIX TO “I AM HERE TO-DAY” - - -“The egregious merit of Chaplin,” says T. S. Eliot, “is that he has -escaped in his own way from the realism of the cinema and invented a -_rhythm_. Of course the unexplored opportunities of the cinema for -eluding realism must be very great.” - -It amused me once, after seeing _The Pawnshop_, to write down exactly -what had happened. Later I checked up the list, and I print it here. I -believe that Chaplin is so great on the screen, his effect so complete, -that few people are aware, afterward, of how much he has done. Nor can -they be aware of how much of Chaplin’s work is “in his own way”--even -when he does something which another could have done he adds to it -a touch of his own. I do not pretend that the following analysis is -funny; it may be useful: - -Charlot enters the pawnshop; it is evident that he is late. He compares -his watch with the calendar pad hanging on the wall, and hastily begins -to make up for lost time by entering the back room and going busily -to work. He takes a duster out of a valise and meticulously dusts his -walking-stick. Then proceeding to other objects, he fills the room with -clouds of dust, and when he begins to dust the electric fan, looking -at something else, the feathers are blown all over the room. He turns -and sees the plucked butt of the duster--and carefully puts it away for -to-morrow. - -With the other assistant he takes a ladder and a bucket of water -and goes out to polish the three balls and the shop sign. After some -horseplay he rises to the top of the ladder and reaches over to polish -the sign; the ladder sways, teeters, with Charlot on top of it. A -policeman down the street looks aghast, and sways sympathetically with -the ladder. Yet struggling to keep his balance, Charlot is intent on -his work, and every time the ladder brings him near the sign he dabs -frantically at it until he falls. - -A quarrel with his fellow-worker follows. The man is caught between the -rungs of the ladder, his arms imprisoned. Charlot calls a boy over to -hold the other end of the ladder and begins a boxing match. Although -his adversary is incapable of moving his arms, Charlot sidesteps, -feints, and guards, leaping nimbly away from imaginary blows. The -policeman interferes and both assistants run into the shop. By a toss -of a coin Charlot is compelled to go back to fetch the bucket. He -tiptoes behind the policeman, snatches the bucket, and with a wide -swing and a swirling motion evades the policeman and returns. He is -then caught by the boss in another fight and is discharged. - -He makes a tragic appeal to be reinstated. He says he has eleven -children, so high, and so high, and so high--until the fourth one is -about a foot taller than himself. The boss relents only as Charlot’s -stricken figure is at the door. As he is pardoned, Charlot leaps upon -the old boss, twining his legs around his abdomen; he is thrown off -and surreptitiously kisses the old man’s hand. He goes into the kitchen -to help the daughter and passes dishes through the clothes wringer to -dry them--passes a cup twice, as it seems not to be dry the first time. -Then his hands. The jealous assistant provokes a fight; Charlot has a -handful of dough and is about to throw it when the boss appears. With -the same motion Charlot flings the dough into the wringer, passes it -through as a pie crust, seizes a pie plate, trims the crust over it, -and goes out to work. - -At the pawnshop counter pass a variety of human beings. Charlot is -taken in by a sob story about a wedding ring; he tries to test the -genuineness of goldfish by dropping acid on them. Sent to the back -room, he takes his lunch out of the safe, gets into another fight, in -which he is almost beating his rival to death when the girl enters. -Charlot falls whimpering to the floor and is made much of. He returns -to the counter and the episode of the clock begins. - -A sinister figure enters, offering a clock in pawn. Charlot looks at -it; then takes an auscultator and listens to its heart-beat; then taps -it over crossed fingers for its pulmonary action; then taps it with a -little hammer to see the quality, as with porcelain; then snaps his -thumb on the bell. He takes an augur and bores a hole in it; then a -can-opener, and when he has pried the lid off he smells the contents -and with a disparaging gesture makes the owner smell them, too. He -then does dentistry on it, with forceps; then plumbing. Finally he -screws a jeweler’s magnifying glass into his eye and hammers what is -left in the clock, shakes out the contents, measures the mainspring -from the tip of his nose to arm’s length, like cloth, squirts oil on -the debris to keep it quiet, and, lifting the man’s hat from his head, -sweeps the whole mess into it and returns it with a sad shake of the -head. - -A pearl-buyer has meanwhile come in and Charlot retraces his steps to -the back room (carefully stepping over the buyer’s hat) and begins -to sweep. His broom becomes entangled with a piece of tape, which -fights back and gets longer and longer. Suddenly Charlot begins to -tight-rope upon it, balancing with the broom, and making a quick turn, -coming forward for applause. A final quarrel with the other assistant -ensues. As they are swarming round the legs of the kitchen table, the -boss comes in and Charlot flees, leaps into a trunk, and is hidden. -As the others enter the room, the pearl-buyer, who has stolen all the -valuables, holds them up with a revolver. Charlot leaps from the trunk, -fells the robber, and embraces the lovely maiden for a fade-out. - -All of this takes about thirty minutes. I have put down nearly -everything, for Chaplin is on the scene virtually all of the time. I am -fairly certain that ninety per cent. of this film could not have been -made, even badly, by anyone else. Analysis of _A Dog’s Life_ would -give the same result: the arrival at the climax being a little more -certain and the drama of the climax (the curtain scene--compared with -the clock scene above) being more involved in the course of action. - -Here follows a complete list of all of the pictures in which Charlie -Chaplin has appeared--all of those officially recognized by him: - - _Keystone_--1914: Making a Living, Mabel’s Strange Predicament, - The Kid Auto Racers, His Favorite Pastime, The Film Johnny, - The Cruel Cruel Love, The Dogcatcher, Mabel at the Wheel, The - Star Boarder, Twenty Minutes of Love, Caught in the Rain, - Tillie’s Punctured Romance, The Rounders, The Knockout, Caught - in the Cabaret, A Gentleman of Nerve, Mabel’s Busy Day, Mabel’s - Married Life, Dough & Dynamite, His Trysting Place, Laughing - Gas, His Prehistoric Past, Half Reel--Scenic Yosemite Valley. - - _Essanay Film Company_--1915–16: His New Job, A Night Out, - The Champion, The Tramp, The Jitney Elopement, In the Park, - By the Sea, The Woman, The Bank, Work, A Night in the Show, - Shanghaied, Carmen, Police. - - _Mutual Film Company_--1916–17: The Floorwalker, The Fireman, - The Vagabond, One A. M., The Count, Behind the Screen, The - Rink, The Pawnshop, Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, The - Adventurer. - - _First National_--1918–23: Shoulder Arms, Sunnyside, The Idle - Class, Pay Day, A Dog’s Life, The Kid, A Day’s Pleasure, The - Pilgrim. - - - - -“BANANAS” AND OTHER SONGS - - -It was not my happiness to have heard _Yes; We Have No Bananas_ first -in America: and to understand phenomena one must know them in their -natural setting. The phrase itself was created, or brought to notice, -by Tad; as I have said in my wholly inadequate reference to his work, -he is a master of slang and a creator of it; some acknowledgment to -him might well appear on the cover of the song. His use of it was -immeasurably more delicate and more amusing than the song, because -he used it as a contradiction of all the blah and high-hat nonsense -in the world; it is in his hands fantastic, funny, and impertinently -pertinent. In the song I can’t see it; nor am I exceptionally taken -with the music, which is largely synthetic. - -However, if I cannot understand the success of the song (or -misunderstand it, for it seems to me to be “merely” popular) there are -those who understand better. I do not think that my quite secondary -powers of analysis would have risen to the following, by J. W. T. -Mason, correspondent of the London _Daily Express_, in New York: - - New York slang usually changes monthly. Of late there has been - a falling off in inspiration, and picturesque argot culled from - the city’s polyglot interminglings has fallen sadly behind New - York’s quick-witted reputation. At last, however, after months - of waiting a creative effort has been made, and one of the most - effective phrases descriptive of life in New York has resulted. - - One hears it on the stage, in the drawing-room, in the kitchen, - on the streets, everywhere: “Yes; we have no bananas.” A song - has been written about it, and is the musical rage of the - moment. - - Cardboard imitations of bunches of bananas are making their - appearance bearing the legend, “Yes; we have no bananas.” - Business men hang these ornaments in their offices, as a - reminder that, after all, there must be a way out of every - difficulty. The phrase originated in the fruit shops kept in - New York by Greeks, Italians, and Jews, whose knowledge of the - English language is limited in verbiage, but not in volubility, - nor in willingness to try. - - These ancient races come to the New World for profit, and - never like to turn a customer away. So they have evolved a - curious positive and negative for the same sentence. Why the - slangmakers hit on bananas has not been discovered. It might as - well have been any other commodity. But the phrase means that - one having asked for bananas in a fruit shop where there are - none, the anxious proprietor, seeking to be ingratiating and - not desiring to displease, answers: ‘Yes; we have no bananas.’ - Thereupon he may seek to sell a cabbage or a bunch of beets - instead, since most fruit shops in New York are vegetable - establishments as well. - - The phrase is a tribute to the optimism of the newly arrived - immigrant; to his earnest fight to master the language of his - temporary country, and so, somehow, is supposed to take on the - American characteristic of “getting there,” even though by way - of an affirmative in a negative sentence. - -It is, I believe, a generation at least since the English began to say -“Yes I don’t think.” And they talk about the cable having brought the -two countries closer together. O God! O Montreal! - - -AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF THE SONGS WRITTEN BY IRVING BERLIN - - When I Lost You - When I Leave the World Behind - Alexander’s Ragtime Band - Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning - (From _Yip-Yip-Yap-hank_) - Everybody’s Doing It - I Want to Go Back to Michigan - Ragtime Violin - When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam’ - Mysterious Rag - Yiddle, On Your Fiddle - My Wife’s Gone to the Country - That Mesmerizing Mendelssohn Tune - Kiss Me - Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon - Grizzly Bear - I Want to Be in Dixie - Keep Away from the Fellow Who Owns an Automobile - International Rag - In My Harem - Snooky-Ookums - Somebody’s Coming to My House - You’ve Got Your Mother’s Big Blue Eyes - Araby - My Bird of Paradise - This Is the Life - They’re on Their Way to Mexico - He’s a Devil in His Own Home Town - He’s a Rag-picker - Along Came Ruth - Sadie Salome, Go Home - Wild Cherry - Next to Your Mother Who Do You Love - Sweet Italian Love - Piano Man - When I’m Alone I’m Lonesome - Ragtime Soldier Boy - Goody - Goody - Goody - Goody - Good - Pullman Porters on Parade - At the Devil’s Ball - Old Maids’ Ball - San Francisco Bound - If You Don’t Want Me, Why Do You Hang Around - Down in Chattanooga - When It’s Night Time Down in Dixieland - If That’s Your Idea of a Wonderful Time, Take Me Home - { The Hula-Hula - { Girl on the Magazine Cover - { I Love a Piano - { The Ragtime Melodrama - { When I Get Back to the U. S. A. - (From Stop! Look! and Listen!) - I’m Gonna Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind - Settle Down in a One-Horse Town - (From Watch Your Step) - Mandy - (From Ziegfeld Follies) - A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody - (From Ziegfeld Follies) - Some One Else May Be There While I’m Gone - My Sweetie - Good-bye, France - The Hand That Rocked My Cradle Rules My Heart - I’ve Got My Captain Working for Me Now - You’d Be Surprised - If I’d Have My Way - (I’d Be a Farmer) - Nobody Knows and Nobody Seems to Care - I Never Knew - Homesick - All by Myself - Some Sunny Day - When You Walked Out - MUSIC BOX REVUE, 1922: - Say It With Music - Everybody Step - MUSIC BOX REVUE, 1923: - Lady of the Evening - Crinoline Days - Pack Up Your Sins - - -GOOD-BYE TO DEAR OLD ALASKA - -By John Murray Anderson and Irving Cæsar - - The scene it is Alaska and beneath the setting sun - We see a brave young miner toiling there. - He’s thinking of the home folks and when his day’s work is done, - To a humble little shack he doth repair. - He’s dreaming of the happy days - When he was but a boy, - The places he frequented long ago; - On memories’ wings he flies again to his dear mother’s knee. - ’Tis then we hear him whisper soft and low. - - REFRAIN - - Good-bye to dear old Alaska. - I’m going across the sea, - Back to the dear old home land, - My country, the land of the free. - I can picture a love nest at twilight - Where the old folks for me sit and pine, - So good-bye, Alaska, for I’m going home - To that old-fashioned mother of mine. - - Once again the scene is changed, he’s on a special train - And lands down at the Battery safe and sound. - He wends his way on Broadway and on every side again - The old familiar faces can be found. - - He lingers but a moment as he passes City Hall, - And there he hears the national anthem sung, - And just to prove he’s Yankee, aye, Yankee through and through, - He sings the chorus in his native tongue. - - --Sung by Jack Hazzard in “The Greenwich Village - Follies,” with dissolving views by Walter Hoban. - - -HEAVEN WILL PROTECT THE WORKING GIRL - -Words by Edgar Smith. Music by A. Baldwin Sloane. Copyright, 1909, by -Charles K. Harris. British copyright secured. - - A village maid was leaving home, with tears her eyes were wet. - Her mother dear was standing near the spot; - She says to her: “Neuralgia dear, I hope you won’t forget - That I’m the only mother you have got. - The city is a wicked place, as any one can see, - And cruel dangers ’round your path may hurl; - So ev’ry week you’d better send your wages back to me, - For Heaven will protect a working girl. - - CHORUS - - “You are going far away, but remember what I say, - When you are in the city’s giddy whirl, - From temptations, crimes, and follies, villains, taxicabs and - trolleys, - Oh! Heaven will protect the working girl.” - - Her dear old mother’s words proved true, for soon the poor girl met - A man who on her ruin was intent; - He treated her respectful as those villains always do, - And she supposed he was a perfect gent. - - But she found different when one night she went with him to dine - Into a table d’hôte so blithe and gay. - And he says to her: “After this we’ll have a demi-tasse!” - Then to him these brave words the girl did say: - - CHORUS - - “Stand back, villain; go your way! here I will no longer stay, - Although you were a marquis or an earl; - You may tempt the upper classes with your villainous demi-tasses, - But Heaven will protect the working girl.” - - - - -APPENDIX TO “THESE, TOO ...” - - -I cannot write about Eva Tanguay--not in the way of Aleister Crowley, -at any rate. Here are fragments from his appreciation: - - Eva Tanguay! It is the name which echoed in the Universe when - the Sons of the Morning sang together and shouted for joy, and - the stars cried aloud in their courses! I have no words to - hymn her glory, nay, not if I were Shelley and Swinburne and - myself in one--I must write of her in cold prose, for any art - of mine would be but a challenge; I rather make myself passive - and still, that her divine radiance may be free to illumine the - theme. Voco! per nomen nefandum voco. Te voco! Eva veni! - - Eva Tanguay is the soul of America as its most desperate - eagle-flight. Her spirit is tense and quivering, like - the violin of Paganini in its agony, or like an arrow of - Artemis--it is my soul that she hath pierced! - - The American Genius is unlike all others. The “cultured” - artist, in this country, is always a mediocrity. Longfellow, - Bryant, Emerson, Washington Irving, Hawthorne, a thousand - others, all prove that thesis.... - - Eva Tanguay is the perfect American artist. She is alone. She - is the Unknown Goddess. She is ineffably, infinitely sublime; - she is starry chaste in her colossal corruption. In Europe - men obtain excitement through Venus, and prevent Venus from - freezing by invoking Bacchus and Ceres, as the poet bids. But - in America sex-excitement has been analyzed; we recognize it to - be merely a particular case of a general proposition, and we - proceed to find our pleasure in the wreck of the nervous system - as a whole, instead of a mere section of it. The daily rush of - New York resembles the effect of Cocaine; it is a universal - stimulation, resulting in a premature general collapse; and - Eva Tanguay is the perfect artistic expression of this. She is - Manhattan, most loved, most hated, of all cities, whose soul - is a Delirium beyond Time and Space. Wine? Brandy? Absinthe? - Bah! such mother-milk is for the babes of effete Europe; we - know better. Drunkenness is a silly partial exaltation, feeble - device of most empirical psychology; it cannot compare with - the adult, the transcendental delights of pure madness.... - Why titillate one poor nerve? why not excite all together? - Leave sentiment to Teutons, passion and romance to Latins, - spirituality to Slavs; for us is cloudless, definite, - physiological pleasure! - - Eva Tanguay is--exactly and scientifically--this Soul of - America. She steps upon the stage, and I come into formal - consciousness of myself in accurate detail as the world - vanishes. She absorbs me, not romantically, like a vampire, - but definitely, like an anæsthetic, soul, mind, body, with - her first gesture. She is not dressed voluptuously, as - others dress; she is like the hashish dream of a hermit - who is possessed of the devil. She cannot sing, as others - sing; or dance, as others dance. She simply keeps on - vibrating, both limbs and vocal chords without rhythm, tone, - melody, or purpose. She has the quality of Eternity; she is - metaphysical motion. She eliminates repose. She has my nerves, - sympathetically irritated, on a razor-edge which is neither - pleasure nor pain, but sublime and immedicable stimulation. I - feel as if I were poisoned by strychnine, so far as my body - goes; I jerk, I writhe, I twist, I find no ease; and I know - absolutely that no ease is possible. For my mind, I am like one - who has taken an overdose of morphine and, having absorbed the - drug in a wakeful mood, cannot sleep, although utterly tired - out. And for my soul? Oh! Oh!--Oh! “Satan prends pitié de ma - longue misère!” Other women conform to the general curve of - Nature, to the law of stimulation followed by exhaustion; and - by recuperation after rest. Not so she, the supreme abomination - of Ecstasy! She is perpetual irritation without possibility - of satisfaction, an Avatar of sex-insomnia. Solitude of the - Soul, the Worm that dieth not; ah, me! She is the Vulture - of Prometheus, and she is the Music of Mitylene. She is the - one perfect Artist in this way of Ineffable Grace which is - Damnation. Marie Lloyd in England, Yvette Guilbert in France, - are her sisters in art: but they both promise Rest in the end. - The rest of Marie Lloyd is sleep, and that of Yvette Guilbert - death; but the lovers of Eva Tanguay may neither sleep nor die. - I could kill myself at this moment for the wild love of her.... - -And so on--until French intervenes. - - - - -THE KRAZY KAT BALLET - - -Mr John Alden Carpenter has been good enough to permit me to reprint -the programme note attached to his ballet of Krazy Kat, performed -Friday, January 20, 1922, at the Town Hall, in New York, and several -times thereafter. The piano transcription of the score, decorated with -many attractive designs by Herriman, is published. The note is: - - To all lovers of Mr Herriman’s ingenious and delightful - cartoons it must have seemed inevitable that sooner or later - Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse would be dragged by some composer - into music. I have tried to drag them not only into music but - on to the stage as well, by means of what I have called, for - obvious reasons, a Jazz Pantomime. - - To those who have not mastered Mr Herriman’s psychology it - may be explained that Krazy Kat is the world’s greatest - optimist--Don Quixote and Parsifal rolled into one. It is - therefore possible for him to maintain constantly at white heat - a passionate affair with Ignatz Mouse, in which the gender of - each remains ever a delightful mystery. Ignatz, on the other - hand, condenses in his sexless self all the cardinal vices. - If Krazy blows beautiful bubbles, Ignatz shatters them; if - he builds castles in Spain, Ignatz is there with a brick. In - short, he is meaner than anything, and his complex is cats. - - After a few introductory bars the curtain is raised and Krazy - is discovered asleep under a tree. Officer Pup passes, swinging - his club. All is well. Then comes Bill Poster, a canine - relative of Officer Pup, with his bucket and brush, and pastes - upon the wall an announcement of the grand ball which will - shortly be given for all the animals. The job finished, Bill - departs. - - Krazy wakes up; he rubs his eyes and reads the exciting - poster. He is moved to try his steps; he finds his feet heavy - and numerous. Of a sudden he spies on a clothes line which - the moving scenery has brought into view, a _ballet skirt_. - Undoubtedly it is his costume for the ball. He approaches - the clothes line, first with restraint, then with eagerness. - He snatches the skirt from the line, claps it on, and comes - bounding forward in high abandon. - - He is interrupted by the appearance of Old Joe Stork, drilling - by with his bundle on his back. He passes on, but he has - carelessly dropped his pack. Krazy sniffs at it, filled with - curiosity. He picks it up and carries it triumphantly to his - tree in the corner. He opens the bundle, and finds that it - contains not what you thought it would, but a vanity case, - mirror, rouge, powder-puff, lip-stick and all, complete, - including a beautiful pair of white cotton gloves. - - He abandons himself to the absorbing task of make-up for the - ball. Meanwhile the moving scenery has brought into view - the house of Ignatz Mouse. The door opens, and Ignatz’ head - appears. Opportunity has knocked. The Mouse steals forward and - is about to seize an inviting brick when Officer Pup (thank - heaven!) arrives in the very nick of time and drives him from - the scene. The unsuspecting Kat, in the meantime, has completed - his make-up. He now arises, draws on his white cotton gloves, - and then by way of further preparatory exercise, he indulges in - a bit of a Spanish dance. - - At its conclusion Krazy is suddenly confronted by the - _Mysterious Stranger_. The sophisticated audience will observe - that it is none other than Ignatz disguised as a catnip - merchant. Very formidable indeed! The Stranger steps briskly - forward and holds out to the ever-receptive Kat a bouquet--an - enormous bouquet of catnip. Krazy plunges his nose into the - insidious vegetable, inhales deeply to the very bottom of his - lungs, and then goes off at once into what Mr Herriman calls a - _Class A fit_. It is a fit progressive, a fit _de luxe_, the - Katnip Blues, in which the wily Ignatz joins as additional - incitement. When the frenzy has achieved its climax, the - Mouse throws off his disguise, seizes his brick, dashes it - full in the face of the Kat, and escapes. Krazy staggers back, - stunned and exhausted, but yet undaunted. There is the moment - of ecstatic recognition--Ignatz Dahlink--as he totters and - reels back to his little tree. He sinks down wearily under its - protecting boughs. The moon comes out. Krazy sleeps. Krazy - dreams. Indominatable Kat! - - - - -FURTHER NOTE ON THE FRATELLINI - - -The Fratellini are so ingenious and so full of surprises that it is -useless to try to keep up with them. I have seen them a dozen times -since first writing about them, sometimes three times in a week with -a still growing delight. Some of the stunts demand to be mentioned. -There is one as good as the photographer--it is based on the idea that -a saxophone player who cannot play the saxophone, is engaged because -he has a starving family; another, concealed in a box, does the actual -playing in the test before the manager of the house. The complications -can easily be guessed; but it is impossible to guess the combination of -delicacy and uproariousness with which they are rendered. At the end of -this act Alberto, the grotesque with the square painted windows over -his eyes, hides in a sack and you have one of the everlasting sources -of children’s humour carried to its supreme conclusion. Still another -stunt is a dancing act, first as a burlesque of ballet, and then as -a straight tango, with Francesco as a rather wicked old dowager in a -green dress, and Alberto with complete facial make-up, but otherwise -extremely chic, dancing exquisitely. Finally, I mention another -entrance, superior to the one described in the text. Francesco, very -much the English gentleman, arrives on the scene, followed by his two -servants, Paulo and Alberto, the former with a ludicrous exaggeration -of the Englishman’s travelling rug, the latter with a wicker hamper -of unimaginable proportions. As these two stagger after their master -he tries to get out, as if he had come into the wrong place. Finally -he addresses himself to an attendant, at the same time ordering his -servants to drop their impedimenta. Before these two have time to light -cigarettes, Francesco is off again, they must lift the huge burdens -and follow him; again he orders them to discharge and enters into -conversation; and this goes on until it works itself into a fury, the -master always walking in one direction while the servants are so far -behind him that they are walking in the opposite one. The human basis -of the event, the skill with which it is done, and the intensity of -it, are combined to make a miracle. At the end Alberto is so exhausted -that he sees visions and begins to fight a duel with his own shadow; he -leaps back, guards, and finally falls upon it and beats it to death. - -It may not be inappropriate to mention here the name of another clown -also appearing, although not regularly, at the Medrano. He is one of -the three Oréas, the other two being quite exceptional acrobats on -the trapeze. The clown Oréas does not create as the Fratellini do; he -parodies acrobatics and uses an amazingly physical adaptability for -immense fun. To be sure he falls off and on the bars; but he is also -capable of mounting a ladder in a series of march steps, and of missing -the support, as he swings from the bar, sliding round it with his arm -on the upright, and slipping down on his bottom, in a movement of -great grace. His little trick of taking a glass full of beer out of his -pocket at the end of each tumble is not new, but he does it extremely -well, and he has the sense of gait as well as the sense of costume and -impression. - - - - -THE CINEMA NOVEL - - -It begins to look as if we will have to find a new explanation for the -French. Since that would be difficult, I suggest that we hold fast to -the old one, with variations. Let us continue to say that they are -moribund and explain any outburst of activity as a death struggle. -The last gasp. History provides plenty of precedent, and we who find -pleasant things in their art and letters will rank ourselves with those -cultivated persons who cannot begin to care for Latin until it becomes -a highly corrupt language. - -I do not know whether seeing new opportunities and developing them -quickly are the best signs of degeneracy, for I seem to remember -reading about these things in the advertisements, where nothing as -irrevocable as degeneracy is permitted. The adaptability of the moving -picture scenario to something besides moving pictures was a thing -easy to guess; the thing has been done in both America and England in -burlesque of the films--an adaptation requiring and receiving very -little intelligence. - -It may be slightly beside the point, but it is interesting to note that -the cinema influence in literature in France is almost exactly opposite -to what it is here. There it seems to make for brevity, hardness, -clarity, brilliance. You will find it in the extraordinary stories of -Paul Morand and Louis Aragon; and you will find in neither of these -those characteristic sloppinesses which American authors are beginning -to blame on the movies. If they would take the trouble of studying the -pictures, instead of trying to make money out of them, and discover the -elements in the cinema technique which are capable of making their own -work fruitful, we might have better novels, and we certainly would have -a few less bad pictures. - -Two Frenchmen have, at the same time, used the scenario as a method of -fiction, and each of them has written a highly ironic piece which is -capable of being transferred to the film, but which reads sufficiently -well to be considered as an end in itself. - -Blaise Cendrars, poet, responsible for the _Anthologie Nègre_, is the -author of _La Fin du Monde_ and of _La Perle Fièvreuse_; the second of -these is running as a serial in a Belgian magazine, _Signaux_. Both -are called Novels; the third instalment of _The Pearl_ adding the word -cinematographic. _The End of the World_ is a cosmic cinema-novel in -fifty-five swift, concisely told scenes. - -It deals with a sort of deity, resident on a planet accessible to all -the mechanical comforts of this earth, who is induced to travel to Mars -as a propagandist for his own religion. Like many propagandists he errs -in his psychology and, in a Billy Sunday frenzy of the imagination, -shows the Martians all the cruelties his religion is capable of. Too -late he learns that “the Martians are disillusioned and confirmed -pacifists, iodophages living on the peptonic vapours of human blood, -but incapable of bearing the sight of the least cruelty.” The mission -failing, he decides to make good on certain prophecies uttered in his -name. The following scenes are left a little in the air; continuity -is lacking. One begins again with the sculptured angel on Notre Dame -blowing a blast on her trumpet and the whole world rushing towards -Paris and crumbling into dust. Thereafter, with the aid of retarded and -accelerated projection, we see the world slowly dissolving into its -elements, through those stages so graphically presented to us by H. G. -Wells. There is chaos, and then annihilation. - -And then, by an accident in the projection room, the film begins to -reverse and so, naturally, one gropes upward out of the slime and -returns to the first scene--to which is added the single phrase “It’s -bankruptcy.” It opens with the deity “at his American (roll-top) desk. -He hastily signs innumerable letters. He is in his shirt sleeves with -a green eye-shade on his forehead. He rises, lights a big cigar, looks -at his watch, strides nervously up and down the room.... He makes notes -on his pad and blows away the ash which falls from his cigar between -the leaves. Suddenly he snatches the telephone and begins to ’phone -furiously....” - -That is American movie technique which M Cendrars has evidently learned -all too well, because he uses it, in all its tedious detail, in _La -Perle Fièvreuse_, for which he is publishing not a scenario but a -director’s script, with the cutbacks and visions and close-ups all -numbered and marked. It is in the manner of the old Biograph movies -with what may turn out to be not such innocent fun at the expense of -the detective film. Among its characters are Max Trick, director of -Trick’s Criminal Courier, the great daily which specializes in criminal -news. He is marked “Type: le President Taft” and is first shown in -his office with twenty-five telephones in front of him; among his -collaborators are Nick Carter and Arsène Lupin, Conan Doyle and Maurice -Leblanc. - -What Jules Romains has accomplished is much more remarkable, for he has -pushed the method of the cinema forward a long and significant step, -and, while using everything it can give, he has produced a first class -work of fiction. The plot of _Donogoo-Tonka_ you will see at once, is -entirely suitable to filming; it is not perhaps suitable to commercial -success, but that can be, if it isn’t, another matter. - -It begins in Paris with the unfortunate Lamendin, who is about to -commit suicide. A friend gives him a card with the legend: “Before -committing suicide ... don’t fail to read the other side,” and on the -reverse is the advertisement of Professor Miguel Rufisque, director -of the Institute of Biometric Psychotherapy, who guarantees to give -you, within seven days, a violent love of life. Lamendin goes to the -consulting room and after a fantastic examination is given certain -instructions which eventually land him in the library of Prof. Yves -Trouhadec, a geographer. Trouhadec would be certain of election to the -Geographic Institute if he hadn’t, many years before, placed on a map -of South America the wholly imaginary town of Donogoo-Tonka, in the -gold-mining area. Lamendin now proposes to float a company, start an -expedition, and insure the Professor’s election by actually creating -the place. - -In the second reel Donogoo-Tonka is launched; in the third we have -adventurers in all parts of the world preparing to rush the gold -fields, while Lamendin tarries at home making fake moving pictures of -the place. At the end of the reel the adventurers have penetrated into -the heart of the South American desert and, too wearied to go forward, -aware of the deception practised upon them, encamp where they are. -Derisively they call the place Donogoo-Tonka. - -Later, a second group of adventurers comes. They are disappointed in -the look of the place. But they are interested to hear that gold is -being found; and while Lamendin at last sets sail, the Donogoo-Tonka -Central Bar and the London & Donogoo-Tonka’s Splendid Hotel are going -up; it is obviously the intention of the earlier arrivals to mulct the -later. - -And then, of course, gold really is found in the river bed and the -price of all provisions goes up fifty per cent. - -Regrettably, _en voyage_, Lamendin tells his pioneers that Donogoo -does not exist. On his arrival at Rio de Janeiro he receives a cable -from the Professor, demanding immediate results; and as he turns in -despair he reads the announcement by Agence Meyer-Kohn, of the next -caravan to the gold fields of Donogoo-Tonka. He arrives; he takes -possession; he founds an empire, in which the religion of Scientific -Error is established. Trouhadec, still living, is deified; he becomes -Trouhadec, Father of his Country. The utility of geography is one of -the prescribed subjects for public lectures. - -That is a slightly more intelligent plot than most of the adventure -things one sees in the movies. It is in the detail and in the -presentation of an _idea_, the idea of scientific error, that M Romains -has pressed beyond the professional technique of the moving picture -without once exceeding its natural limitations. For instance in the -waiting room where Lamendin sits with the other would-be suicides: - -“Absurdity, given off by so many brains, becomes palpable. One begins -to distinguish a sort of very subtle exhalation which disengages itself -from the human bodies and little by little charges the atmosphere.” -The settings in this scene are very much in the manner of _Caligari_. -Or there is the debate in the soul of Professor Trouhadec who knows -that he will profit by a fraud. From the beginning the spectator must -realize that the debate is only on the surface; that in his heart -Trouhadec is going to accept; the spectator is to see him thinking of -truth with a capital T and, much deeper down, of himself as a member -of the Institute. Just as in the exploitation of Donogoo-Tonka we -see a man coming up the steps of a subway station with the words -Donogoo-Tonka written on every step; until, as he emerges, his skull -ceases to be opaque, and we see the twelve little letters dancing in -his brain. M Romains has even carried the thing over into Keystone -farce, so sure is he of his medium. During one of the lectures “his -eloquence is so persuasive, his thought opens such penetrating channels -into human nature that, little by little, little by little, a soft down -begins to sprout on the bald head” of a man in the audience. _Ça c’est -du Cinema_, as M Cendrars says. - -M Romains has also a complete understanding of projection. He protests, -in a preface, against the monotonous speeding-up of pictures and -urges that this one be taken and shown in the rhythm of ordinary -life, with a shading toward slow, especially in the scenes “where the -only events which pass before us are the thoughts of the characters” -(required reading for Mr Griffith and Mr de Mille for one year is in -those words). In the scenes which exploit the shares in Donogoo-Tonka -we enter into the minds of individuals, of groups, of crowds; at the -end the very framework of a building succumbs to the madness of the -idea. And then, with a technical mastery not yet put into practise, -M Romains directs that the various scenes just projected be shown -again, side by side, with a gradually accelerated rhythm. In the scenes -of the adventurers we get glimpses at Marseilles, London, Naples, -Porto, Singapore, San Francisco; then we see the groups starting out; -the lines of their voyage converge. These scenes are projected first -in succession and then _simultaneously_. Each time we see them we -recognize some of the individuals we have seen before. “And when by -chance the faces are turned towards us, we have a feeling that they, -too, recognize us.” The cinema has not yet accomplished that; chiefly, -I fancy, because it never has been asked to. - -M Romains is the prophet of _unanisme_, and it would be remarkable -if he did not use the moving picture to push his point. The end of -Donogoo-Tonka is pure poetry. - -The horizon has receded before the Palace and the chief figures look -out into a light which has its own laws. Paris appears deep in the -background. “But so close, perhaps, that we are troubled to see it and -would like to fall back a step. - -“As if, yielding to friendly pressure, the world has renounced for one -evening its concept of space and all its habits.” - - - - -ACKNOWLEDGMENTS - - -I owe so much to others in connexion with this book that if I were to -set down the names and the reasons it would appear, quite properly, -that I have done little except collect and theorize about material -presented to me; it might also appear that I wish to make others -responsible. Virtually everyone I know has contributed something--and -in many cases they did so before I had thought of writing this book. -I can therefore make only specific acknowledgments. Above all to two -managing editors, John Peale Bishop and Edmund Wilson, Jr., of _Vanity -Fair_ and to their editor, Frank Crowninshield; they published several -essays which later served as the raw material for chapters here, -published portions of other chapters written expressly for this book, -and otherwise encouraged and prospered me--to such an extent that I owe -to them and to my fellow-editors of the _Dial_ the holiday which made -it possible for me to write at all. Except as otherwise acknowledged, -the illustrations are reproduced with the permission of the artists; -in addition, I have to thank the editors of the two journals mentioned -for joining their permission in the case of work they originally -reproduced, the firm of Albert and Charles Boni for the liberal use -of Frueh’s Stage Folk, and H. T. Parker of the Boston _Transcript_ -for letting me reprint _A Conversation in Old Athens_. For technical -information and exceptionally painstaking criticism I am indebted -to Sara and Gerald Murphy, Martin Brown, Alexander Steinert, Deems -Taylor, Lewis Galantière, H. K. Moderwell, and Dorothy Butler; for the -material in the appendix to Charles Chaplin, Irving Berlin, Bushnell -Dimond, Walter Hoban, and Sophie Wittenberg. My indebtedness to those -whom I do not know--those I have written about--is too apparent to need -emphasis, and too great to be adequately acknowledged. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] Except that supplied by the professional journals--often excellent. - -[2] But there is more to say; a little of it occurs on page 41. - -[3] Scenario by the adroit Anita Loos. - -[4] Seven years ago, when this imaginary conversation was published, I -wanted to be fair to Mr Eaton and to persuade Mr Griffith to do Helen -of Troy. I succeeded in neither, and the document has only historical -interest. I do not know Mr Eaton’s present stand on the movies, and -I apologize to him for retaining his name here. What I do know is Mr -Griffith’s position. It will be entertaining to compare it with the -imaginary future outlined for him above. See page 323. - - G. S. - -[5] See Appendix. - -[6] It appeared in _The New Republic_ and will probably be found in -_The Flower in Drama_ (Scribners). - -[7] See page 92. - -[8] My indebtedness, and, I suppose, the indebtedness of everyone who -cares at all for negro music, is apparent--to Afro-American Folksongs, -by Henry Edward Krehbiel (Schirmer). - -[9] It has been clairvoyantly pointed out to me by another composer -that Berlin’s preëminence in ragtime and jazz may be traced to his -solitary devotion to melody and rhythm; in the jazz sense there remains -something always pure in his work. This supports the suggestion made in -the next paragraph. - -[10] Internal, off-beat rhyme occurred as long ago as _Waiting for -the Robert E. Lee_. Bud de Sylva has used it intelligently, but -not expertly enough in _Where is the Man of My Dreams?_ and Brian -Hooker and William Le Baron make it a great factor in their highly -sophisticated lyrics. So also Cole Porter. - -[11] In “The Spice of Variety,” which he conducts for _Saucy Stories_. - -[12] Since writing this I am informed that the Winter Garden has -changed, at least structurally. But even if the type of show at -that house also changes, _The Passing Show_ as a type will be seen -elsewhere, so I leave what I have written. In 1913 or 1914 Mr H. K. -Moderwell wrote of the worst show in years, “They call it _The Passing -Show_. Let it pass.” Apparently they did. - -[13] This review appeared in _Vanity Fair_ sometime in the summer of -1922. I allow it to stand with nothing more than verbal corrections -in spite of my dislike of books which collect articles expressly -written for magazine publication, because I feel that the negro show -is extraordinarily transient and that a transient criticism of it is -adequate. The permanent qualities are touched on elsewhere; especially -in the essay entitled “Toujours Jazz.” Since this was written there -have been other negro shows, and I have heard that one was better than -_Shuffle Along_. What has interested me more is the report that there -is a “nigger show by white men” which is standing them up every night. -This verifies a prediction made below--that the negro show would have -an effect on the white man’s. I am not at all sure that there will -not continue to be negro shows for a long time--why in Heaven’s name -shouldn’t there be? They have their qualities and their great virtues. -It is only in relation to the sophisticated Broadway piece that I find -them lacking; and have perhaps not been fair enough to them. - -[14] For da Ponte’s share in the work, cf. Edgar Istel: Das Libretto, -which analyzes the changes made in Beaumarchais’ play. - -[15] All this was written before Bert Savoy died. I haven’t changed the -verbs to the past tense. “How well could we have spared for him....” - -[16] R. C. Benchley has written a just and sympathetic account of -Jackson. It appeared in a magazine and is not, so far as I know, -available in book form. - -[17] A number of comic-strip artists, on achieving fame, stop drawing, -leaving that work to copyists of exceptional skill. I do not know -whether this is the case in the _Happy Hooligan_ strip. - -[18] I must hasten to correct an erroneous impression which may have -caused pain to many of Krazy’s admirers. The three children, Milton, -Marshall, and Irving, are of Ignatz, not, as Mr Stark Young says, of -Krazy. Krazy is not an unmarried mother. For the sake of the record I -may as well note here the names of the other principals: Offisa Bull -Pupp; Mrs Ignatz Mice; Kristofer Kamel; Joe Bark the moon hater; Don -Kiyoti, that inconsequential heterodox; Joe Stork, alias Jose Cigueno; -Mock Duck; Kolin Kelly the brick merchant; Walter Cephus Austridge; and -the Kat Klan: Aunt Tabby, Uncle Tom, Krazy Katbird, Osker Wildcat, Alec -Kat, and the Krazy Katfish. - -[19] See Appendix. - -[20] Heywood Broun has discovered that everybody in vaudeville is an -“artist” except the trained seal. - -[21] I do not know enough of Carl Hyson and Dorothy Dickson or of the -Astaires to judge their place. - -[22] For example: “Ours is a sincere doubt as to whether the question -‘And what did _you_ do during the Great War?’ might not embarrass, -among others, God.” - -[23] He said of Firpo that when he came up after the sixth or seventh -knock-down, his face looked like a slateful of wrong answers. - -[24] A footnote to a footnote is preposterous. Perhaps the very excess -of its obscurity will give it prominence and render faint justice to -the old New York _Hippodrome_. It is a fine example of handling of -material, and of adjustment, spoiled occasionally by too much very loud -singing and a bit of art. It is part of New York’s small-townness; but -it is so vast in its proportions that it can never acquire the personal -following of a small one-ring circus like the Medrano in Paris. I adore -the _Hippodrome_ when it is a succession of acts: the trained crow -and Ferry who plays music on a fence and the amazing mechanical and -electrical effects. Joe Jackson, one of the greatest of clowns, played -there, too, and had ample scope. I like also the complete annihilation -of personality in the chorus. When you see three hundred girls doing -the same thing it becomes a problem in mass--I recall one instance when -it was a mass of white backs with black lines indicating the probable -existence of clothes--the whole thing was quite unhuman. And one great -scene in which, I believe, the whole of the personnel participated: -there were, it seemed, hundreds of tumblers and scores of clowns, and -a whole toy shop in excited action. Oddly enough, one finds that the -weakness of the _Hip_ is in its humour; there is plenty of it, but it -is not concentrated, and there is no specific _Hippodrome_ “style.” -What it will become under the new Keith régime remains to be seen. - -[25] I have seen them since in another entrance, the most brilliant of -all. See Appendix. - -[26] They nevertheless played exquisitely, I am told, in the -Cocteau-Milhaud _Bœuf sur le Toit_. - -[27] _Quanto più, un’ arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanto più è -vile!_ Pater, who quotes this of Leonardo, calls it “princely.” - -[28] It is not too late for you to film Mr D. Taylor’s _Should a -Brother-in-Law Give a Damn?_ - -[29] I haven’t seen _The Covered Wagon_. Its theme returns to the -legendary history of America. There is no reason why it should not have -been highly imaginative. But I wonder whether the thousands of prairie -schooners one hears about are the film or the image. In the latter case -there is no objection. - -[30] They have done so. See “The Cinema Novel.” - -[31] I wrote once, and was properly rapped over the knuckles for -writing, that it wasn’t to escape Bach, but to escape Puccini, that -one played Berlin. Mr Haviland, whom I have quoted frequently, replied -that those who really cared for jazz cared for it, not as an escape -from any other art. I had not intended to write an apology; only, -since I was replying to the usual attack on the jazz arts, I wanted to -indicate that in addition to their primary virtues they have this great -secondary one, that when we are too fed up with bad drawing, bad music, -bad acting, and second-rate sentiment, we can be sure of consolation in -the lively arts. - - - - - _Index of Principal Names_ - - - - -INDEX OF PRINCIPAL NAMES - -(_Numerals enclosed in =equals signs= indicate the chief references_) - - - Adams, F. P., 120, =279–282= - - Ade, George, 119, 120, 166 - - Aiken, Spottiswood, 329 - - Alder, Else, 170 - - Anderson, John Murray, 131, 134, =143–145=, 153, 371 - - Anderson, Sherwood, 123, 341 - - Arbuckle, Fatty, 12, 18, 19 - - Astaires, The, 272 f - - - Bach, Johann Sebastian, 310, 350 - - Baer, Arthur “Bugs,” 278, =285–287= - - Baker, Belle, 196, 256 - - Balieff, Nikita, =260–262= - - Bara, Theda, 338 - - Barnes, Helen, 186 - - Barton, Jimmy, 172, 206, 207 - - Barrymore, John, 330 - - Bayes, Nora, 172 - - Beggar’s Opera, 169, 173, 188 - - Bell, Clive, 104, 108, 150 - - Benchley, R. C., 208, 316 - - Berlin, Irving, =57–66=, =69–80=, =83–108=, 131, 139, 141–143, 145, - 170, =186–188=, 216, 242, 273, 318, 348, 353, =369–371= - - Bernard, Sam, 142 - - Bernie, Barney, 100 - - Bierce, Ambrose, 120 - - Bitzer, George, 333 - - Blake, Sissle and, 94, 96, =149–158= - - Bolton, Guy, 165, 166 - - Braham, Philip, 74 - - Brian, Donald, 172, 272 - - Briants, The Two, 251, 257 - - Brice, Fanny, 135, 145, =191–200=, =208=, 251, 252, 309 - - Briggs, Clare, 216, =218–220= - - Brisbane, Arthur, 234 - - Brooks, Shelton, 156 - - Brooks, Van Wyck, 111 - - Broun, Heywood, 113, 129, 136, 250 f, 281, 283, =284–285= - - Brown Brothers, The Six, 251, 256 - - Brown, Jessica, 272 - - Busch, Wilhelm, 215 - - - Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The, 8, 325, 331, 335, 339 - - Cæsar, Irving, 371 - - Cantor, Eddie, 129, 139, =178–180=, 184, 196, 304 - - Carpenter, John Alden, 144, 217, 236, =240–242=, 377–379 - - Carter, Frank, 146 - - Carter, Nick, 328 - - Caryll, Ivan, 65, 165, 170 - - Castle, Irene, 186, 309, 318 - - Castle, Vernon and Irene, 156, =273–274= - - Cendrars, Blaise, =384–386= - - Chaliapin, Feodor, 204, 313 - - Chalif, Louis H., 318 - - Chaplin, Charlie, =3–24=, =41–54=, 144, 213, 232, 238, 241, 259, 301, - 309, 319, 334, 347, 348, 352, 353, =361–366= - - Cimarosa, Domenico, 164 - - Claire, Ina, 146, 185 - - Clark, Bobby, 134, 207 - - Cocteau, Jean, 304 - - Cohan, George M., 70, 78, =137–139=, 154, 171, 260, 271 - - Collier, Willie, 138, 142 - - Confrey, Zez, 84, 90, 92 - - Conklin, Chester, 12, 17 - - Conrad, Joseph, 327, 337 - - Cook, Clyde, 18 - - Cook, Joe, 178, 251, =258–260= - - Coogan, Jackie, 50 - - Crawford, Clifton, 172 - - Creamer and Layton, 94, 96, =149–158= - - Crowley, Aleister, =374–376= - - - D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 325 - - DeBeck, Billy, 224, 225 - - De Mille, Cecil, 6, 309, 338 - - Deslys, Gaby, 185, 186, 187, =209–210= - - Dickson, Dorothy, 272 f - - Dillingham, Charles B., 145–146, 169, 170 - - Dimond, Bushnell, 9 - - Dixon, Harland, 169, 186, 187, 273 - - Donahue, Jack, 256 - - Donaldson, Walter, 84, 91 - - Doner, Kitty, 179 - - Dooley, Johnny, 172, 241, 251, 255, 256, 271 - - Dooley, Mr (Martin), =111–126=, 309 - - Dooley, Ray, 178, 241 - - Doyle and Dixon, 186, 187, =273= - - Drew, Sidney, Mr & Mrs, 19–20 - - Dryden, Helen, 145, 172, 186 - - Duffy and Sweeney, 251, 257 - - Duncan, Isadora, 317 - - - Eaton, Walter Pritchard, =27–38= - - Eliot, T. S., 104, 106, 361 - - Ellis, Havelock, 345 - - Emerson, John, 339 - - Errol, Leon, 146, =206=, 260, 271 - - Europe, Jim, 100, 103, =156–158= - - - Fairbanks, Douglas, 20 - - Fall, Leo, 64, 65 - - Fazenda, Louise, 12 - - Ferry, 294 - - Fisher, Bud, 216 - - Fisher, Fred, 84, 91 - - Fortunello and Cirillino, 144, 209, 294, 297 - - Forty-niners, =260–261=, 316 - - Fox, Fontaine, 225 - - Fox, Harry, 186, 187 - - Fox, William, 334 - - France, Anatole, 118, 231 - - Fratellini, The Three, 209, =297–305=, =380–382= - - Friml, Rudolf, 165 - - Frisco, 271 - - Frueh, Alfred, 217, =227–228= - - - Geddes, Norman-Bel, 172, 313 - - George, Yvonne, 144, 145, 197, 198 - - Gershwin, George, 73, 74, 75, 89, 91, =92–93=, 195 - - Gibbs, A. Harrington, =94–95= - - Gilbert and Sullivan, 161, 162, 163, 164 - - Glass, Montague, 119, 120, 121 - - Glyn, Elinor, 324 - - Goldberg, Rube, 224, 227 - - Gourmont, Remy de, 203 - - Granville, Bernard, 181 - - Greenwich Village Follies, =143–145= - - Greenwood, Charlotte, 272 - - Grey, Gilda, 95, 135, 141, 154, 209 - - Griffith, D. W., 4, 6, 13, 23, =27–38=, 323, 325, 327, 329, =331–335= - - Grock, 294, 297 - - Guilbert, Yvette, 197 - - - Ham & Bud, 22, 352 - - Hammond, Percy, 249 - - Handy, 97 - - Harris, Charles K., 58 - - Haviland, Walter, 100–102, 255, 353 - - Hazzard, John, 144, 372 - - Held, Anna, 135 - - held, j., 226 - - Herbert, Victor, 135, =171–172=, 199 - - Herriman, George, 50, 144, 214, 217, 228, =231–245=, 309, 377, 379 - - Hershfield, 218, =224–225= - - Hirsch, Louis, 66, 72, 89–90, 171 - - Hitchcock, Raymond, 178 - - Hoban, Walter, 144, 220, =225= - - Hooker, Brian, 89, 172 - - Houdini, Harry, 256 - - Howard, Eugene and Willie, 208 - - Hughes, Rupert, 324 - - Hyson, Carl, 272 f - - - Ince, Thomas H., 4, 6, 13, 334 - - Irwin, Wallace, 119, 120 - - - Jackson, Joe, =208–209=, 294 f - - James, Henry, 310, 314 - - Janis, Elsie, =185–186= - - Johnston, Justine, 186, 187 - - Jolson, Al, 62, 74, 91, 139, 177, 178, 179, 184, =191–200=, 309, 347 - - Joyce, James, 104, 106, 117 - - - Kalman, Emmerich, 65 - - Katterjohn, Monte, 339 - - Keaton, Buster, 6, 17, 18 - - Keith, B. F., Vaudeville, =249–263=, =294= - - Kelly, Harry, 145, 207 - - Kern, Jerome, 66, 72–73, 92, 161, =165–170=, 273, 348 - - Ketten, M., 221 - - Keystone Comedy, =3–24= - - Knight, Percival, 172 - - Kraus, Werner, 331 - - Krehbiel, H. E., 86–88 - - Kreisler, Fritz, 170 - - - Lardner, Ring, =111–126=, 135, 309 - - Layton, Creamer and, 94, 96, =149–158= - - LeBaron, William, 170 - - Lehar, Franz, 65, 161, 163, 164 - - Leonard, Baird, 279, =282= - - Leonardo da Vinci, 319 - - Levey, Ethel, =254–255=, 258 - - Lewis, Ada, 169, 209 - - Lloyd, Harold, 6, 15, 49 - - Loos, Anita, 20 f, 339 - - Lopez, Vincent, 100, =102–103= - - Lorraine, Lillian, 135, 146 - - Lubitsch, E., 13, 335 - - - MacNamara, Tom, 222 - - McIntyre and Heath, 152 - - McQuinn, Robert, 145, 186 - - Mann, Hank, 12, 15 - - Mansfield, Richard, 249 - - Marceline, 294 - - Marquis, Don, =282–283= - - Marsh, Mae, 329, 330, 331, 333 - - Marx Brothers, The Four, 251, 256 - - Maurice, 169, =273= - - Mencken, H. L., 278 - - Merrill, Blanche, 197 - - Milhaud, Darius, 85, 100, 304 f - - Mills, Florence, 62, 99, =154–155= - - Milton, Robert, 165 - - Mistinguett, 185 - - Moderwell, H. K., 131 f - - Moeller, Helen, 318 - - Molnar, Ferencz, 314, 315, 337 - - Monckton, L., 65, 165 - - Monroe, George, 205 - - Moore, Florence, 142, 209 - - Moran, Polly, 12 - - Moret, Neil, 62 - - Morgan, Marion, 318 - - Morley, Christopher, =283= - - Moss and Frye, 252 - - Mozart, W. A., 161, 163, 164 - - Muck, Karl, 157 - - Music Box Revue, =141–143= - - - Nathan, George Jean, 60, 129 - - Nijinsky, Waslaw, 318, 353 - - Normand, Mabel, 11, 19 - - Norris, Frank, =331= - - - Parker, Sir Gilbert, 324 - - Pater, Walter, Title page, 108, 203, 319 - - Pennington, Ann, 272 - - Phillips, H. I., =277–278= - - Picasso, Pablo, 104, 107, 310, =345–347= - - Pilcer, Harry, 187 - - Piquer, Conchita, 140 - - Porter, Cole, 73, =92–94= - - Powers, T. E., 226 - - Preston, Keith, 284 - - Puccini, Giacomo, 312, 313, 345, 353 - - Purviance, Edna, 12 - - - Randall, Carl, 270, 271 - - Rath Brothers, 140, 251, 257, 351–352 - - Ray, Charles, 16, 21 - - Ring, Blanche, 139, 208 - - Riq, 279 - - Rogers, Will, 129, 135 - - Romains, Jules, =386–390= - - Rubens, Paul, 165 - - Ruth, George H. (Babe), 351 - - - Sale, Chic, 257, 258 - - Sanderson, Julia, 172, 272 - - Santayana, George, 140, 249 - - Savoy, Bert, 134, 144, 145, =205–206= - - Savoy Operetta, =161–173= - - Schaeffer, Sylvester, 258 - - Semon, Larry, 18 - - Sennett, Mack, =4–24=, 42, 309 - - Shaw, Bernard, 314 - - Sissle and Blake, 94, 96, =149–158= - - Sloane, A. Baldwin, 372 - - Smith, Edgar, 372 - - Smith, Syd, 221 - - St. John, Al, 17 - - Stone, Fred, =182–183=, 249 - - Stearns, Harold E., 214, 215 - - Straus, Oscar, 163, 164, 168 - - Strauss, Johann, 64 - - Strawinsky, Igor, 99, 104, 106, 346 - - Sullivan, C. Gardner, 14 - - Swain, Mack, 17 - - Sweet, Blanche, 329, 330 - - Swift, Jonathan, 111, 121, 123 - - Swinnerton, Jimmy, 215 - - Symons, Arthur, 250 - - - Tad, 218, =220=, 227, 367 - - Tanguay, Eva, =374–376= - - Taylor, Bert Leston, =278–279= - - Taylor, Deems, 242, 328 f - - Tempest, Marie, 154 - - Tempest and Sunshine, 186 - - Thomas, Augustus, 314 - - Tiller Girls, 270 - - Tinney, Frank, =180–182=, 196 - - Turpin, Ben, 11–12, 16–17, 44–45 - - Twain, Mark, 111, 112 - - - Urban, Joseph, 130, 151, 170, 313, 334 - - - Van Hoven, Frank, 257, 258, 259 - - Van and Schenck, 251, 256 - - Veidt, Conrad, 204, 331 - - Viennese Operetta, =161–173= - - - Wagner, Richard, 312, 313 - - Walthall, Henry, 329, 333 - - Ward, Artemas, 120 - - Warner, H. B., 331 - - Watson, Harry, Jr., 134, 251, 257 - - Wayburn, Ned, 151 - - Weaver, J. V. A., 124 - - Webster, H. T., 221 - - White, Pearl, 327, 328 - - Whiteman, Paul, 70, 89, 93, 99, 100, =103–104=, 106 - - Williams, Bert, 135, 146, 208 - - Williams, Herbert and Wolfus, 251, 257 - - Williams and Walker, 152 - - Wilson, Edmund, 136 - - Winninger, Charles, 138, 139, 208 - - Winter Garden, =139–141= - - Withers, Charles, 257, 258 - - Wodehouse, P. G., =165–169= - - Woollcott, Alexander, 181 - - Wynn, Ed, 181, =183–185=, 196 - - - Young, Stark, 52, 53, 234 f, 235 - - - Ziegfeld, Florenz, =129–146=, 151, 153, 170, 309 - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbalanced. - -Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs -and outside quotations. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Seven Lively Arts</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Gilbert Seldes</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 13, 2021 [eBook #66294]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS ***</div> - -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="center larger">Transcriber’s Note</p> - -<p>Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-clicking them -and selecting an option to view them separately, or by double-tapping and/or -stretching them.</p> -</div> - -<div id="icover" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30em;"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="2232" height="2889" alt="cover" /></div> - -<h1> -The <span class="huge">7</span> Lively<br /> -Arts<br /> -<i class="smaller">by</i><br /> -Gilbert Seldes -</h1> - -<div id="i_frontis" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_002.jpg" width="1556" height="1941" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">The Custodians of the Keystone.</span> By Ralph Barton</div></div> - -<p id="tp" class="newpage p4 center wspace xxlarge bold"> -<span class="large">THE SEVEN<br /> -LIVELY ARTS</span></p> - -<p class="p1 center wspace vspace xlarge bold"> -<span class="xsmall">By</span><br /> -<i>Gilbert Seldes</i></p> - -<div class="centerilb"><div class="ilb"> - -<p class="in0">“... <i>But, beside those great men, there is a certain -number of artists who have a distinct faculty -of their own by which they convey to us a peculiar -quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere; -and these, too, have their place in general -culture, and must be interpreted to it by those who -have felt their charm strongly, and are often the -objects of a special diligence and a consideration -wholly affectionate, just because there is not about -them the stress of a great name and authority.</i>”</p> - -<p class="sigright">—<span class="smcap">Walter Pater</span> -</p> -</div></div> - -<div id="i_003" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 6em;"> - <img src="images/i_003.png" width="412" height="492" alt="" /></div> - -<p class="p2 center larger wspace"> -HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> -<span class="smaller">NEW YORK AND LONDON <span class="in2">MCMXXIV</span></span> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center smaller vspace wspace"> -<span class="bb">THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS</span><br /> - -Copyright, 1924<br /> -By Harper & Brothers<br /> -<span class="bb">Printed in the U. S. A.</span><br /> - -<i>First Edition</i><br /> -<span class="smaller"><br />B-Y</span> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center larger wspace"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span> -TO MY FATHER</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="toc" summary="Contents"> -<tr class="small"> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdr">PAGE</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Keystone the Builders Rejected</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_3">3</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>An Imaginary Conversation</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_27">27</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>“I Am Here To-Day”: Charlie Chaplin</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_41">41</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Say It with Music</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_57">57</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Tearing a Passion to Ragtime</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_69">69</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Toujours Jazz</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_83">83</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Mr Dooley, Meet Mr Lardner</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_111">111</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>A Tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_129">129</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Darktown Strutters on Broadway</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_149">149</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Plan for a Lyric Theatre in America</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_161">161</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The One-Man Show</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_177">177</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Dæmonic in the American Theatre</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_191">191</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>These, Too</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_203">203</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The “Vulgar” Comic Strip</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_213">213</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Krazy Kat That Walks by Himself</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_231">231</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Damned Effrontery of the Two-a-Day</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_249">249</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>They Call It Dancing</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_267">267</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>St Simeon Stylites</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_277">277</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Burlesque, Circus, Clowns, and Acrobats</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_291">291</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The True and Inimitable Kings of Laughter</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_297">297</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Great God Bogus</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_309">309</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>An Open Letter to the Movie Magnates</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_323">323</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Before a Picture by Picasso</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_345">345</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdc head" colspan="2">APPENDICES</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Appendix to “I Am Here To-Day”</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_361">361</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>“Bananas” and Other Songs</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_367">367</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Appendix to “These, Too</i>...”</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_374">374</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Krazy Kat Ballet</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_377">377</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Further Note on the Fratellini</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_380">380</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>The Cinema Novel</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_383">383</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl"><i>Acknowledgments</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_391">391</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="loi" summary="Illustrations"> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">The Custodians of the Keystone. <i class="in1">By Ralph Barton</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="small"> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdr"><i>Page</i></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name notpad"> - <td class="tdl">Charlie Chaplin. <i class="in1">By E. E. Cummings</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_042">42</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Irving Berlin (<i>Photo. Maurice Goldberg</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_074">74</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">George Gershwin (<i>Photo. Carl Klein</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_092">92</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">The Sun’s Dwelling. <i class="in1">By Joseph Urban</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_132">132</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>From the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915. Photo. M. N. Lawrence</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">George M. Cohan. <i class="in1">By Alfred Frueh</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_138">138</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Willie Collier. By Alfred Frueh</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_142">142</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Eddie Cantor. <i class="in1">By Roland Young</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_179">179</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Frank Tinney. <i class="in1">By Roland Young</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_181">181</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Ed Wynn. <i class="in1">By Roland Young</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_183">183</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Fanny Brice (<i>Photo. Steichen</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_192">192</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Al Jolson (<i>Photo. Muray</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_198">198</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Leon Errol. <i class="in1">By Alfred Frueh</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_204">204</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Bert Savoy (<i>Photo. Abbe</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_208">208</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Mike and Mike. <i class="in1">By T. E. Powers</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_218">218</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Copyright by the Star Company. By permission of the publishers of the</i> New York Journal)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">x</span></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">A Cartoon. <i class="in1">By R. L. Goldberg</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_228">228</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of</i> Life—<i>from the Burlesque Sunday Supplement Number</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Fragment from the Krazy Kat of the Door. <i class="in1">By George Herriman</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_240">240</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Copyright by the Star Company</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Krazy Kat. <i class="in1">By George Herriman</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_244">244</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of the artist and the</i> New York American)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Vaudeville. <i class="in1">By Charles Demuth</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_254">254</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Joe Cook (<i>Photo. Morton Harvey</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_260">260</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Irene Castle (<i>Photo. Muray</i>)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_268">268</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Cirque Medrano. <i class="in1">By Henri Toulouse-Lautrec</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_292">292</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>By permission of Paul Rosenberg & Co., Inc.</i>)</td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">National Winter Garden Burlesque. <i class="in1">By E. E. Cummings</i></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>Courtesy of</i> The Dial)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_294">294</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Paolo</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_298">298</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Francesco</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_298">298</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">Alberto</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_299">299</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">The Fratellini. <i class="in1">By Fernand Leger</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_300">300</a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="name"> - <td class="tdl">A Painting. <i class="in1">By Pablo Picasso</i></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_346">346</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl credit">(<i>By permission of Paul Rosenberg & Co., Inc.</i>)</td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="NOTE">NOTE</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">This</span> book was written while on holiday some three -thousand miles away from data, documents, and means -of verification. It is written from memory and, although -I have had time and have tried to check up, I -feel sure that the safest thing is to let it go as cautious -merchants do when they send out statements—with -the <i>caveat</i>: E. and O. E.—errors and omissions excepted. -I haven’t tried to write a history of any of -the lively arts, nor intended to mention all of those -who practice them. I should, however, feel sorry if -I have omitted anyone who has given me intense -pleasure, even though the omission has not, in any -way, the countenance of a slur.</p> - -<p>Everything else that properly belongs in a preface -has found its way into the two chapters: <i>The Great -God Bogus</i> and <i>Before a Picture by Picasso</i>—and the -acknowledgments are numerous and serious enough to -need a place for themselves in the appendix.</p> - -<p class="sigright"> -G. S. -</p> - -<p class="in0"> -<i>Ile St Louis — New York City<br /> -March 1923 — February 1924</i> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="main"> - -<div id="toclink_3" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="The_Keystone_the"><i>The Keystone the<br /> -Builders Rejected</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KEYSTONE_THE_BUILDERS">THE KEYSTONE THE BUILDERS -REJECTED</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>For fifteen years there has existed in the -United States, and in the United States alone, a -form of entertainment which, seemingly without -sources in the past, restored to us a kind of -laughter almost unheard in modern times. It -came into being by accident; it had no pretensions -to art. For ten years or more it added an -element of cheerful madness to the lives of millions -and was despised and rejected by people of -culture and intelligence. Suddenly—suddenly -as it appeared to them—a great genius arose and -the people of culture conceded that in his case, -but in his case alone, art existed in slap-stick comedy; -they did not remove their non expedit from -the form itself.</i></p> - -<p><i>Perhaps only those of us who care for the rest -know how good Charlie is. Perhaps only the inexpressive -multitudes who have laughed and not -wondered why they laughed can know how fine -slap-stick is. For myself, I have had no greater -entertainment than these dear and preposterous -comedies, and all I can do is remember. The long, -dark, narrow passage set out with uncomfortable -chairs; the sharp almond odours, the sense of uncertainty, -and the questionable piano; and then -upon the screen, in a drab grey and white, jiggling -insecurely, something strange and wonderful -occurred. It was mingled with dull and stupid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> -things; but it had a fire, a driving energy of its -own—and it was funny! Against all our inhibitions -and habits it played games with men and -women; it made them ridiculous and mad; it -seemed to have no connexion with the logic of -human events, trusting to an undecipherable logic -of its own. A few scholars found the commedia -dell’arte living again; a few artists saw that the -galvanic gestures and movements were creating -fresh lines and interesting angles. And a nation -cared for them intensely until the remorseless hostility -of the genteel began to corrupt the purity -of slap-stick. That is where we are now: too early -to write an epitaph—late enough to pay a tribute.</i></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Lest</span> the year 1914 should be not otherwise distinguished -in history, it may be recorded that it was then, -or a year earlier, or possibly a year later, that the turning -point came in the history of the American moving -picture. The first of the great mergers arrived—an -event not unforeseen in itself, a “logical development” -the press agents called it—seeming to establish the picture -as a definitely accepted form of entertainment. It -was a moment when a good critic might have foretold -the course of the moving picture during the next -decade, for at that time the Triangle of Fine Arts -(D. W. Griffith), Kay-Bee (Thomas H. Ince), and -Keystone (Mack Sennett) was formed. Two of these -names were already known, and of the two one was to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> -become, for a time, the most notable name in the profession; -the third was hidden behind the obscure symbol -of the Keystone; it represented one who had acted -in, and was now directing, the most despised, and by -all odds the most interesting, films produced in America. -Mr Griffith was already entered on that road -which has since ruined him as a director; he was producing -<i>Intolerance</i>, and, if I may borrow a phrase from -the Shuberts, his personal supervision was not always -given to the Triangle-Fine Arts releases; Mr Ince was -presently to meditate upon the possibility of joining -the word “super” to the word “spectacle,” thus creating -the word “superspectacle”; and Mr Sennett—by -a process of exclusion one always arrives at -Mr Sennett. He is the Keystone the builders rejected.</p> - -<p>I know nothing more doleful as a subject of conversation -than the social-economics of the moving picture; -what was remarkable about the Triangle was not -its new method of distribution, its new hold on the -timid exhibitor, or its capacity for making or losing -fortunes. The thing to note is that the two “serious” -producers, and the hard-headed business men who -invested money in their efforts, thought it well to -associate with themselves the best producer of vulgar -slap-stick comedy. More than that, they combined -in a peculiar ratio for the scheme provided that there -was to be released each week either a Fine Arts or an -Ince picture; and that with each of these was to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> -shown a Keystone comedy. So that those who were -perpetually being caught in the rain, or missing the -eleven-o’clock from Philadelphia to New York, saw -twice as many Keystone comedies as (a) Fine Arts -or (b) Kay-Bee releases. The recent all-hailing of -Mr Chaplin as an artist because of his work in <i>The -Kid</i>, the bright young reputations of Harold Lloyd -and Buster Keaton, indicate that most critics of the -moving picture caught the train and missed the shower. -They certainly missed the comedies; for the Fine Arts -and Ince pictures were in their time the best pictures -produced; and the Keystone comedies were consistently -and almost without exception better.</p> - -<p>This is not the place to discuss the shortcomings of -the feature film; for the moment, let the dreadful -opulent gentility of a Cecil De Mille production serve -only to sharpen the saucy gaiety of the comic, the dulness -of a Universal set off the revelry of slap-stick. -There is one serious point which a good critic (Aristotle, -for example) would have discovered when he -regarded the screen as long ago as 1914 and became -aware of the superiority of the comic films. He would -have seen at once that while Mr Griffith and Mr Ince -were both developing the technique of the moving -picture, they were exploiting their discoveries with -materials equally or better suited to another medium: -the stage or the dime novel or whatever. Whereas -Mr Sennett was already so enamoured of his craft -that he was doing with the instruments of the moving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> -picture precisely those things which were best suited -to it—those things which could not be done with any -instrument but the camera, and could appear nowhere -if not on the screen.</p> - -<p>This does not mean that nothing but slap-stick -comedy is proper to the cinema; it means only that -everything in slap-stick <i>is</i> cinematographic; and since -perceiving a delicate adjustment of means to end, -or a proper relation between method and material, -is a source of pleasure, Mr Sennett’s developments -were more capable of pleasing the judicious than -those of either of his two fellow-workers. The -highly logical humanist critic of the films could have -foreseen in 1914—without the decade of trial and -error which has intervened—what we see now: that -the one field in which the picture would most notably -declare itself a failure would be that of the drama -(Elinor Glyn-Cecil De Mille-Gilbert Parker, in -short). Without a moment’s hesitation he would -have put his finger on those two elements in the -cinema which, being theoretically sound, had a chance -of practical success: the spectacle (including the -spectacular melodrama) and the grotesque comedy. -Several years later he would have added one word -more, that grotesque tragedy might conceivably succeed. -For it is not only the fun in the Keystones -which makes them successful: it is the method of -presentation.</p> - -<p>The rightness of the spectacle film is implicit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span> -in its name: the screen is a place on which things -can be <i>seen</i>, and so long as a film depends upon the -eye it is right for the screen—and whether it is right -in any other regard depends upon taste and judgment -and skill. Omit as irrelevant the news reels, -animated cartoons, educational and travel films—all -of them good; omit equally those printed jokes -and clippings from the <i>Literary Digest</i> which are -at once the greatest trial <i>and</i> error of the screen. -What remains? The feature film and <i>The Cabinet -of Dr Caligari</i>. This—the only film of high fantasy -I have ever seen—is the seeming exception which -proves the rule, since it owes its success to the skilfully -concealed exploitation of the materials and -technique of the spectacle and of the comic film, and -not to the dramatic quality of its story. The studio -settings in distortion represent the spectacle; they -are variations of scenery or “location”; the chase -over the roofs is a psychological parallel to the -Keystone cops; and the weak moment of this superb -picture is that in which the moving picture always -fails, in the double revelation at the end, like that of -<i>Seven Keys to Baldpate</i>, representing “drama.”</p> - -<p>No. The drama film is almost always wrong, -the slap-stick almost always right; and it is divinely -just that the one great figure of the screen should -have risen out of the Keystone studios. He came -too early; Chaplin spoiled nearly everything else -for us, and he is always used by those who dislike<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> -slap-stick to prove their case. Their case, regrettably, -is in a fair way to be proved, for slap-stick is in -danger. The hypothetical critic mentioned above has -not yet occurred; Mr Bushnell Dimond, the best -actual critic of the movies, is without sympathy for -Mack Sennett and calls him a Bourbon, in the sense -of one who forgets nothing and learns less. What -Mr Sennett has needed long since is encouragement -and criticism; and stupid newspaper critics (who -write half-columns about a new Gloria Swanson picture -and add “the comedy which ends the bill is -<i>Down in the Sewer</i>”) have left slap-stick wholly -without direction.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> At the same time the tradition -of gentility, the hope of being “refined,” has touched -the grotesque comedy; its directors have heard abuse -and sly remarks about custard pies so long that they -have begun to believe in them, and the madness which -is a monstrous sanity in the movie comedy is likely to -die out. The moving picture is being prettified; -the manufacturers and exhibitors are growing more -and more pretentious, and the riot of slap-stick -seems out of place in a “presentation” which begins -with the overture to <i>Tannhäuser</i>, and includes a -baritone from the imperial opera house in Warsaw -singing <i>Indian Love Lyrics</i> in front of an art curtain. -In Paris there are one or two Chaplin films -visible nearly every day; in New York the Rialto -Theatre alone seems to make a habit of Chaplin<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span> -revivals and of putting its comic feature in the -electric sign. The Capitol, the largest, and rapidly -becoming the most genteel, of moving picture palaces -(but who ever heard of an opera palace?) frequently -announces a programme of seven or eight items without -a comedy among them; and you have to go to -squalid streets and disreputable neighborhoods if -you want to see Chaplin regularly. He could ask -for no finer tribute, to be sure; but it is not much -to our credit that the greatest mimic of our time has -no theatre named after him, that it was in Berlin, -not in Chicago or New York, that the first Chaplin -festival took place, and that <i>Tillie’s Punctured -Romance</i>, a film intensely important in his development, -was last billed in a converted auction room -on the lower East Side of New York, where Broadway -would find it vulgar.</p> - -<p>There were always elements in the Keystone -which jeopardized its future—it lacked variety, it -was often dull, its lapses of taste were serious. (I -transfer the name of Keystone to the <i>genre</i> of which -it was the most notable example; it was for long, -and may still be, superior to most of the others.) -But, while there is still time, its miraculously good -qualities can be caught and possibly preserved. The -ideal comedy of Mack Sennett is a fairly standardized -article; too much so, perhaps, but the elements -are sound. They include a simple, usually preposterous -plot, frequently a burlesque of a serious play;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span> -more important are the characters, grotesque in bulk, -form, or make-up; and, finally, the events which -have as little connexion with the plot as, say, a clog -dance in a musical comedy. In the early days of -the Keystone, it is said, the plot was almost nonexistent -in advance, and developed out of the set and -the props. The one which was called, in revival, -<i>The Pile Driver</i>, must have been such a film, for -its plot is that two men meet a pretty girl near a -river and they find a huge mallet. It is a film full -of impromptus—not very brilliant ones, as a matter -of fact—in which Sennett and Chaplin and Mabel -Normand each occasionally give flashes of their qualities. -A few years later you see the same thing when -the trick of working up a film from the material in -hand has become second nature. <i>His Night Out</i> -presents Ben Turpin and Charlie Chaplin as equal -comedians: two men on a drinking party, stumbling -into a luxurious hotel, reverting automatically to -the saloon from which they have been thrown, mutually -assisting and hindering each other in a serious -effort to do something they cannot define, but which -they feel to be of cosmic importance. Later, one -finds a more sophisticated kind of comic. <i>Bright -Eyes</i> has to do with a gawky young man, reputed -rich, received into a wealthy family, engaged to the -daughter, denounced as an impostor, reduced to the -kitchen, flirting there with the maid, restored to -favour, and, nobly refusing the daughter’s hand,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> -marrying the maid. Here Ben Turpin had good -moments, but much of the gaiety of the film depended -upon Chester Conklin (or one who much -resembles him) as another servant in the house, bundling -himself up in furs like Peary in the Arctic, -bidding farewell at an imaginary outpost of civilization, -and striding into—a huge refrigerator, to bring -back a ham before the adoring eyes of the cook.</p> - -<p>The comic film is by nature adventurous and romantic, -and I think what endears it to us is that the -adventure is picaresque and the romance wholly unsentimental—that -is, both are pushed to the edge of -burlesque. For the romance you have a love affair, -frequently running parallel to a parody of itself. -The hero is marked by peculiarities of his own: -the Chaplin feet, the Hank Mann bang and sombre -eyes, the Turpin squint, the Arbuckle bulk; against -these oddities and absurdities plays the serene, idle -beauty of a simple girl (Edna Purviance or Mabel -Normand in her lovely early days), and only on -occasions a comic in her own right like Louise Fazenda -or Polly Moran. In some five hundred slap-stick -comedies I do not remember one single moment -of sentimentality; and it seems to me that every look -and gesture of false chivalry and exaggerated devotion -has been parodied there. The characteristic -moment, after all, is when the comedy is ended, -and just as the hero is about to kiss the heroine -he winks broadly and ironically at the spectators.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span> -Our whole tradition of love is destroyed and outraged -in these careless comedies; so also our tradition -of heroism. And since the moving picture, quite -naturally, began by importing the whole baggage -of the romantic and sentimental novel and theatre, -the moving-picture comedy has at last arrived at -burlesquing its silly-serious half-sister. Two years -before <i>Merton of the Movies</i> appeared, Mack -Sennett, with the help of Ben Turpin’s divinely -crossed eyes, had consummated a burlesque of Messrs -Griffith, Ince, and Lubitsch, in <i>A Small Town Idol</i>, -far more destructively, be it said, than Chaplin in his -<i>Carmen</i>, and with a vaster fun than <i>Merton</i>.</p> - -<p>Everything incongruous and inconsequent has its -place in the unrolling of the comic film: love and masquerade -and treachery; coincidence and disguise; -heroism and knavishness; all are distorted, burlesqued, -exaggerated. And—here the camera enters—all are -presented at an impossible rate; the culmination is -in the inevitable struggle and the conventional pursuit, -where trick photography enters and you see -the immortal Keystone cops in their flivver, mowing -down hundreds of telegraph poles without abating -their speed, dashing through houses or losing their -wheels and continuing, blown to bits and reassembled -in midair; locomotives running wild, yet never destroying -the cars they so miraculously send spinning -before them; airplanes and submarines in and out -of their elements—everything capable of motion set<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span> -into motion; and at the height of the revel, the true -catastrophe, the solution of the preposterous and forgotten -drama, with the lovers united under the canopy -of smashed motor cars, or the gay feet of Mr -Chaplin gently twinkling down the irised street.</p> - -<p>And all of this is done <i>with the camera, through -action</i> presented to the eye. The secret of distortion -is in the camera, and the secret of pace in the projector. -Regard them for a moment, regard the slap-stick -as every moment explains itself, and then go to -the picture palace and spend one-third of your time -reading the flamboyancies of C. Gardner Sullivan -and another third watching the contortions of a famous -actress as she “registers” an emotion which action -and photography should present directly, and you -will see why the comic film is superior. There is -virtually no registering in the comedy, there is no -senseless pantomime, and the titles are succinct and -few. In <i>Bright Eyes</i>, as the marriage of convenience -is about to take place, the mother sweeps in with -these words, “Faint quick—he’s dead broke.” An -absurd letter or telegram is introduced to set the -play going; the rest is literally silence.</p> - -<p>What I have said about Chaplin regards him as -a typical slap-stick comedian.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> The form would have -succeeded without him and he has passed beyond the -form entirely. The other practitioners of the art -come out of his shadow, and some of them are excellent.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span> -What makes Chaplin great is that he has irony -and pity, he knows that you must not have the one -without the other; he has both piety and wit. Next -to him, for his work in <i>His Bread and Butter</i> and a -few other films, stands Hank Mann, who translates -the childlike gravity of Chaplin into a frightened innocence, -a serious endeavour to understand the world -which seems always hostile to him. He was trained, -I have been told, as a tragic actor on the East Side -of New York, and he seems always stricken with the -cruelty and madness of an existence in which he alone -is logical and sane. If he, walking backward to -get a last glimpse of his beloved (after “A Waiter’s -Farewell,” as the caption has it), steps on the running -board of a motor instead of a street car, he is -willing to pay the usual fare and let bygones be bygones. -His black bang almost meets his eyes, and -his eyes are mournful and piteous; his gesture is slow -and rounded; a few of the ends of the world have -come upon his head and the eyelids are a little weary. -He is the Wandering Jew misdirected into comic life -by an unscrupulous fate.</p> - -<p>His most notable opposite is Harold Lloyd, a -man of no tenderness, of no philosophy, the embodiment -of American cheek and indefatigable energy. -His movements are all direct, straight; the -shortest distance between two points he will traverse -impudently and persistently, even if he is knocked -down at the end of each trip; there is no poetry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span> -in him, his whole utterance being epigrammatic, -without overtone or image. Yet once, at least, he -too stepped into that lunatic Arcadia to which his -spirit is alien; not in <i>Grandma’s Boy</i>, which might -just as well have been done by Charles Ray, but in -<i>A Sailor-made Man</i>. Here the old frenzy fell upon -him, the weakling won by guile, and instead of fighting -one man he laid out a mob from behind; something -excessive, topsy-turvy, riotous at last occurred -in his ordered existence. He is funny; but he has no -vulgarity; he is smart. He amuses me without making -me laugh, and I figure him as a step toward -gentility.</p> - -<p>Ben Turpin has progressed, fortunately without -taking that step. In <i>Bright Eyes</i> he was mildly -absurd; in <i>His Night Out</i>, with Chaplin, he was tremendously -funny; and what he learned there of the -lesson of the master he imported into his private -masterpiece, <i>A Small Town Idol</i>. Like Chaplin, he -disarms you and endears himself; unlike him, and -often to Turpin’s advantage, he knows how to be -ridiculous. One always sees Chaplin’s impersonations -as they see themselves. Is he a count or a pretender, -or an English gentleman, or a policeman, or a tramp, -the character is completely embodied; Chaplin never -makes fun of himself. The process of identification -is complete and, apart from the interest and the fun -of the action, your chief pleasure is in awaiting the -inevitable denunciation. Ben Turpin, who has only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> -a talent for Chaplin’s genius, makes the most of it and -lets you see through him. His exaggerations do more -than reveal—they betray, and above all they betray -the fact that Turpin is aware of the absurdities of his -characters; you see them objectively, and through -him you see through them.</p> - -<p>When he returns home as the Wild West screen -hero, and his own picture is shown before those who -so recently had despised him, his deprecating gesture -before the screen on which his exploits are being -shown is so broad, so simple-silly, that it is more -than a description of himself as he thinks it is, and -lets us perceive his absurdity. He is exactly a zany.</p> - -<p>Three other buffoons of the old Keystone days -retain their capacity to be amusing: the galvanic, -jack-in-the-box, Al St John; Mack Swain, and Chester -Conklin; they are exactly as they were ten years -ago, and one fancies they will never be great. The -difficult person to be sure about is Buster Keaton, -who came to the pictures from vaudeville, and has -carried into his new medium his greatest asset, an -enormous, incorruptible gravity. He never smiles, -they say, and I have sat through some of his pictures—<i>The -Boat</i>, for one—without seeing any reason why -he should. It was a long mechanical contrivance -with hardly any humour, and was considered a masterpiece; -while <i>The Paleface</i>, in which Keaton played -an entomologist captured by Indians, passed unnoticed. -It had nearly everything a comic needs, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span> -there were certain movements <i>en masse</i>, certain crossings -of the lines of action, which were quite perfect. -Keaton’s intense preoccupation and his hard sense -of personality are excellent. In <i>Cops</i> he took a purely -Keystone subject and multiplied and magnified it to -its last degree of development: thousands of policemen -rushed down one street; equal thousands rushed -up another; and before them fled this small, serious -figure, bent on self-justification, caught in a series -of absurd accidents, wholly law-abiding, a little distracted. -I do not think one will soon forget the -exquisite close of that picture: the whole police force -forming a phalanx, hurled as one body into the courtyard -of the station—and then the little figure which, -having been trapped within, seems doomed to arrest, -coming out, itself accoutred in uniform, and quietly, -quietly locking the huge doors behind it. It, yes; for -by that time Keaton has become wholly impersonal. -So affecting Larry Semon has never been; nor Clyde -Cook; and behind them, but <i>longo intervallo</i>, come -the misguided creatures who make the kind of slap-stick -which most people think Sennett makes. I am -sure there are other good comedians; but I am not -trying to make a catalogue. No one, in any case, -has been able to impose himself as these few have; -and most of the others are so near in method and -manner to these that they require nothing fresh to -be said of them.</p> - -<p>It seemed for a moment, in 1922, that if a confessed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> -murderer were set free by a jury, he or she -went into the movies; but if a moving-picture actor -was declared innocent, he was barred from the screen. -The justice of this I cannot discuss; yet a protest can -be made against the æsthetically high-minded who -said that the real reason for barring the films of -“Fatty” Arbuckle was their vulgarity and their dulness. -For “Fatty” had gone over to a comedy more -refined than slap-stick long before 1922; and in 1914 -he was neither stupid nor dull. Once indeed, in -<i>Fatty and Mabel Adrift</i> (Mabel being Miss Normand) -he came near to the best of slap-stick, and the -same picture was as photography and printing, for -sepia seascapes and light and shade, a superior thing -entirely. The fatuous, ingratiating smile was innocent -then, in all conscience, and as for <span class="locked">vulgarity—</span></p> - -<p>Let us, before we go to the heart of that question, -look for a moment at the comedy which was always -set against the slap-stick to condemn the custard-pie -school of fun—the comedy of which the best -practitioners were indisputably Mr and Mrs Sidney -Drew. In them there was nothing offensive, except -an enervating dulness. They pretended to be pleasant -episodes in our common life, the life of courtship -and marriage; they accepted all our conventions; and -they were one and all exactly the sort of thing which -the junior class at high school acted when money was -needed to buy a new set of erasers for Miss Struther’s -course in mechanical drawing. The husband stayed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> -out late at night or was seen kissing a stenographer; -the wife had trouble with a maid or was extravagant -at the best shops; occasionally arrived an ingenuity, -such as the romantic attachment of the wife to anniversaries -contrasted with her husband’s negligence—I -seem to recall that to cure her he brought her a gift -one day in memory of Washington’s birthday. These -things were little stories, not even smoking-room -stories; they were acted entirely in the technique of -the amateur stage; they were incredibly genteel, in -the milieu where “When Baby Came” is genteel; -neither in matter nor in manner did they employ -what the camera and the projector had to give. And, -apart from the agreeable manners of Mr and Mrs -Sidney Drew, nothing made them successful except -the corrupt desire, on the part of the spectators, to -be refined.</p> - -<p>Nothing of the sort operated in the far better -(feature film) comedies which Douglas Fairbanks -made when he was with Fine Arts. To suit his -physique, they were almost all adventurous; they -were always entertaining. <i>Flirting With Fate</i><a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> presented -a young man who had decided to die and -gave “Automatic Joe,” a gunman, his last fifty dollars -to “bump him off” unexpectedly. Once the -agreement was made, the tide of fortune turned for -the young man, and, desiring earnestly to live, he -felt the paid hand of the assassin always upon his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span> -shoulder. At the same time the gunman had reformed; -his one object was to return the unearned -fifty dollars. And the cross-purposes, the chase and -flight, were within short distance of high farce. The -comedies of Charles Ray were also unpretentious, -and also used the camera. These and others were -always perfectly decent; but none of them was refined.</p> - -<p>And there, essentially, we are back at slap-stick; -for the refined comedy was pretentious, and what is -pretentious is vulgar in any definition of the word; -while slap-stick never pretended to be anything but -itself and could be disgusting or tasteless or dull, -but it could not be vulgar. I consider vulgar the -thing which offends against the canons of taste accepted -by honest people, not by imitative people, not -by snobs. It is equally bad taste, presumably, to -throw custard pies and to commit adultery; but it is -not bad taste to speak of these things. What is intolerable -only is the pretense, and it was against pretentiousness -that the slap-stick comedy had its hardest -fight. It showed a man sitting down on a lighted -gas stove, and it did not hesitate to disclose the underwear -charred at the buttocks which were the logical -consequence of the action. There was never the -slightest suggestion of sexual indecency, or of moral -turpitude, in the Keystones; there was a fuller and -freer use of gesture—gesture with all parts of the -human frame—than we are accustomed to. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span> -laughter they evoked was broad and long; it was -thoracic, abdominal; it shook us because it was really -the earth trembling beneath our feet. The animal -frankness and health of these pictures constituted -the ground of their offense. And something more.</p> - -<p>For the Keystone offended our sense of security -in dull and business-like lives. Few of us imagined -ourselves in the frenzy of action which they set -before us; none of us remained unmoved at the freedom -of fancy, the wildness of imagination, the roaring, -destructive, careless energy which it set loose. -It was an ecstasy of comic life, and in our unecstatic -lives we fled from it to polite comedy, telling ourselves -that what we had seen was ugly and displeasing. -Often it was. I am stating the case for slap-stick, -but I do not wish to make myself responsible -for the millions of feet of stupidity and ugliness -which have been released as comic films. I have seen -Ham and Bud and the imitators of Charlie Chaplin; -I have seen an egg splattered over a man’s face with -such a degree of nauseous ugliness that it seemed -I could never see a comic again. But as like as -not, on the same bill was the James Young screen -version of <i>The Devil</i> with George Arliss, or Geraldine -Farrar in <i>Carmen</i>, or the “<i>‘Affairs of’ Anatol</i>.” And -when people who have seen these “artistic” films, or -the barber-shop scene in a Hitchcock revue or Eddie -Cantor in a dentist’s chair, exclaim (falsely) that -moving-picture comedians do nothing but throw pies,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> -I am moved to wonder what on earth they are expected -to throw. They are using the eternal materials -of their art, precisely as Aristophanes used them -and Rabelais, with already far too many concessions -to a debased and cowardly and artificial taste. At -the two extremes simple and sophisticated people -have looked directly at the slap-stick screen and -loved it for itself alone; in between are the people -who can see nothing without the lorgnettes of prejudice -provided by fashion and gentility. The simple -ones discovered and prospered the slap-stick screen -long before the sophisticated were aware of its existence; -they took it for what it was and cared nothing -for the fact that it was made by inartistic people -and shown in reeking rooms for a nickel. For long -the poison of culture was powerless to enter; but not -long enough.</p> - -<p>I feel moderately certain that the slap-stick -comedy is a good thing for America to have; yet, -being neither an apostle of pagan joy nor a reformer, -I have to put my plea for slap-stick on personal -grounds. It has given me immeasurable entertainment -and I would like to see it saved; I would like -to see a bit more of its impromptus, its unpremeditated -laughter; I would like to do something to banish -the bleak refinement which is setting in upon it.</p> - -<p>Seven years ago, in an imaginary conversation, I -made Mr David Wark Griffith announce that he -would produce <i>Helen of Troy</i>, and I made him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> -defend the Keystone comedy. It seemed to me then -as now that there is nothing incongruous in these -subjects; properly made, they would be equally unrefined, -but <i>Helen of Troy</i>, being in the grand -manner, would be called “artistic.” Mr Griffith has -not made <i>Helen of Troy</i>, and the pre-eminent right -to make it has passed from his hands. The Keystone, -with its variations, needs still an authoritative defender -and an authoritative critic. It is one of the -few places where the genteel tradition does not operate, -where fantasy is liberated, where imagination is -still riotous and healthy. In its economy and precision -are two qualities of artistic presentation; it -uses still everything commonest and simplest and -nearest to hand; in terror of gentility, it has refrained -from using the broad farces of literature—Aristophanes -and Rabelais and Molière—as material; it -could become happily sophisticated, without being -cultured. But there is no fault inherent in its nature, -and its virtues are exceptional. For us to appreciate -slap-stick may require a revolution in our way of -looking at the arts; having taken thought on how -we now look at the arts, I suggest that the revolution -is not entirely undesirable.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_27" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="An_Imaginary"><i>An Imaginary<br /> -Conversation</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="AN_IMAGINARY_CONVERSATION">AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>The theatre of Dionysos. A great crowd is -just leaving the amphitheatre and as the attendants -roll back the heavy awnings and unleash -the tent-poles, the moon, which has been -excluded for the performance, begins to filter -in, and presently the stone begins to throw off -faint shimmers, and dark shadows fall across the -stage. The builded temple, which has been -screened, is now revealed, and its colours glow -again, albeit in shades not known to the light -of day. The porticos of temples look down upon -the theatre, and olive trees stand dark and beautiful -on the hills. From afar the bustle of the -town dies away, and, perhaps, in a moment of -unutterable stillness, the murmur of the many-sounding -sea can be heard.</i></p> - -<p><i>The spectators of the strange entertainment -have at last departed, and the long e’s, ungrateful -to the ear of the Attic scholar, are -heard no more. In the far centre of the theatre a -man is taking apart a mechanism—that from -which the deus sprang in this evening’s play. -Two other men remain. One walks musing and -absorbed, looking toward that entrance whereby -Orestes was wont to make his way to the stage. -The other walks slowly round about the theatre, -marking its aspects, and thinking of practical -things. Presently they meet at the spot where -once the choragus stood. They salute each other.</i></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span></p> - -<p class="speaker"><span class="smcap">Mr Griffith</span></p> - -<p>I am sorry that you should have been here to-night. -To you, I suppose, this has been only a sacrilege. -I am sorry that you should feel that I am -gloating over my success. But perhaps I am mistaken. -Are you, or are you not, Walter Pritchard -Eaton?</p> - -<p class="speaker"><span class="smcap">Mr Eaton</span></p> - -<p>I am. And you are David Wark Griffith, are -you not? [<i>D. G. nods.</i>] We are well met, then—if -I may make use of a phrase which the drama, and -not your <i>métier</i> has made famous. By the way, -ought I to “register” pleasure in any conventional -way?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Score one for you. I have sinned. But since you -say we are well met, can’t we chat for a moment about -things? You see, I am not altogether unaffected by -this scene—the light, and the ancient theatre, and -the memories of it all.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>They would all do admirably for a picture—for -one of those extraordinary scenic effects which you -create as no other man can create them. But the -memories—those at least are mine. Surely you are -not thinking <span class="locked">of—</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>No. Not just now. I am humble at times. But -let us say that you are the great antagonist -of the movies, and I the protagonist. I want very -much to understand what you mean when you attack -them. I remember you said that my spectacle, <i>The -Birth of a Nation</i>, was violently unfair because it -was wordless. Am I not right?</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>I said some such thing.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>And you are a defender of the theatre. May I -assume that <i>The Clansman</i>, which was a spoken -drama, was more fair than my spectacle?</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>At least, in the play, there was a reply in -kind to every attack. The dumb-show for which -you are responsible showed only one side.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Then you are attacking the movie for being -a propaganda, and are displeased with the propaganda -because it is one-sided. May I say that possibly -the movie was made as an artistic spectacle, -and had no such object? And do I not recall the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> -surprise with which such a play as <i>Strife</i> was received -because it did show two sides? After all, I did not -make it impossible for you to put on <i>Uncle Tom’s -Cabin</i> as a reply to me.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>It would be fruitless to continue the discussion -on this point. I spoke of your movie in passing, -because I am always hearing about it. For the most -part let us admit that it was not cheap. Can you -say as much for the others?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>No. The movie is a vulgar art—it is <i>the</i> -vulgar art. And certainly I do not purpose to rob -that statement of its effectiveness by saying that the -word must be taken in its best, or even in its original, -meaning. It must be taken in its worst meaning. -The movie is vulgar, but it is art. The best of it -is none too good—yet. But the worst of it is not so -bad as you think.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>I am willing to grant you that in the representation -of spectacle, in the realm of trick photography -and in the preservation of the events of the moment, -the movie has its place. I question it only when it -invades the drama. There you must pardon me. I -have the drama close to my heart.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>You have been warming the viper quite a -long time. It is about to sting. I am willing to -grant you that in musical comedy, in purely intellectual -engagements, and in the exploitation of sound, -the drama has its place. But I have noticed in your -own complaints that in the things that touch the -heart, in the grand manner, in the projection of high -emotion, you find the drama of to-day a pretty sad -affair.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Who is to blame for it?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Who killed Cock Robin? Not I. I had -not heard that the Comédie-Française was seriously -affected by the activities of Pathé Frères. I have yet -to learn that music has been driven into hiding by -the movies, although I have heard that the ride of the -Valkyries is more familiarly known to-day as the -“Klan-theme” from <i>The Birth</i>. Didn’t your theatre -die—if it has died—because it stifled itself? Hadn’t -you noticed the decline ten years ago?</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>I am not blaming the movie. I am deploring -it. I do not think that it is good for people to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span> -be eternally fed on whatever is cheapest, nearest, -easiest of comprehension. I object to it all the more -when something high and fine is butchered to make -a movie holiday.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>I deplore that as much as you. I do not think -that <i>Cabiria</i> was cheap, or easy of comprehension. -There was enough on the surface to make it popular. -But there was also enough in the depths to make -it grand.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>The movie is still two-dimensional, Mr Griffith. -Can we speak of depths?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Ah, you say “still”! Then we have a future. -In the theatre there was a long succession of little -known men, and then came the men whose plays -made these stones sacred to you. There were many -Elizabethans before Shakespeare. Will you call me -the Marlowe of the movies? I believe in them -enough to hope for a Shakespeare. But don’t you -see that we are young; we are without <span class="locked">conventions—</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Pardon me. You are with far too many. I remember -that in the early days, when you went about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> -on tiptoe for fear of waking up the revengeful -Muses, you employed actors without any technique. -There was an uncouth, a delightful freshness, about -your work. I had hopes then that you would contribute -to the stage. Instead you have taken from it. -You have borrowed all its worst conventions. And -you have added some of your own. There is the -dreadful convention of registering.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Isn’t that from the stage?</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Hardly.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Your actors and actresses register.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Not as yours do. The long training in the expression -of emotions has developed a suitable -medium, the slightest variation on which becomes -inestimably precious. In the moving picture the -variation is unknown. And, although I am the last -person to want to advantage the movie, let me tell -you why. I can hear the voice of the director, just -as the misguided husband leaves his wife—a favorite -situation in the movies and very novel—I can hear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> -him crying out, “Register grief!” If he does not -cry out, the inner voice of the actress cries out. Not -“feel,” not “express the feeling,” but express the -semblance of grief. It is an art of superficies. Perhaps -your actresses—and why, dear sir, do you choose -such impossibly blond, pretty and stupid actresses?—have -worked out a new expression, a new registration. -At the terrible moment they forget. They -register as they, or another actress as well paid and -as hotly advertised, registered six months before. I -am as tired of heaving breasts and eyes turned to -heaven as I am tired of Charlie Chaplin’s walk when -he does not walk it. Conventions? There is no -end to them. What your art, as you call it, lacks, is -limitations.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>You mean there are no limits to it? That is a -strange remark for you to make.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>No. I do not mean that. I mean that every -art, until recent times, has proposed certain limitations, -under which it had to work. Goethe—a poet -whom you have yet to introduce to your spectators—once -wrote, “<i>In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der -Meister!</i>” And these limitations must be more -than physical. There is no reason why a poem<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> -should rhyme abbaabbacdcdcd, but the sonnet must -rhyme in some such manner, or it will not be perfect. -There may be greater poems than these sonnets—that -is a matter of taste—but the art of the sonnet has -its own perfection because those limitations have been -accepted joyously by those who chose to write. You -have proposed no limitations to yourself. Your art -is chaos.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Didn’t I confess as much when I said it was vulgar? -It must have its appeal to the very lowest. -But because our roots are in the dung and the mire, -do you think there shall be no lovely blossoms on -the trees in spring and no fruit? If I make a fortune -in raw melodrama, shall I not spend it on Helen of -Troy?</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Helen of Troy?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Why not? The moving picture is always elemental, -but it can be grand. What are the essentials -of a story: love, beauty, pursuit, coincidence, <span class="locked">rescue—</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Tell me, Mr Griffith, is it true that you recite -“The Relief at Lucknow” each night before you go -to bed?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Not now. I am reciting the Iliad now. Can’t -you see the battlements of Troy with Helen looking -down from her tower—the ruinous <span class="locked">face—</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Registering?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Again a hit! But I shall overcome it. I shall -show you Scamander rising from his bed, and the -gods on high <span class="locked">Olympus—</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>With a close-up of the beard of Zeus?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>And Patroclus leaping on the Ilian shore, and -Achilles sulking in his tent. I shall make Homer live -again.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Dear me. Is he dead? Why wasn’t I informed?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Love and battle, heroism and beauty, action and -emotion, pity and terror—what more can you ask? -All the great sum of Hellenic life, its morning glow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span> -and its great noon of enviable beauty, shall be in my -picture. It shall mingle humanity with the gods -again.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Through the exquisite agency of cutbacks?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>As surely as Marlowe’s topless towers—the captions -are written for me—rose in the backdrops of -your theatres. I shall glorify the mechanics of my -art. I shall make them invisible and divine. I shall -speak in words of white <span class="locked">fire—</span></p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Perhaps. But you will never speak with the -tongues of angels—and of men. I will admit the -dulness of the theatre if you will grant the absurdity -of the mechanics you employ. I will ask you only if -the moving picture will ever become human?</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>I do not know. I am not sure that humanity -is very translatable. But we have ecstasy. In the -projector lies all wonderful adventure, and I go -into a dingy, stuffy, moving-picture house with -the foreknowledge that something strange and wonderful, -though it be at times cheap and vulgar, will -be shown me. In a drab world the movie is an instrument<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> -of miracles. The gross caricatures are perhaps -truer than the realism of the theatre. I see a -Rabelaisian madness in the millions of broken plates. -In a thousand flying custard pies I recognize an -eternal impulse of humankind. In the mad comings -and goings of impossible characters I still see some -persuasion that life is “wanton and wondrous and -forever well.” Here, in this theatre, life was once -glorified. But the grandeur has died out and we must -restore it as we can.</p> - -<p class="speaker">W. P. E.</p> - -<p>Not in my time, I fear. For me the past is not -dead, so you cannot restore it. And here, in the end, -you have my last objection to the moving picture. -You are destroying the imagination of mankind. -There are no more mysteries since your work has -come into being. Everything is visible. Everything -is explained.</p> - -<p class="speaker">D. G.</p> - -<p>Except the soul, my dear sir.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a></p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_41" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="I_am_Here_To-Day">“<i>I am Here To-Day</i>”:<br /> -<i>Charlie Chaplin</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="I_AM_HERE_TO-DAY_CHARLIE_CHAPLIN">“I AM HERE TO-DAY”: CHARLIE CHAPLIN</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">For</span> most of us the grotesque effigy dangling from -the electric sign or propped against the side of the -ticket-booth must remain our first memory of Charlie -Chaplin. The splay feet, the moustache, the derby -hat, the rattan walking-stick, composed at once the -image which was ten years later to become the universal -symbol of laughter. “<i>I am here to-day</i>” was -his legend, and like everything else associated with -his name it is faintly ironic and exactly right. The -man who, of all the men of our time, seems most -assured of immortality, chose that particularly transient -announcement of his presence, “I am here to-day,” -with its emotional overtone of “gone to-morrow,” -and there is always something in Charlie that -slips away. “He does things,” said John S. Sargent -once, “and you’re lucky if you see them.” Incredibly -lucky to live when we have the chance to see -them.</p> - -<p>It is a miracle that there should arise in our time -a figure wholly in the tradition of the great clowns—a -tradition requiring creative energy, freshness, inventiveness, -change—for neither the time nor the -country in which Charlie works is exceptionally -favourable to such a phenomenon. Stranger still is -the course he has run. It is simple to take <i>The Kid</i> -as the dividing line, but it is more to the point to -consider the phases of Charlie’s popularity, for each -phase corresponds to one of the attacks now being -made upon his integrity. He is on the top of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span> -world, an exposed position, and we are all sniping -at him; even his adherents are inclined to say that -“after all” he is “still” this or the other thing. One -goes to his pictures as one went to hear Caruso, with -a ghoulish speculation as to the quantity of alloy in -the “golden voice.” It is because Charlie has had all -there ever was of acclaim that he is now surrounded -by deserters.</p> - -<div id="i_042" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_042.png" width="2454" height="3193" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Charlie Chaplin.</span> By E. E. Cummings</div></div> - -<p>That he exists at all is due to the camera and -to the selective genius of Mack Sennett. It is impossible -to dissociate him entirely from the Keystone -comedy where he began and worked wonders and -learned much. The injustice of forgetting Sennett -and the Keystone when thinking of Chaplin has undermined -most of the intellectual appreciation of -his work, for although he was the greatest of the -Keystone comedians and passed far beyond them, the -first <i>and decisive</i> phase of his popularity came while -he was with them, and the Keystone touch remains -in all his later work, often as its most precious element. -It was the time of Charlie’s actual contact -with the American people, the movie-going populace -before the days of the great moving pictures. He -was the second man to be known widely by name—John -Bunny was the first—and he achieved a fame -which passed entirely by word of mouth into the -category of the common myths and legends of -America, as the name of Buffalo Bill had passed before. -By the time the newspapers recognized the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span> -movie as a source of circulation, Charlie was already -a known quantity in the composition of the American -mind and, what is equally significant, he had -created the first <i>Charlot</i>. The French name which -is and is not Charlie will serve for that figure on the -screen, the created image which is, and at the same -time is more than, Charlie Chaplin, and is less. Like -every great artist in whatever medium, Charlie has -created the mask of himself—many masks, in fact—and -the first of these, the wanderer, came in the -Keystone comedies. It was there that he first detached -himself from life and began to live in another -world, with a specific rhythm of his own, as if -the pulse-beat in him changed and was twice or half -as fast as that of those who surrounded him. He -created then that trajectory across the screen which -is absolutely his own line of movement. No matter -what the actual facts are, the curve he plots is always -the same. It is of one who seems to enter from -a corner of the screen, becomes entangled or involved -in a force greater than himself as he advances upward -and to the centre; there he spins like a marionette -in a whirlpool, is flung from side to side, -always in a parabola which seems centripetal until -the madness of the action hurls him to refuge or compels -him to flight at the opposite end of the screen. -He wanders in, a stranger, an impostor, an anarchist; -and passes again, buffeted, but unchanged.</p> - -<p>The Keystone was the time of his wildest grotesquerie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span> -(after <i>Tillie’s Punctured Romance</i>, to be -sure), as if he needed, for a beginning, sharply to -contrast his rhythm, his gait, his gesture, <i>mode</i>, with -the actual world outside. His successes in this period -were confined to those films in which the world intruded -with all its natural crassness upon his detached -existence. There was a film in which Charlie -dreamed himself back into the Stone Age and played -the God of the Waters—wholly without success because -he contrasted his fantasy with another fantasy -in the same tempo, and could neither sink into nor -stand apart from it. But in <i>His Night Out</i> the effect -is perfect, and is intensified by the alternating coincidence -and syncopation of rhythm in which Ben -Turpin worked with him. Charlie’s drunken line -of march down a stairway was first followed in -parallel and then in not-quite-parallel by Turpin; -the degree of drunkenness was the same, then varied, -then returned to identity; and the two, together, were -always entirely apart from the actuality of bars and -hotels and fountains and policemen which were properties -in their existence. In this early day Charlie -had already mastered his principles. He knew that -the broad lines are funny and that the fragments—which -are delicious—must “point” the main line of -laughter. I recall, for example, an exquisite moment -at the end of this film. Turpin is staggering down -the street, dragging Charlie by the collar. Essentially -the funny thing is that one drunkard should so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span> -gravely, so soberly, so obstinately take care of another -and should convert himself into a policeman -to do it; it is funny that they should be going nowhere, -and go so doggedly. The lurching-forward -body of Turpin, the singular angle formed with it -by Charlie’s body almost flat on the ground, added to -the spectacle. And once as they went along Charlie’s -right hand fell to one side, and as idly as a girl -plucks a water-lily from over the side of a canoe he -plucked a daisy from the grass border of the path, -and smelled it. The function of that gesture was -to make everything that went before, and everything -that came after, seem funnier; and it succeeded by -creating another, incongruous image out of the picture -before our eyes. The entire world, a moment earlier, -had been aslant and distorted and wholly male; it -righted itself suddenly and created a soft idyll of -tenderness. Nearly everything of Charlie is in that -moment, and I know no better way to express its -elusive quality than to say that as I sat watching -the film a second time, about two hours later, the -repetition of the gesture came with all the effect of -surprise, although I had been wondering whether he -could do it so perfectly again.</p> - -<p>This was the Charlie whom little children came -to know before any other and whose name they added -to their prayers. He was then popular with the people; -he was soon to become universally known and -admired—the Charlie of <i>The Bank</i> and of <i>Shoulder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> -Arms</i>; and finally he became “the great artist” in -<i>The Kid</i>. The second period is pure development; -the third is change; and the adherents of each join -with the earlier enthusiasts to instruct and alarm -their idol. No doubt the middle phase is the one -which is richest in memory. It includes the masterpieces -<i>A Dog’s Life</i>, <i>The Pawnshop</i>, <i>The Vagabond</i>, -<i>Easy Street</i>, as well as the two I have just mentioned, -and, if I am not mistaken, the <i>genre</i> pictures like -<i>The Floorwalker</i>, <i>The Fireman</i>, <i>The Immigrant</i>, and -the fantastic <i>Cure</i>. To name these pictures is to call -to mind their special scenes, the atmosphere in which -they were played: the mock heroic of <i>The Bank</i> and -its parody of passion; the unbelievable scene behind -the curtain in <i>A Dog’s Life</i>; Charlie as policeman in -<i>Easy Street</i>, which had some of the beginnings of -<i>The Kid</i>; Charlie left marking time alone after the -squad had marched away in the film which made camp -life supportable. Compare them with the very earliest -films, <i>The Pile Driver</i> and the wheel-chairman -film and so on: the later ones are richer in inventiveness, -the texture is more solid, the emotions grow -more complex, and the interweaving of tenderness -and gravity with the fun becomes infinitely more -deft. In essence it is the same figure—he is still a -vagrant, an outsider; only now when he becomes -entangled in the lives of other people he is a bit of -a crusader, too. The accidental does not occur so -frequently; the progress of each film is plotted in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> -advance; there is a definite rise and fall as in <i>A Dog’s -Life</i>, where the climax is in the curtain scene toward -which tends the first episode of the dog and from -which the flight and the rustic idyll flow gently downward. -The pace in the earlier pictures was more -instinctive. In <i>The Count</i> the tempo is jerky; it -moves from extreme to extreme. Yet one gets the -sense of the impending flight beautifully when, at -the close, Charlot as the bogus count has been shown -up and is fleeing pell-mell through every room in -the house; the whole movement grows tense; the rate -of acceleration perceptibly heightens as Charlot slides -in front of a vast birthday cake, pivots on his heel, -and begins to play alternate pool and golf with the -frosting, making every shot count like a machine -gunner barricaded in a pill-box or a bandit in a deserted -cabin.</p> - -<p>It was foreordained that the improvised kind of -comedy should give way to something more calculated, -and in Charlie’s case it is particularly futile to -cry over spilled milk because for a long time he continued -to give the <i>effect</i> of impromptu; his sudden -movements and his finds in the way of unsuspected -sources of fun are exceptional to this day. In <i>The -Pawnshop</i><a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> Charlie begins to sweep and catches in -his broom the end of a long rope, which, instead of -being swept away, keeps getting longer, actively -fighting the broom. I have no way to prove it, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> -I am sure from the context that this is all he had -originally had in mind to do with the scene. Suddenly -the tape on the floor creates something in his -mind, and Charlie transforms the back room of the -pawnshop into a circus, with himself walking the -tight rope—a graceful, nimble balancing along the -thin line of tape on the floor, the quick turn and coming -forward, the conventional bow, arms flung out, -smiling, to receive applause at the end. Again, as -ever, he has created an imaginary scene out of the -materials of the actual.</p> - -<p>The plotting of these comedies did not destroy -Charlie’s inventiveness and made it possible for him -to develop certain other of his characteristics. The -moment the vagrant came to rest, the natural man appeared, -the paradoxical creature who has the wisdom -of simple souls and the incalculable strength of the -weak. Charlie all through the middle period is at -least half Tyl Eulenspiegl. It is another way for -him to live apart from the world by assuming that -the world actually means what it says, by taking -every one of its conventional formulas, its polite -phrases and idioms, with dreadful seriousness. He -has created in Charlot a radical with an extraordinarily -logical mind. Witness Charlot arriving late -at the theatre and stepping on the toes of a whole row -of people to his seat at the far end; the gravity of -his expressions of regret is only matched by his humiliation -when he discovers that he is, after all, in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> -wrong row and makes his way back again and all -through the next row to his proper place. It is a -careful exaggeration of the social fiction that when -you apologise you can do anything to anyone. The -same feeling underlies the characteristic moment -when Charlot is fighting and suddenly stops, takes -off his hat and coat, gives them to his opponent to -hold, and then promptly knocks his obliging adversary -down. Revisiting once an old Charlie, I saw him -do this, and a few minutes later saw the same thing -in a new Harold Lloyd; all there is to know of the -difference between the two men was to be learned -there; for Lloyd, who is a clever fellow, made it seem -a smart trick so to catch his enemy off guard, while -Chaplin made the moment equal to the conventional -crossing of swords or the handshake before a prize -fight. Similarly, the salutation with the hat takes -seriously a social convention and carries it as far -as it can go. In <i>Pay Day</i> Charlot arrives late to -work and attempts to mollify the furious construction-gang -boss by handing him an Easter lily.</p> - -<p><i>The Kid</i> was undoubtedly a beginning in “literature” -for Charlie. I realize that in admitting this I -am giving the whole case away, for in the opinion -of certain critics the beginning of literature is the -end of creative art. This attitude is not so familiar -in America, but in France you hear the Charlot of -<i>The Kid</i> spoken of as “theatre,” as one who has -ceased to be of the film entirely. I doubt if this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> -is just. Like the one other great artist in America -(George Herriman, with whom he is eminently in -sympathy), Charlie has always had the Dickens touch, -a thing which in its purity we do not otherwise discover -in our art. Dickens himself is mixed; only a -part of him is literature, and that not the best, nor -is that part essentially the one which Charlie has imported -to the screen. <i>The Kid</i> had some bad things -in it: the story, the halo round the head of the unmarried -mother, the quarrel with the authorities; it -had an unnecessary amount of realism and its tempo -was uncertain, for it was neither serious film nor -Keystone. Yet it possessed moments of unbelievable -intensity and touches of high imagination. The -scenes in and outside the doss-house were excellent -and were old Charlie; the glazier’s assistant was inventive -and the training of Coogan to look like his -foster-father was beautiful. Far above them stood -the beginning of the film: Charlot, in his usual polite -rags, strolling down to his club after his breakfast -(it would have been a grilled bone) and, avoiding -slops as Villon did, twirling his cane, taking off his -fingerless gloves to reach for his cigarette case (a -sardine box), and selecting from the butts one of -quality, <i>tamping it</i> to shake down the excess tobacco -at the tip—all of this, as Mr Herriman pointed out -to me, was the creation of the society gentleman, the -courageous refusal to be undermined by slums and -poverty and rags. At the end of the film there was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span> -the vision of heaven: apotheosis of the long suffering -of Charlot at the hands of the police, not only in -<i>The Kid</i>—in a hundred films where he stood always -against the authorities, always for his small independent -freedom. The world in which even policemen -have wings shatters, too; but something remains. -The invincible Charlot, dazed by his dream, looking -for wings on the actual policeman who is apparently -taking him to jail, will not down. For as they start, -a post comes between them, and Charlot, without the -slightest effort to break away, too submissive to fight, -still dodges back to walk round the post and so avoid -bad luck. A moment later comes one of the highest -points in Charlie’s career. He is ushered into a -limousine instead of a patrol wagon—it is the beginning -of the happy ending. And as the motor starts -he flashes at the spectators of his felicity a look of -indescribable poignancy. It is frightened, it is hopeful, -bewildered; it lasts a fraction of a second and is -blurred by the plate glass of the car. I cannot hope -to set down the quality of it, how it becomes a moment -of unbearable intensity, and how one is breathless -with suspense—and with adoration.</p> - -<p>For, make no mistake, it is adoration, not less, -that he deserves and has from us. He corresponds to -our secret desires because he alone has passed beyond -our categories, at one bound placing himself outside -space and time. His escape from the world is complete -and extraordinarily rapid, and what makes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> -him more than a figure of romance is his immediate -creation of another world. He has the vital energy, -the composing and the functioning brain. This is -what makes him æsthetically interesting, what will -make him for ever a school not only of acting, but of -the whole creative process. The flow of his line always -corresponds to the character and tempo; there is -a definite relation between the melody and the orchestration -he gives it. Beyond his technique—the -style of his pieces—he has composition, because he -creates anything but chaos in his separate world. -“You might,” wrote Mr Stark Young, wise in everything -but the choice of the person addressed, “you -might really create in terms of the moving picture as -you have already created in terms of character.” As -I have said, the surest way to be wrong about Charlie -is to forget the Keystone.</p> - -<p>This is precisely what Mr Stark Young would -like him to do—and what Charlie may do if the intellectual -nonsense about him is capable of corrupting -his natural wisdom and his creative gift. Mr Young -has addressed an open letter to “Dear Mr Chaplin”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> -in which he suggests that Charlie play <i>Liliom</i> and -<i>He Who Gets Slapped</i> and <i>Peer Gynt</i>. (Offended -as I am by these ideas, I must be fair. Mr Young -does say that better than all of these, “you could -do new things written by or for you, things in which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> -you would use your full endowment, comic and otherwise -... develop things calculated strictly for it -[the screen] and for no other art, made up out of its -essential quality, which is visual motion and not mere -stage drama photographed....”) This is, of course, -corruption. It means that Mr Young has either not -seen the Charlie of before <i>The Kid</i> (as I suspect from -the phrase about creating in terms of character) or not -liked him (which I am sure about); he has failed -to recognize in <i>The Pawnbroker</i> “his full endowment, -comic and otherwise.” It implies to me that -Mr Young would prefer a “serious film” and that -suggests the complete absence of a critical sense, of -taste and gusto, of wisdom and gaiety, of piety and -wit. “The larger field” ... “serious efforts” ... -“a more cultured audience” ... “the judicious”—O -Lord! these are the phrases which are offered as -bribes to the one man who has destroyed the world -and created it in his own image!</p> - -<p>There is a future for him as for others, and it is -quite possible that the future may not be as rich and -as dear as the past. I write this without having -seen <i>The Pilgrim</i>, which ought to be a test case, -for the two films which followed <i>The Kid</i> (<i>Pay Day</i> -and <i>The Idle Class</i>) determined nothing. If the -literary side conquers we shall have a great character -actor and not a creator; we shall certainly not -have again the image of riot and fun, the created -personage, the annihilation of actuality; we may go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> -so far as to accomplish Mr Stark Young’s ideal and -have a serious work of art. I hope this will not happen, -because I do not believe that it is the necessary -curve of Charlie’s genius—it is the direction of -worldly success, not in money, but in fame; it is -not the curve of life at all. For the slowing-up of -Charlie’s physical energies and the deepening of his -understanding may well restore to him his appreciation -of those early monuments to laughter which are -his greatest achievement. He stood then shod in -absurdity, but with his feet on the earth. And he -danced on the earth, an eternal figure of lightness -and of the wisdom which knows that the earth was -made to dance on. It was a green earth, excited with -its own abundance and fruitfulness, and he possessed -it entirely. For me he remains established in possession. -As it spins under his feet he dances silently -and with infinite grace upon it. It is as if in his -whole life he had spoken only one word: “I am here -<i>to-day</i>”—the beginning before time and the end -without end of his wisdom and of his loveliness.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_57" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="Say_It_With_Music"><i>Say It With Music</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">SAY IT WITH MUSIC</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> popular song is never forgotten—except in -public. Great events and seven-day-wonders pass -into oblivion. Hobson, who was a hero, became a -prohibitionist; Aguinaldo, a good citizen; McKinley, -a martyr—but <i>Good-by, Dolly Gray</i>, <i>In the Good -Old Summer Time</i>, and <i>Just Break the News to -Mother</i> are immortal in our private memories and -around them crystallize the sights and sounds and -smells, the very quality of the air we breathed when -these songs were in their high day. A more judicious -pen than mine may write about these songs without -sentimentality; I cannot. For in addition to the -pathos of time past, something else brings an air of -gentle melancholy to “words and music.” In recent -years a change has come and the popular song is no -longer written to be sung, but to be played. The -new song that can’t be sung has virtues of its own—on -the whole they are virtues I prefer. But I doubt -whether it will ever be, as the old song was, a clue -to the social history of our time.</p> - -<p>The popular song is so varied, so full of interest, -that for a moment at least one can pretend that it -isn’t vulgar, detestable, the ruin of musical taste, and -a symptom of degeneracy; we can pretend also that -<i>Less Than the Dust</i> isn’t more artistic than <i>Swanee</i>. -Since the Spanish-American War the American popular -song (including the foreign song popular in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> -America) has undergone the most interesting modulations; -it has expressed everything except <i>fin de -siècle</i>. Out of the ’nineties persisted a characteristic -song: <i>Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay</i>, the chorus and tune of -which, woven into mysterious words about “three -little niggers in a peanut shell” I must have heard -at the same time as <i>Daisy</i> with its glorification of the -simple life “on a bicycle built for two.” Since then, -for a rough generalization, we have had three types -of popular song: the exotic-romantic, the sentimental, -and the raggy-gay. The sentimental song we have -always with us. “That sweet melody with a strong -mother appeal” is advertised on the back of “Those -Black Boy Blues” and Irving Berlin writes <i>When I -Lost You</i> between <i>Alexander’s Ragtime Band</i> and -<i>Some Sunny Day</i>. At moments it is dominant and -a fake ballad, with a simple and uninteresting tune, -makes <i>After the Ball</i>, by Charles K. Harris, a world -wonder. Or we have a simplification of the whole -history of romantic love in <i>Love Me and the World -Is Mine</i>. The curious about social life in America -may compare this song with <i>I’m Just Wild About -Harry</i>.</p> - -<p>Beaumarchais, who knew no jazz, makes Figaro -say that what can’t be said can be sung—and this -applies far more to the sentimental than to the obscene. -Think of the incredible, the almost unspeakable -idea in the following, presumably spoken by a -father to a child:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Down in the City of Sighs and Tears,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down by the White Light’s Glare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down in the something of wasted years,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You’ll find your mamma there!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">Or consider the pretty imagery and emotion of <i>I’m -Tying the Leaves</i>, as sung by a precocious and abominable -child who has been told that mother will die -when the leaves begin to fall. It would be easy to -say that these songs are gone never to return; but -it was only two years ago that <i>They Needed a Songbird -in Heaven—so God Took Caruso Away</i> (“idea -suggested by George Walter Brown” to the grateful -composers). I do not dare to contemplate <i>A Baby’s -Prayer at Twilight</i> or to wonder what constituted -the <i>Curse of an Aching Heart</i>; but history has left -on record the chorus of</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">My Mother was a Lady</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like yours, you will allow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you may have a sister</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who needs protection now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ve come to this great city</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To find a brother dear,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And you wouldn’t dare insult me, sir,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If Jack were only here.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">It was for songs like this that a masterpiece in another -<i>genre</i>, the burlesque popular song, was created. -I have heard <i>A Working Girl Was Leaving Home</i> -credited to the brothers Smith (the boys the mother-in-law -joke invented, according to George Jean<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span> -Nathan, and for their sins they should have written -this song) and to the late Tiny Maxwell, and to an -unidentified English source. It’s title and chorus at -least are immortal:</p> - -<p>(Then to him these proud words this girl did say):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Stand back, villain; go your way!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Here I will no longer stay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Although you were a marquis or an earl.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You may tempt the upper classes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With your villainous de-mi tasses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The cure for the sentimental song is the ironic; -and irony, it happens, is not what America lives on. -Even so mild an English example as <i>Waiting at the -Church</i> gained its popularity chiefly from the excellent -tag line:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Can’t get away</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To marry you to-day.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My wife won’t let me.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">Yet appearing from time to time we had a sort of -frank destruction of sentimentality in our songs. -Some, like <i>I Picked up a Lemon in the Garden of -Love</i>, appeal directly to the old “peaches” tradition; -but we went further. In the same year as the romantic -<i>Beautiful Garden of Roses</i>—it was one of the -early years of the dance craze—we heard <i>Who Are -You With To-night</i> (to-night?...) down to “Will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span> -you tell your wife in the morning, Who you are with -to-night?” and the music perceptibly winked at the -words. <i>I Love My Wife (but, Oh, You Kid!)</i> had -little quality, but the dramatization of an old joke -in <i>My Wife’s Gone to the Country</i> rose to a definite -gaiety in the cry of “Hooray! Hooray!” So, too, -one line in the chorus of <i>I Wonder Who’s Kissing -Her Now</i>, a song which skilfully builds up a sentimental -situation in order to tear it down with two -words:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Wonder who’s looking into her eyes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Breathing sighs, telling lies ...</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">where the music pretended to make no difference between -the last two phrases, except for softening, -sweetening the second. Yet another in the malicious -mould is <i>Who Paid the Rent for Mrs Rip Van -Winkle (when Rip Van Winkle Went Away)</i>—unforgettable -for the tearing upward phrase to a climax -in the first <i>Rip</i> with a parallel high note on the -second.</p> - -<p>The characteristic of these songs is that they were -rather like contemporary fiction in giving form to -social phenomena without expressing approval or disapproval. -Eternal love and fidelity go by the board -with “the dreamy, peachy, creamy, Vision of pure delight,” -the companion who will not be mentioned to -“your wife in the morning.” “Tell me, Mister, Is -it your sister....” Well, hardly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span></p> - -<p>There were, beside these realistic treatments of -marriage (I continue the professorial tone) a few -slightly suggestive songs, and these also were opposed -to current morality, and these also were popular. -One was called, I think, <i>Billy</i>, and purported to be -a statement of virginal devotion: “And when I walk, -I always walk with Billy ...” and so following, to -“And when I sleep, I always—dream of Bill.” There -were delicious implications in <i>Row, Row, Row</i>, as -Al Jolson sang it; earlier still was Hattie Williams’s -song <i>Experience</i>, in <i>The Little Cherub</i>. The persistence -of these songs is something of a miracle and -the shade of difference between the permissible and -the impossible is of vast importance in the success of -a song. About fifteen years separate <i>Who Are You -With To-Night?</i> (I quote all these songs and titles -from memory, but I am fairly sure about the grammar -of this one; if it was printed “whom” it was sung -“who”) and <i>He May be Your Man (but he comes -to see me sometimes)</i>, and the second song is more -explicit; when Edith Wilson or Florence Mills sang -the repeat chorus it shocked her audience. Essentially -it is the same thing, only, fifteen years ago, -the questionable stanza would have been left to the -unauthorized street version.</p> - -<p>The exotic romantic song in America has little -to do with all of this. Before the professional glorification -of our separate states began, we had the series -of Indian songs of which Neil Moret’s <i>Hiawatha</i> is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span> -the outstanding exemplar. The stanza is almost as -hard to sing as <i>The Star-spangled Banner</i>; the chorus—it -is always the chorus which makes a song—is -banal, a pure rum-tum-tiddy. Yet it was more than -popular, for it engendered a hundred others. <i>Cheyenne</i> -and (musically) <i>Rainbow</i> are its descendants. <i>Hiawatha</i> -bewilders and baffles the searcher after causes; -but its badness as a song explains why the Indian -song was submerged presently in the great wave of -negro songs which have shown an amazing vitality, -have outlived the Hawaiian exotic, and with marvelous -adaptability (aided by one great natural advantage) -have lived through to the present day.</p> - -<p>The negro song is partly, but not purely, exotic. -Remembering that songs are written on Forty-fifth -Street in New York and put over in New York -cabarets, it is easy to see how <i>California in September</i> -(a dreadful song) and <i>Carolina</i> (I recall five songs -embodying the name of that state; the latest is superb) -are also exotic; and how <i>Over on the Jersey -Side</i> and songs about Coney Island came to be written -to glorify New York as a summer resort. The rustic -period, again, reacts against sophistication as <i>In the -Shade of the Old Apple Tree</i> reacts against the -exoticism of the sheltering palm. Neither rustic nor -local, however, achieves the highest success, and it is -left for the Pacific to give the last setting before the -shouting song of the negro and his plaintive cry are -triumphant in our music.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span></p> - -<p>First, however, the era of the waltz song. In -earlier days America had little to do with the waltz -out of comic opera and <i>The Merry Widow</i> and <i>My -Hero</i> and <i>Beautiful Lady</i> and the superb melodies -from <i>Gypsy Love</i> and from <i>Die Czardas Fürstin</i>, of -which I forget the American name, and something -from <i>The Arcadians</i> came from anywhere across the -sea and captured us. The <i>Velia Song</i> and <i>The Girl -from the Saskatchewan</i> were better than their corresponding -waltzes; <i>The Chocolate Soldier</i> had pages -of music as good as <i>My Hero</i>—many better. Only -<i>The Dollar Princess</i> managed to put over its less -ostentatious pieces—and that is rather amusing, since -Leo Fall is held by the Viennese to be the true -successor of Johann Strauss.</p> - -<p>The mention of that great name makes it clear -that the waltz song itself is a hybrid; for whatever -words have been sung to <i>The Beautiful Blue Danube</i>, -the music was meant to be played and for the dance; -it was not meant for song. Yet the slow tempo, -the softness, the gentle sentimentality of the waltz -lends itself peculiarly to song—and to memory. I -do not think it has anything to do with the really -great things in our popular songs, but I cannot resent -its success—any more than I can resent the -success of another song, wholly out of our American -line—<i>Un Peu d’Amour</i>. This was the last great -song before the war; it held France and England -and America enslaved to its amorous longing. Something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span> -more cheery and more male had to be found for -the English soldier, who eventually picked up <i>Tipperary</i> -(also a song of nostalgia), and for the American -something snappier; but <i>Un Peu d’Amour</i> persisted -during the war. To hear a soldier standing -on the fire-step on a dark night, leaning his cheek -against the disc of his Lewis gun, and softly humming -<i>Un Peu d’Amour</i>, was to recognize that for -actual millions that song and a few others like it, -and not the great music to the condition of which all -art aspires, were all of beauty and all of exaltation -they were ever to know. The materials in this particular -case were not tawdry, only equivocal. For -it was a better song as <i>A Little Love</i> than in the -French. The word <i>amour</i> means, but does not signify, -the same thing as the word love, and “<i>pour -t’entendre à ce moment suprême, Murmurer tout bas, -tout bas: Je t’aime</i>” has connotations not transferred -to the English. The song is a fake French and a -good Anglo-Saxon piece of sentiment, precisely the -counterpart of the waltz song. Like them it conquered -a world.</p> - -<p>Lehar and Monckton and Caryll and Fall and -Kalman followed successes with moderate failure, -and at the same time revues and American musical -comedies stepped out grandly. I note three songs -from this source which actually claimed all of the -popular attention. The song to be sung was at its -best in the Princess shows—best of all in <i>The Siren<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> -Song</i> from <i>Leave it to Jane</i>. It is Mr Kern’s masterpiece, -a sophisticated, tidy score with amusing and unexpected -retards and pauses, with a fresh freedom of -tonalities. <i>The Siren Song</i> never actually came up to -<i>The Love Nest</i> in acclaim; Mr Hirsch’s bid for -immortality is almost contemptible in words and -music and has only a single point of interest—the -three notes against two in the second line of the -chorus (“cozyandwarm” instead of, say, nice—and—warm). -It is impermissible in a man who only a -year later wrote <i>It’s Getting Very Dark on Old -Broadway</i>.</p> - -<p>The third song is <i>Say It With Music</i>. Mr -Berlin is as much responsible as any one for the -turn from the song-to-be-sung to the song-to-be-played; -yet he is so remarkable that he can reverse -himself, and just as in 1915 he produced a whole -revue (<i>Stop! Look! Listen!</i>) from which not one -song became really popular, so, seven years later, -when the singing-song had gone out, he produced a -revue and gave us one more of his tributes to the art -he adores. It isn’t musically half as interesting as -<i>I Love a Piano</i>; but it is much more singable and it -has great virtues. Nothing that a jazz orchestra can -do has any effect on the purity of its musical line. I -wonder whether it may not be the last of the songs; -for we are now full in the jazz age and darkness -has set in.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_69" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="Tearing_a_Passion"><i>Tearing a Passion<br /> -to Ragtime</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="TEARING_A_PASSION_TO_RAGTIME">TEARING A PASSION TO RAGTIME</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">There</span> is only one sense in which the word “rag” -has any meaning in connexion with music, and that -is not conveyed in the word “ragtime.” Ragtime is -not, strictly speaking, time at all; neither is <i>tempo -rubato</i>: and eminently safe composers have been -known to score their music <i>con alcuna licenza</i>, which -leaves the delicate adjustment of time to the performer. -A certain number of liberties may be taken -with ragtime, and beyond this point no liberties may -be taken. Within its framework, ragtime is definite -enough; and you must syncopate at precisely the -right, the indicated and required moment, or the -effect of the syncopation is lost.</p> - -<p>It is only when one looks at the songs that one -realizes what ragtime means. For literally, the -music, which has always been with us and yet arrived -only yesterday, has torn to rags the sentimentality -of the song which preceded it. The funeral oration -for the popular song was preached in the preceding -chapter. This is the coroner’s inquest, with the probable -verdict that the popular song was unintentionally -killed by ragtime, which is in turn being slowly -poisoned by jazz. A neat, unobtrusive, little man -with bright eyes and an unerring capacity for understanding, -appropriating, and creating strange -rhythms is in the foreground, attended by negro -slaves; behind him stands a rather majestic figure, -pink and smooth, surrounded by devils with muted -brass and saxophones. They are Irving Berlin and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span> -Paul Whiteman, and they will bear listening to. -What is more, they will make listening a pleasure.</p> - -<p>It seems strange to speak of the great George M. -Cohan as a disappointment in anything he has ever -tried; but looking back at the early years of the century, -when it was apparent that he would be our -most popular song writer as well as our most popular -everything else, suddenly calls to mind that our -Georgie, the Yankee Doodle Dandy, just failed to -make it. Irish wit and an extraordinary aptitude for -putting into simple song the most obvious of jingo -sentiments were not quite enough. The situation -which Cohan faced at the time was beginning to be -complicated: the ballad song was becoming a bore; -the substitutes for it had failed to absorb rhythms -fresh enough and swift enough to please the public. -And between dawn and daylight ragtime was upon -us.</p> - -<p><i>Enfin</i> Berlin <i>vient</i>! How much ragtime had been -sung and played before, no man may calculate; it -had been heard in every minstrel show, and its -musical elements were thoroughly familiar. What -was needed was a crystallization, was one song -which should take the whole dash and energy of -ragtime and carry it to its apotheosis; with a characteristic -turn of mind Berlin accomplished this in -a song which had no other topic than ragtime itself. -<i>Alexander’s Ragtime Band</i> appeared with its bow -to negro music and its introduction of <i>Swanee River</i>;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> -it was simple and passionate and utterly unsentimental -and the whole country responded to its masterful -cry, <i>Come on and hear!</i> Presently <i>Waiting -for the Robert E. Lee</i> is heard—a levee song and -one would say that the South had already conquered; -but Berlin is first of all a writer of rag and the -Southern theme is dropped (the negro music remaining) -while he gives the world two further dazzling -rags: <i>The International</i> and <i>The Ragtime Violin</i>. -Everybody’s doing it was true of singing and dancing -and—composing. For the day which was awakened -with <i>Alexander’s Ragtime Band</i> was a day of extraordinary -energy and <i>Skeleton Rags</i> and <i>Yiddische Rags</i> -and <i>Pullman Porters’ Balls</i>, and everything that -could be syncopated, and most things that could not, -paid their quota to ragtime. There have been periods -equally definable: the time of the waltz song, of the -ballad, of jazz. What makes the first rag period -important was its intense gaiety, its naïveté, its tireless -curiosity about itself, its unconscious destruction -of the old ballad form and the patter song. -The music drove ahead; the half-understood juggling -with tempo which was to become the characteristic -of our music led to fresh accents, a dislocation -of the beat, and to a greater freedom in the text. -For half a century syncopation had existed in America, -anticipating the moment when the national spirit -should find in it its perfect expression; for that half -century serious musicians had neglected it; they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> -to study it a decade later when ragtime had revealed -it to them.</p> - -<p>The early rags were made to be sung and they -were sung, universally. What the departing queen -of Hawaii offered in <i>Aloha Ohe</i> was swiftly integrated -into the existing form and <i>On the Beach at -Wai-ki-ki</i> is a rag in every respect, using material -which is foreign only in appearance. (The fact that -ragtime can without offense adapt the folk song of -nearly every nation—and is only absurd with Puccini -and Verdi’s worst when it takes them seriously—indicates -how essentially decent an art ragtime is.) -The nostalgia which later came into Hawaiian songs -does not exist in this first greatly popular song of -those islands any more than it exists in the <i>Robert E. -Lee</i> or in <i>When that Midnight Chu-chu Leaves for -Alabam’</i>. Berlin himself was not untouched by the -Hawaiian scene and in <i>The Hula-Hula</i> he wrote a -song superior, in my mind, to <i>Wai-ki-ki</i>, yet never -popular in the great sense. The rush and excitement -of <i>Wai-ki-ki</i> aren’t in <i>The Hula-Hula</i>; some one had -told too much about the undulations of the dance -and the sensuousness of the southern Pacific. Louis -Hirsch, years later, did the same thing in <i>’Neath the -South Sea Moon</i>, a respectable piece of work. But it -remained for Jerome Kern, a decade and more after -<i>Wai-ki-ki</i>, to make another Hawaiian song popular. -This was <i>Ka-lu-a</i> (out of <i>Good Morning, Dearie</i>) -and in every way it showed cleverness and intelligence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span> -For it was not a song of Hawaii at all. It -was produced in an Englishy garden, sung by women -in hoopskirts surrounding Oscar Shaw in evening -clothes; and it is all, all a longing for—I think it is -a longing for Wai-ki-ki the song, as much as for the -beach. The old romantic properties are in the words, -slightly set off in mockery by the premature and -internal rhymes; they are suffused with memory and -the music is purely nostalgic. It was not for nothing -that Mr Kern wrote <i>The Siren Song</i>.</p> - -<p>The moment Hawaii faded out nothing was left -but the South, and here the music began to drive the -words with a hard hand and a high check. An observer -unfamiliar with the nature of ragtime would -conclude that the American people had a complex -about nigger mammies and that the sublimation -thereof was in the popular song. The true explanation -is simpler. The mother element is, of course, a -sure-fire hit in the pictures and in song; but the -nigger mammy enters for the same reason as cotton -fields and pickaninnies and Georgia—because our -whole present music is derived from the negro and -most composers of popular songs haven’t yet discovered -that the musical structure is applicable to other -themes as well. (George Gershwin’s <i>Walking Home -with Angeline</i> in <i>Our Nell</i>, Cole Porter’s <i>Blue Boy -Blues</i>, about the Gainsborough painting, and Berlin’s -<i>Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil</i> are examples -of the transfer successfully accomplished, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span> -gratifying, too. Best of all is <i>Limehouse Blues</i>, by -Philip Braham, a veritable masterpiece in the <i>genre</i>.) -There exist a number of natural themes—slavery, -the local scene (Swanee River), the cabin, the food, -and the train whereby one arrives. The genius of -Tin Pan Alley has worked upon this material, and -in both words and music has been amazingly imitative, -uninventive, and dull. Yet the idea of taking -a theme and so handling it that the slightest variation -from the preceding use of the same material -shall give the effect of novelty and freshness is a -sound one—we know from the history of Greek -drama. Alas! there was little novelty and the tradition -was never firm enough to bear what they did -to it. Yet they had their reward, if they can accept -it vicariously, for one of them, not at the beginning -and not at the end, which is not yet, took the old -material and fashioned a great song. His name is -George Gershwin and the song which, before the -blue-jazz age, achieves pre-eminence is <i>Swanee</i>. To -have heard Al Jolson sing this song is to have had -one of the few great experiences which the minor -arts are capable of giving; to have heard it without -feeling something obscure and powerful and rich -with a separate life of its own coming into being, -is—I should say it is not to be alive. The verse is -simple and direct, with faint foreshadowings of the -subtly divided, subtly compounded elements of the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>chorus where the name “Swanee,” with a strong beat, -long drawn and tender, ushers in the swift passages -leading to the repetition, slow again, of the name; -and the rest of the song is the proper working out of -a problem in contrasting cadences, and in dynamics. -After the chorus, and in another key, there is a coda, -a restatement of the theme with a little more restraint, -and then, surprisingly and gratefully, for the -first time the introduction of the final bars of <i>Swanee -River</i>. I analyze this song as if it could be taken -apart and the essence of it remain; the truth is that -it bears inspection and is worth inspection because it -has a strongly individual quality, a definite personal -touch. Mr Gershwin has progressed<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> in his technical -handling of syncopation, as in <i>Innocent Ingénue -Baby</i> (not primarily a song to be sung or for the -dance, but to hear; it is musically the solution of a -problem in pauses, and the answer is delicious); but -in <i>Swanee</i> he is at his highest point, for he has taken -the simple emotion of longing and let it surge through -his music, he has made real what a hundred before -him had falsified. He should “do it again.”</p> - -<div id="i_074" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_074.jpg" width="1198" height="1758" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Irving Berlin</span> -</div></div> - -<p><i>Swanee</i> was popular, but by no means as popular -as <i>Some Sunny Day</i>, a song by Mr Berlin which will -simply not bear analysis. I hold Mr Berlin to be -still the foremost writer of popular music in spite of -it. Three years and a masterly technique separate -the two songs and <i>Some Sunny Day</i> is devilishly -clever, but most of it isn’t properly singable. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span> -a good dance tune; analyzed, it resolves itself into -a weak treatment of <i>Old Black Joe</i> (clever Mr Berlin -to take the first bar of the old <i>verse</i> for the first -bar of his <i>chorus</i>) and a regrettable quotation again -of <i>Swanee River</i>. The arrangement is neat, and the -inversion of the first bar halfway through the chorus, -when the song has dribbled into meaningless fragments, -has lost all intensity and is suddenly revived -and refreshed, while the words of the first bar are -repeated—that sufficiently indicates the master hand. -The words are among Mr Berlin’s weakest and it is -hard to believe that at the same moment he was -revelling in the two <i>Music Box Revues</i>, in <i>Say It -With Music</i> and <i>Pack Up Your Sins</i>, which are -superb.</p> - -<p>It is not entirely an accident that a consideration -of the effect of ragtime on popular song begins and -ends with Irving Berlin. For as surely as <i>Alexander’s -Ragtime Band</i> started something, <i>Pack Up Your -Sins</i> is a sign that it is coming to an end. For this -tremendous piece of music simply cannot be sung; it -baffled the trained chorus on its first appearance, it -can hardly be whistled through, and, although the -words are good, they aren’t known. Ragtime is now -written for jazz orchestra; three phrases occupy the -time of two; four, five, and even six notes the time -of two or three. The words which are becoming -wittier than ever are too numerous, too jostled, to -be sung, and the melodic structure with arbitrarily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span> -changing beat baffles the voice and the mind as much -as it intrigues the pulse and the heel. The popular -song and the ragtime song are vanishing temporarily. -But something terrible and wonderful has already -taken their place. Already there is an indication of -how they will return and—I am tired of speaking of -Mr Berlin, but I can’t help it—Mr Berlin has indicated -how and where. His <i>All by Myself</i> is in -essence a combination of the sentimental song with -ragtime—so it was sung by Ethel Levey. And it is -played with enthusiasm by jazz orchestras—a perceptible -pleasure is ours from recognizing something -entirely simple and sentimental weaving its way -through those recondite harmonies.</p> - -<p>If the song returns in any way the ancient protest -against its vulgarity will also return, and it is -worth making up our minds about it now. The popular -song takes its place between the folk song and -the art song. Of these the folk song hardly exists in -America to-day: <i>Casey Jones</i> and <i>Frankie and Johnny</i> -are examples of what we possess and one doesn’t -often hear them sung along country roads or by -brown-armed men at the rudder in ships that go -down to the sea. The songs of the Kentucky mountains -(English in provenance) and the old cowboy -songs are both the object of antiquarian interest—they -aren’t as alive as the universal <i>Hail, Hail, the -Gang’s All Here</i> or <i>We Won’t Go Home ’til Morning</i>. -If we refuse to call our ragtime folk music,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> -then we must face the fact that we are at a moment -in history when folk songs simply do not occur. -(Even the war failed to give us very much; it is -interesting to note that besides <i>Katy</i> and <i>Mr Zip</i>, -the songs written by the best and most expert of our -composers, Berlin and Cohan, were both meant to be -sung and were sung—and this took place in the -midst of the change to the unsingable type.) At the -opposite extreme is the art song—usually the setting -and degradation of a poem written for its own sake -and usually—let us say dull. The composers of art -songs are about fifty paces behind the symphonists -and the symphonists are nearly nowhere. The result -is that we aren’t in any sense <i>nourished</i> by the writers -of art songs and, since we are a musical people, for -better or for worse we fall back on the popular song. -It is to me a question whether we would be better -citizens and more noble in the sight of God if we -sang <i>Narcissus</i> instead of <i>The Girl on the Magazine -Cover</i>.</p> - -<p>Once in a while something between the art and -the popular song appears, and it is called <i>My Rosary</i> -or <i>The End of a Perfect Day</i>, and it is unbearable. -Because here you have a pretentiousness, a base desire -to be above the crowd and yet to please (it is called -“uplift,” but it does not mean exalt) the crowd; here -is the touch of “art” which makes all things false -and vulgar. To be sure, these songs, too, are popular; -the desire for culture is as universal as it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span> -depressing. And these are the only popular songs -which are really vulgar. I will ask no one to compare -them with the real thing. Compare them with -false, trivial, ridiculous imitations of the real thing—it -exists in some of the occasional songs which -composers are always trying and which hardly ever -come off. I recall a song written about the Iroquois -fire; another about Harry K. Thaw (“Just because -he’s a millionaire, Everybody’s willing to treat him -unfair”). Only the two songs about Caruso succeeded, -and there never was a good one about Roosevelt. -Here is one written for Jackie Coogan in -<i>Oliver Twist</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When the troubles came so fast you kept on smiling,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like a sunbeam ’mid the clouds up in the sky;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though the rest were deep in crime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You stayed spotless all the time</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though they flayed you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Till they made you</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Weep and cry.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When your little heart was aching for a mother’s tender love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Then the Lord looked down and heard you and blessed you from above.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though they tried to make you bad</div> - <div class="verse indent0">You stayed good, dear little lad.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Would God I could</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Be half as good</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As you</div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Oliver Twist</i>.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span></p> -<p class="in0">The music is just like that, too. Lower than this—much -lower, at least—the popular song never -dropped. These songs <i>never</i> become actually, universally -popular because the general taste is too -high. And I cheerfully set the lowest example beside -<i>A Perfect Day</i> for comparison. One type is not -obnoxious and the other is; one is common, the other -vulgar; one is strong and foolish, the other silly and -weak. The case for the popular song may as well -rest in the solution of this dilemma as anywhere.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_83" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="Toujours_Jazz"><i>Toujours Jazz</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">TOUJOURS JAZZ</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> word jazz is already so complicated that it -ought not to be subjected to any new definitions, -and the thing itself so familiar that it is useless to -read new meanings into it. Jazz is a type of music -grown out of ragtime and still ragtime in essence; -it is also a method of production and as such an -orchestral development; and finally it is the symbol, -or the byword, for a great many elements in the spirit -of the time—as far as America is concerned it is -actually our characteristic expression. This is recognized -by Europeans; with a shudder by the English -and with real joy by the French, who cannot, however, -play it.</p> - -<p>The fact that jazz is our current mode of expression, -has reference to our time and the way we think -and talk, is interesting; but if jazz music weren’t -itself good the subject would be more suitable for a -sociologist than for an admirer of the gay arts. Fortunately, -the music and the way it is played are both -of great interest, both have qualities which cannot -be despised; and the cry that jazz is the enthusiastic -disorganization of music is as extravagant as the -prophecy that if we do not stop “jazzing” we will go -down, as a nation, into ruin. I am quite ready to -uphold the contrary. If—before we have produced -something better—we give up jazz we shall be sacrificing -nearly all there is of gaiety and liveliness -and rhythmic power in our lives. Jazz, for us, isn’t -a last feverish excitement, a spasm of energy before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> -death. It is the normal development of our resources, -the expected, and wonderful, arrival of America at a -point of creative intensity.</p> - -<p>Jazz is good—at least good jazz is good—and I -propose to summarize some of the known reasons for -holding it so. The summary will take me far from -the thing one hears and dances to, from the thing -itself. The analysis of jazz, musically or emotionally, -is not likely to be done in the spirit of jazz -itself. There isn’t room on the printed page for a -glissando on the trombone, for the sweet sentimental -wail of the saxophone, or the sudden irruptions of -the battery. Nor is there need for these—intellectually -below the belt—attacks. The reason jazz is -worth writing about is that it is worth listening to. -I have heard it said by those who have suffered much -that it is about the only native music worth listening -to in America.</p> - -<p>Strictly speaking, jazz music is a new development—something -of the last two years, arriving long -after jazz had begun to be played. I mean that -ragtime is now so specifically written for the jazz -band that it is acquiring new characteristics. Zez -Confrey, Irving Berlin, Fred Fisher, and Walter -Donaldson, among others, are creating their work as -jazz; the accent in each bar, for example, is marked -in the text—the classic idea of the slight accent on -the first note of each bar went out when ragtime -came in; then ragtime created its own classic notion,—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span> -propulsion of the accent from the first (strong) -note to the second (weak). In jazz ragtime the -accent can occur anywhere in the bar and is attractively -unpredictable. Rhythmically—essentially—jazz -is ragtime, since it is based on syncopation, and -even without jazz orchestration we should have had -the full employment of precise and continuous syncopation -which we find in jazz now, in <i>Pack Up -Your Sins</i>, for example. It is syncopation, too, which -has so liberated jazz from normal polyphony, from -perfect chords, that M Darius Milhaud is led to -expect from jazz a full use of polytonic and atonic -harmonies; he notes that in <i>Kitten on the Keys</i> there -exists already a chord of the perfect major and the -perfect minor. The reason why syncopation lies -behind all this is that it is fundamentally an anticipation -or a suspension in one instrument (or in the -bass) of what is going to happen in another (the -treble); and the moment in which a note occurs prematurely -or in retard is, frequently, a moment of -discord on the strong beat. A dissonance sets in -which may or may not be resolved later. The regular -use of syncopation, therefore, destroyed the fallacy -(as I hold it) of the perfect ear; and this is one -reason why Americans are often readier to listen to -modern music than peoples who haven’t got used to -dissonance in their folk and popular music.</p> - -<p>It is not only syncopation that makes us indebted -to negro music. Another element is the typical chord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span> -structure found there, the characteristic variations -from the accustomed. Technically described, one of -the most familiar is the subdominant seventh chord -with the interval of a minor instead of a major -seventh—a method of lowering the leading tone -which affects so distant a piece as <i>A Stairway to -Paradise</i>, where the accented syllable of Par´-adise is -skilfully lowered. (By extension ragtime also uses -the “diminished third.”) The succession of dominant -sevenths and of ninths is another characteristic, and -the intrusion of tones which lie outside of our normal -piano scale is common.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> Still another attack on the -perfect chord comes from the use of the instruments -of the jazz band, one for which ragtime had well -prepared us. The notorious slide of the trombone, -now repeated in the slide of the voice, means inevitably -that in its progress to the note which will make -an harmonious chord, the instrument passes through -discords. “Smears,” as they are refreshingly called, -are the deadliest enemy of the classic tradition, for -the ear becomes so accustomed to discords in transition -that it ceases to mind them. (We hear them, -of course; the pedants are wrong to say that we will -cease to appreciate the “real value” of a discord if -we aren’t pained by it and don’t leave the hall when -one is played without resolution.) In contemporary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span> -ragtime, it should be noted, the syncopation of the -tonality—playing your b-flat in the bass just before -it occurs in the voice, let us say—is often purely a -method of warning, an indication of the direction -the melody is to take.</p> - -<p>I put the strange harmonies of jazz first, not -because they are its chief characteristic, but because -of the prejudice against them. The suggestion is -current that they are sounds which ought never to be -uttered; and with this goes an attack on the trick -instruments, the motor-horns, of the battery-man. -The two things have nothing in common. The instruments -of the jazz band are wholly legitimate and -its characteristic instrument was invented by a German, -after whom it is named, in the middle of the -last century, and has been used in serious music by -(and since) Meyerbeer—I refer to the saxophone. -There is no more legal objection to the muted trombone -than to the violin <i>con sordino</i>. And the opponents -of jazz bands will do well to remember that -the pure and lovely D-minor symphony of César -Franck was thrown out as a symphony because it -used the English horn. The actual sounds produced -by the jazz band are entirely legitimate. We have -yet to see what use they make of them.</p> - -<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - -<p>In Krehbiel’s book the whole question of rhythm -is comparatively taken for granted, as it should be. -Syncopation discovered in classic music, in the Scot’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> -snap of the Strathspey reel, in Hungarian folk music, -is characteristic of three-fifths of the negro songs -which Krehbiel analyzed (exactly the same proportion, -by the way, as are in the interval of the ordinary -<i>major</i>). But it is such a normal phenomenon that I -have never found a composer to be interested in it. -Krehbiel, to be sure, does refer to the “degenerate -form” of syncopation which is the basis of our ragtime, -and that is hopeful because it indicates that -ragtime is a development—intensification, sophistication—of -something normal in musical expression. -The free use of syncopation has led our good composers -of ragtime and jazz to discoveries in rhythm -and to a mastery of complications which one finds -elsewhere only in the great composers of serious -music. In describing the Dahoman war dances at -the Chicago World’s Fair, Krehbiel says:</p> - -<p>“Berlioz in his supremest effort with his army of -drummers produced nothing to compare <i>in artistic -interest</i> with the harmonious drumming of these savages. -The fundamental effect was a combination of -double and triple time, the former kept by the -singers, the latter by the drummers, but it is impossible -to convey the idea of the wealth of detail -achieved by the drummers by means of exchange of -the rhythms, syncopation of both simultaneously, and -dynamic devices.”</p> - -<p>The italics are mine. I am fully aware of the difference -between savage and sophisticated, between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> -folk music and popular music; yet I cannot help believing -that this entire statement, including the Berlioz -whom I greatly admire, could be applied to Paul -Whiteman playing <i>Pack Up Your Sins</i> or his incredible -mingling of <i>A Stairway to Paradise</i> with a sort -of <i>Beale Street Blues</i>.</p> - -<p>Freedom with rhythm is audible—should I say -palpable?—everywhere. <i>Stumbling</i> (Zez Confrey) -is in effect a waltz played against a more rapid -counter-rhythm, and is interesting also for its fixed -groups of uneven notes—triplets with the first note -held or omitted for a time, and then with the third -note omitted. A similar effect with other means occurs -in the treatment of three notes in <i>Innocent Ingénue -Baby</i>, by George Gershwin, where the same note falls -under a different beat with a delightful sense of surprise -and uncertainty. Mr Hooker’s words are -equally tricky, for it isn’t “Innocent-Ingénue-Baby” -at all; it is Innocent Ingénue (<i>baby</i>). In <i>By and By</i> -Gershwin has shifted an accent from the first to the -second simply by giving the second the time-value -usually given to the first, a fresh, delightful treatment -of a sentimental expression. The variety of -method is vastly interesting. Louis Hirsch, whom I -rank fairly low as a composer for jazz, has done perfectly -one obvious, necessary thing: stopped syncopating -in the middle of a piece of ragtime. In the -phrase “shake and shimmy everywhere” in <i>It’s Getting -Very Dark on Old Broadway</i>, he presents the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> -whole-tone scale descending in two bars of full unsyncopated -quarter-notes. In the works of Zez Confrey -(they are issued with a snobbish tasty cover, -rather like the works of Claude Debussy) the syncopation -and the exploitation of concurrent, apparently -irreconcilable rhythms is first exasperating and eventually -exciting. They are specifically piano pieces -and require a brilliant proficiency to render them.</p> - -<p>It is a little difficult, unless one has the piano -score, to determine what part is the work of the composer, -what of the jazz orchestra. You can only be -fairly certain that whatever melody occurs is the composer’s, -and that rhythmically he is followed with -some fidelity. All you need to do is to listen to the -violin, piano, or whatever instrument it is which holds -the beat, to realize what the composer has given. -Harmonization is often, and orchestration nearly always, -left to other hands. Mr Berlin makes a habit -now of giving credit to his chief collaborator, and -he deserves it.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">9</a></p> - -<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - -<p>Mr Berlin’s masterpieces (June, 1923, but who -shall say?) in jazz are <i>Everybody Step</i> and <i>Pack -Up Your Sins</i>. I have written so much about him in -connexion with song and shows that I can say little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span> -more. I see no letting down of his energy, none in -his inventiveness. He is, oddly, one of the simplest -of our composers. A good way to estimate his capacity -is to play the more sentimental songs (<i>I’m Gonna -Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind</i>, <i>Someone -Else May Be There While I’m Gone</i>, <i>All by Myself</i>) -in slow time and then in fast. The amazing way they -hold together in each tempo, the way in which the -sentiment, the flow of the melody, disengages itself in -the slow, and then the rhythm, the beat takes first -place in the fast time, is exceptional. You cannot -do the same with his own <i>Some Sunny Day</i>, nor with -<i>Chicago</i> or <i>Carolina in the Morning</i>. Berlin’s work -is musically interesting, and that means it has a -chance to survive. I have no such confidence in <i>Dardanella</i> -or <i>Chicago</i>. The famous unmelodic four -notes occur in the latter as in <i>Pack Up Your Sins</i> (the -source is the same, but we need not go into that); -the working out is vastly inferior. Fred Fisher’s -work is sledge hammer in comparison with Berlin’s, -and lacks Berlin’s humour. Of that quality Walter -Donaldson has some, and Gershwin much. Donaldson -wrote Al Jolson’s <i>Mammy</i> (I can’t remember -which, but I’m afraid I didn’t like it), and a song I -count heavily on: <i>Carolina in the Morning</i>. This -song is, incidentally, a startling example of how jazz -is improving the lyrics, for the majority of jazz songs -are not meant primarily for singing, so the balladists -take liberties, and not being held to a definite end-rhyme<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> -give us “strolling with your girlie when the -dew is pearly early in the morning.”<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</a> The music is -clean, rapid, and audacious. It carries the introduction -(of the chorus) almost to the point of exhaustion, -suspending the resolution of its phrases until the last -possible moment, and then lets go, with a vast relief -on the long, somewhat yodelly note. Confrey has -done the same thing in <i>Kitten on the Keys</i> where one -bar is repeated five times with successive tightening -of interest.</p> - -<div id="i_092" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_092.jpg" width="1196" height="1515" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">George Gershwin</span></div> -</div> - -<p>Two composers are possible successors to Berlin -if he ever chooses to stop. I omit Jerome Kern—a -consideration of musical style will indicate why. I -am sure of Gershwin and would be more sure of Cole -Porter if his astonishing lyrics did not so dazzle me -as to make me distrust my estimate of his music. -Gershwin is in Berlin’s tradition; he has almost all -the older man’s qualities as a composer (not as a -lyrics writer; nor has he Berlin’s sense of a song on -the stage). That is to say, Gershwin is capable of -everything, from <i>Swanee</i> to <i>A Stairway to Paradise</i>. -His sentiment is gentler than Berlin’s, his “attack” -more delicate. Delicacy, even dreaminess, is a quality -he alone brings into jazz music. And his sense of -variation in rhythm, of an oddly placed accent, of -emphasis and colour, is impeccable. He isn’t of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> -stage, yet, so he lacks Berlin’s occasional bright -hardness; he never has Berlin’s smartness; and with a -greater musical knowledge he seems possessed of an -insatiable interest and curiosity. I feel I can bank -on him. Banking on Porter is dangerous because essentially -he is much more sophisticated in general -attitude of mind than any of the others, and although -he has written ragtime and patter songs and jazz of -exceptional goodness, he has one quality which may -bar him forever from the highest place—I mean that -he is essentially a parodist. I know of no one else -with such a sense for musical styles. A blues, a 1910 -rag, a Savoy operetta serio-comic love song, a mother -song—he writes them all with a perfect feeling for -their musical nature, and almost always with satiric -intention, with a touch of parody. It is only the most -sophisticated form which is germane to him; in highly -complex jazzing he is so much at home, his curiosity -is so engaged, he feels the problem so much, that the -element of parody diminishes. Yet <i>The Blue Boy -Blues</i>, almost as intricate a thing as Berlin ever wrote, -with a melody overlaid on a running syncopated comment, -has a slight touch of parody in the very excess -of its skill. Jazz has always mocked itself a little; -it is possible that it will divide and follow two strains—the -negro and the intellectual. In the second case -Porter will be one of its leaders and Whiteman will -be his orchestra. The song <i>Soon</i>, for example, is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> -deliberate annihilation of the Southern negro sentiment -carefully done by playing Harlem jazz, with a -Harlem theme, mercilessly burlesquing the <i>clichés</i> of -the Southern song—the Swanee-Mammy element—in -favour of a Harlem alley. Porter’s parody is almost -too facile; <i>Soon</i> is an exasperatingly good piece -of jazz in itself. He is a tireless experimenter, and -the fact that in 1923 others are doing things he tried -in 1919, makes me wonder whether his excessive intelligence -and sophistication may not be pointing a -way which steadier and essentially more <i>native</i> jazz -writers will presently follow. Native, I mean, to -jazz; taking it more seriously. Whether any of them -could compose such a ballet as Porter did for the -Ballet Suédois is another question.</p> - -<p>The other way is still open—the way of Sissle and -Blake, of Creamer and Layton, of A. Harrington -Gibbs. The last is a name unknown to me ten days -before the moment of writing; I do not know if it -represents a Southern negro or a Welshman. But—if -he has composed anything, if <i>Runnin’ Wild</i> isn’t a -direct transcript of a negro devil-tune—he is in the -school of the negro composers and he has accomplished -wonders already. For <i>Runnin’ Wild</i> is a -masterpiece in its <i>genre</i>. Note the cleverness of the -execution: the melody is virtually without accompaniment; -it consists of groups of three notes, the interval -of time being simple, and the interval of pitch in the -group or between two successive groups, is quite conventional.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> -Once three groups of three notes are -played in succession; toward the end the group is -twice lengthened to four notes; the orchestra is heard -after each group has been sung, giving an unnerving -effect of alternating sound and silence. But there is -something more: There is the complete evocation of -the two negro spirits—the darky (South, slave) and -the buck (Harlem); the negro and the nigger. It -ends with a shout which is lyrical and ecstatic at once, -wild and free. It is an enchantingly gay piece, it expresses -its title—one sees our own Gilda Grey stepping -out in it bravely; it is, in a way, a summary of -the feeling of negro music which <i>Shuffle Along</i> and -its followers restored to prominence.</p> - -<p>More must be said of the negro side of jazz than I -can say here. Its technical interest hasn’t yet been -discussed by anyone sufficiently expert and sufficiently -enthusiastic at the same time. In words and -music the negro side expresses something which -underlies a great deal of America—our independence, -our carelessness, our frankness, and gaiety. In each -of these the negro is more intense than we are, and we -surpass him when we combine a more varied and more -intelligent life with his instinctive qualities. <i>Aggravatin’ -Papa</i> (don’t you try to two-time me) isn’t exactly -the American response to a suspected infidelity, -yet it is humanly sound, and is only a little more -simple and savage than we are. The superb <i>I’m Just -Wild about Harry</i> is, actually, closer to the American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span> -feeling of 1922 than “I Always dream of Bill”; as -expression it is more honest than, say, <i>Beautiful Garden -of Roses</i>; and <i>He May be Your Man</i> is simply -a letting down of our reticences, a frankness beyond -us.</p> - -<p>I shift between the two teams, Sissle and Blake, -Creamer and Layton, uncertain which has most to -give. Sissle and Blake wrote <i>Shuffle Along</i>; the -others accomplished the intricate, puzzling rhythm of -<i>Sweet Angelina</i>, one or two other songs in <i>Strut Miss -Lizzie</i>, and <i>Come Along, I’m through with Worrying</i>. -Of this song a special word can be said. It is based on -<i>Swing Low, Sweet Chariot</i>, and imposes on that -melody a negro theme (the shiftlessness and assurance -of “bound to live until I die”) and a musical -structure similar to that applied to the same original -by Anton Dvořak in the <i>New World Symphony</i>. I -am only a moderate admirer of this work; I am not -trying to put <i>Come Along</i> into the same category, for -its value is wholly independent of its comparative -merits; nor am I claiming that jazz is equal to or -greater or less than symphonic music. But I do feel -that the treatment of a negro melody, by negroes, to -make a popular and beautiful song for Americans -ought not to be always neglected, always despised. I -say also that our serious composers have missed so -much in not seeing what the ragtime composers have -done, that (like Lady Bracknell) they ought to be -exposed to comment on the platform.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span></p> - -<p>If they cannot hear the almost unearthly cry of -the <i>Beale Street Blues</i> I can only be sorry for them; -the whole of Handy’s work is melodically of the -greatest interest and is to me so versatile, so changing, -in quality, that I am incapable of suggesting its -elements. Observed in the works of others, the blues -retain some of this elusive nature—they are equivocal -between simplicity, sadness, irony, and something approaching -frenzy. The original negro spiritual has -had more respect, but the elements have been sparsely -used, and one fancies that even in looking at these -our serious composers have felt the presence of a -regrettable vulgarity in syncopation and in melodic -line. <i>Jesus Heal’ de Sick</i> is negro from the Bahamas; -its syncopation, its cry, “Bow low!” are repeated in -any number of others; the spirituals themselves were -often made out of the common songs in which common -feeling rose to intense and poetic expression—as -in <i>Round About de Mountain</i>, a funeral song with -the Resurrection in a magnificent phrase, “An she’ll -rise in His arms.” The only place we have these -things left, whether you call the present version debased -or sophisticated, gain or loss, is in ragtime, in -jazz. I do <i>not</i> think that the negro (in African -plastic or in American rag) is our salvation. But he -has kept alive things without which our lives would -be perceptibly meaner, paler, and nearer to atrophy -and decay.</p> - -<p>I say the negro is not our salvation because with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> -all my feeling for what he instinctively offers, for his -desirable indifference to our set of conventions about -emotional decency, I am on the side of civilization. -To anyone who inherits several thousand centuries of -civilization, none of the things the negro offers can -matter unless they are apprehended by the mind as -well as by the body and the spirit. The beat of the -tom-tom affects the feet and the pulse, I am sure; in -<i>Emperor Jones</i> the throbbing of the drum affected -our minds and our sensibilities at once. There will -always exist wayward, instinctive, and primitive -geniuses who will affect us directly, without the interposition -of the intellect; but if the process of civilization -continues (will it? I am not so sure, nor -entirely convinced that it should) the greatest art is -likely to be that in which an uncorrupted sensibility -is <i>worked</i> by a creative intelligence. So far in their -music the negroes have given their response to the -world with an exceptional naïveté, a directness of -expression which has interested <i>our</i> minds as well as -touched our emotions; they have shown comparatively -little evidence of the functioning of <i>their</i> intelligence. -<i>Runnin’ Wild</i>, whether it be transposed or -transcribed, is singularly instinctive, and instinctively -one recognizes it and makes it the musical motif -of a gay night. But one falls back on <i>Pack Up Your -Sins</i> and <i>Soon</i> as more interesting pieces of music even -if one can whistle only the first two bars. (I pass -the question of falling farther back, to the music of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span> -high seriousness, which is another matter; it is quite -possible, however, that the <i>Sacre du Printemps</i> of -Strawinsky, to choose an example not unaffected by -the jazz age, will outlive the marble monument of -the Music Box.)</p> - -<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - -<p>Nowhere is the failure of the negro to exploit his -gifts more obvious than in the use he has made of -the jazz orchestra; for although nearly every negro -jazz band is better than nearly every white band, no -negro band has yet come up to the level of the best -white ones, and the leader of the best of all, by a -little joke, is called Whiteman. The negro’s instinctive -feeling for colourful instruments in the band is -marked; he was probably the one to see what could -be done with the equivocal voice of the saxophone—a -reed in brass, partaking of the qualities of two -choirs in the orchestra at once. He saw that it could -imitate the voice, and in the person of Miss Florence -Mills saw that the voice could equally imitate the -saxophone. The shakes, thrills, vibratos, smears, and -slides are natural to him, although they produce tones -outside the scale, because he has never been tutored -into a feeling for perfect tones, as white men have; -and he uses these with a great joy in the surprise they -give, in the way they adorn or destroy a melody; he -is given also to letting instruments follow their own -bent, because he has a faultless sense of rhythm and -he always comes out right in the end. But this is only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> -the beginning of the jazz band—for its perfection -we go afield.</p> - -<p>We go farther than Ted Lewis, whom Mr Walter -Haviland calls a genius. M Darius Milhaud has -told me that the jazz band at the Hotel Brunswick -in Boston is one of the best he heard in America, and -stranger things have happened. The best of the -negro bands (although he is dead, I make exception -for that superb 369th Hell-fighters Infantry Band as -it was conducted by the lamented Jim Europe) are -probably in the neighborhood of 140th street and -Lenox avenue in New York and in the negro district -of Chicago. Many hotels and night clubs in New -York have good jazz bands; I limit myself to three -which are representative, and, by their frequent appearances -in vaudeville, are familiar. Ted Lewis is -one of the three; Vincent Lopez and Paul Whiteman -are the others. There is a popular band led by Barney -Bernie (as I recall the name, perhaps incorrectly) -which is an imitation Ted Lewis, and not a good one. -Lewis must be prepared for imitators, for he does -with notorious success something that had as well not -be done at all. He is totally, but brilliantly, wrong -in the use of his materials, for he is doing what he -cannot do—<i>i.e.</i>, trying to make a negro jazz orchestra. -It is a good band; like Europe’s, it omits strings; it -is quite the noisiest of the orchestras, as that of Lopez -is the quietest, and Lewis uses its (and his) talents -for the perpetration of a series of musical travesties,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span> -jokes, puns, and games. I quote a eulogy by Mr -Haviland:<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">11</a></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>For instance, there is his travesty of the marriage ceremony. -To the jazzed tune of the good old classic “Wedding March” -Lewis puts a snowy, flower-decked bridal veil on the sleek, -pomaded head of the trombone player. He puts it on crooked, -with a scornful flip of his slender, malicious hands. Then he -leads forward the hardest-looking saxophone player, and pretends -to marry “Ham” and “Eggs”—and incidentally draws -the correct conclusion as to marriage as it exists in America -to-day. Perfect satire in less than three minutes.</p> -</div> - -<p>Well, this is extraordinarily tedious and would be -hissed off the stage if it were not for the actual skill -Lewis has in effecting amusing orchestra combinations. -His own violence, his exaggeration of the -temperamental conductor, his nasal voice and lean -figure in excessively odd black clothes, his pontificating -over the orchestra, his announcement that he is -going to murder music—all indicate a lack of appreciation -of the medium. He may be a good vaudeville -stunt, but he is not a great jazz leader. Again Mr -Haviland:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>It is not music. It has the form of music, but he has filled -it with energy instead of spirituality. What is the difference? -You’ll understand if you hear his jazz band. It interprets -the American life of to-day; its hard surface, its scorn of tradition, -its repudiation of form, its astonishing sophistication—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span> -most important, its mechanical, rather than spiritual -civilization.</p> -</div> - -<p>And again no. Lewis may have a perfectly -trained orchestra, but the <i>sense</i> of control which one -absolutely requires he does not give. He has violence, -not energy, and he cannot interpret those qualities -which Mr Haviland so justly discovers as being -of our contemporary life because he isn’t hard and -scornful and sophisticated himself—he is merely -callous to some beauties and afraid of others, and by -dint of being in revolt against a serene and classic -beauty pays it unconscious tribute. (I fear also that -Lewis imagines the “Wedding March” classic in more -senses than one.) It may be noted also that the tone -of travesty is not correct for contemporary America; -we require neither that nor irony. Parody, rising to -satire, is our indicated medium—Mr Dooley, not -<i>Ulysses</i>.</p> - -<p>The orchestra of Vincent Lopez I take as an example -of the good, workmanlike, competent, inventive, -adequate band. It plays at the Hotel Pennsylvania -and in vaudeville, and although Lopez lacks -the ingenuity of Lewis in sound, he has a greater -sense of the capacities of jazz, and instead of doing a -jazz wedding he takes the entire score of “that infernal -nonsense, <i>Pinafore</i>,” cuts it to five characteristic -fragments, and jazzes it—shall I say mercilessly -or reverently? Because he likes Sullivan and he likes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span> -jazz. And the inevitable occurs; <i>Pinafore</i> is good and -stands the treatment; jazz is good and loses nothing -by this odd application. The orchestra has verve -and, not being dominated by an excessive personality, -has humour and character of its own. I trust these -moderate words will not conceal a vast admiration.</p> - -<p>Jim Europe seemed to have a constructive intelligence -and, had he lived, I am sure he would have -been an even greater conductor than Whiteman. To-day -I know of no second to Whiteman in the complete -exploitation of jazz. It is a real perfection of -the instrument, a mechanically perfect organization -which pays for its perfection by losing much of the -element of surprise; little is left to hazard and there -are no accidents. Whiteman has been clever enough -to preserve the sense of impromptu and his principal -band—that of the Palais Royal in New York—is so -much under control (his and its own) that it can -make the slightest variation count for more than all -the running away from the beat which is common -<i>chez</i> Lewis. Like Karl Muck and Jim Europe, -Whiteman is a bit of a <i>kapellmeister</i>; his beat is regular -or entirely absent; he never plays the music with -his hand, or designs the contours of a melody, or -otherwise <i>acts</i>. I know that people miss these things; -I would miss them gladly a thousand times for what -Whiteman gives in return. I mean that a sudden -bellow or a groan or an improvised cluck is all very -well; but the real surprise is constructive, the real<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span> -thrill is in such a moment as the middle of Whiteman’s -performance of <i>A Stairway to Paradise</i> when -a genuine Blues occurs. That is real intelligence and -the rest—is nowhere. The sleek, dull, rather portly -figure stands before his orchestra, sidewise, almost -somnolent, and listens. A look of the eye, a twitch -of the knee, are his semaphoric signals. Occasionally -he picks up a violin and plays a few bars; but the -work has been done before and he is there only to -know that the results are perfect. And all the time -the band is producing music with fervour and accuracy, -hard and sensitive at once. All the free, the -instinctive, the wild in negro jazz which could be -integrated into his music, he has kept; he has added -to it, has worked his material, until it runs sweetly -in his dynamo, without grinding or scraping. It becomes -the machine which conceals machinery. He -has arrived at one high point of jazz—the highest -until new material in the music is provided for him.</p> - -<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - -<p>The title of this essay is provoked by that of the -best and bitterest attack launched against the ragtime -age—Clive Bell’s <i>Plus de Jazz</i>. (In <i>Since Cézanne</i>.) -“No more jazz,” said Mr Bell in 1921, and, “Jazz is -dying.” Recalling that Mr Bell is at some pains to -dissociate from the movement the greatest of living -painters, Picasso; that he concedes to it a great composer, -Strawinsky, and T. S. Eliot, whom he calls -“about the best of our living poets,” James Joyce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> -whom he wofully underestimates, Virginia Woolf, -Cendrars, Picabia, Cocteau, and the musicians of <i>les -six</i>,—remembering the degree of discrimination and -justice which these concessions require, I quote some -of the more bitter things about jazz because it would -be shirking not to indicate where the answer may lie:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Appropriately it (the jazz movement) took its name from -music—the art that is always behind the times.... Impudence -is its essence—impudence in quite natural and legitimate -revolt against nobility and beauty: impudence which finds -its technical equivalent in syncopation: impudence which -rags.... After impudence comes the determination to surprise: -you shall not be gradually moved to the depths, you shall -be given such a start as makes you jigger all over....</p> - -<p>... Its fears and dislikes—for instance, its horror of the -noble and the beautiful are childish; and so is its way of -expressing them. Not by irony and sarcasm, but by jeers and -grimaces, does Jazz mark its antipathies. Irony and wit are -for the grown-ups. Jazz dislikes them as much as it dislikes -nobility and beauty. They are the products of the cultivated -intellect and jazz cannot away with intellect or culture.... -Nobility, beauty, and intellectual subtlety are alike ruled -out....</p> - -<p>... And, of course, it was delightful for those who sat -drinking their cocktails and listening to nigger bands, to be told -that, besides being the jolliest people on earth, they were the -most sensitive and critically gifted. They ... were the possessors -of natural, uncorrupted taste.... Their instinct -might be trusted: so, no more classical concerts and music -lessons....</p> - -<p>The encouragement given to fatuous ignorance to swell with -admiration of its own incompetence is perhaps what has turned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> -most violently so many intelligent and sensitive people against -Jazz. They see that it encourages thousands of the stupid -and vulgar to fancy that they can understand art, and hundreds -of the conceited to imagine that they can create it....</p> -</div> - -<p>It is understood that Mr Bell is discussing the -whole of the jazz movement, not ragtime music alone. -I do not wish to go into the other arts, except to say -that if he is jazz, then Mr Joyce’s sense of form, his -tremendous intellectual grasp of his æsthetic problem, -and his solution of that problem, are far more proof -than is required of the case for jazz. Similarly for -Mr Eliot. It is not exactly horror of the noble that -underlies Mr Joyce’s travesty of English prose style, -nor is it to Mr Eliot that the reproach about irony -and wit is to be made. In music it is of course not -impudence, but emphasis (distortion or transposition -of emphasis) which finds its technical equivalent in -syncopation, for syncopation is a method of rendering -an emotion, not an emotion in itself. (Listen to -Strawinsky.) Surprise, yes; but in the jazz of Lewis -and not in that of Whiteman, which does not jeer or -grimace, which has wit and structure—<i>i.e.</i>, employs -the intellect. Nobility—no. But under what compulsion -are we always to be noble? The cocktail -drinkers may have been told a lot of nonsense about -their position as arbiters of the arts; precisely the -same nonsense is taught in our schools and preached -by belated æsthetes to people whose claims are not a -whit better—since it doesn’t matter what their admirers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> -think of themselves—it is what jazz and Rostand -and Michelangelo are in themselves that matters. -I have used the word art throughout this book -in connexion with jazz and jazzy things; if anyone -imagines that the word is belittled thereby and can no -longer be adequate to the dignity of Leonardo or -Shakespeare, I am sorry. I do not think I have given -encouragement to “fatuous ignorance” by praising -simple and unpretentious things at the expense of the -fake and the <i>faux bon</i>. I have suggested that people -do what they please about the gay arts, about jazz; -that they do it with discrimination and without -worrying whether it is noble or not, or good form or -intellectually right. I am fairly certain that if they -are ever actually to see Picasso it will be because they -have acquired the habit of seeing—something, anything—without -<i>arrière-pensée</i>, because they will -know what the pleasure is that a work of art can give, -even if it be jazz art. Here is Mr Bell’s conclusion, -with most of which I agree:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Even to understand art a man must make a great intellectual -effort. One thing is not as good as another; so artists and -amateurs must learn to choose. No easy matter, that: discrimination -of this sort being something altogether different from -telling a Manhattan from a Martini. To select as an artist -or discriminate as a critic are needed feeling and intellect and—most -distressing of all—study. However, unless I mistake, the -effort will be made. The age of easy acceptance of the first -thing that comes is closing. Thought rather than spirits is required, -quality rather than colour, knowledge rather than irreticence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> -intellect rather than singularity, wit rather than romps, -precision rather than surprise, dignity rather than impudence, -and lucidity above all things: <i>plus de Jazz</i>.</p> -</div> - -<p>It is not so written, but it sounds like “Above all -things, no more jazz!” A critic who would have hated -jazz as bitterly as Mr Bell does, wrote once, alluding -to a painter of the second rank:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>But, beside those great men, there is a certain number of -artists who have a distinct faculty of their own, by which they -convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot -get elsewhere; and these, too, have their place in general culture, -and must be interpreted to it by those who have felt their charm -strongly, and are often the objects of a special diligence and -a consideration wholly affectionate, just because there is not -about them the stress of a great name and authority.</p> -</div> - -<p class="in0">—and beside the great arts there is a certain number -of lesser arts which have also a pleasure to give; and -if we savour it strongly and honestly we shall lose -none of our delight in the others. But if we fear and -hate <i>them</i>, how shall we go into the Presence?</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_111" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="Mr_Dooley"><i>Mr Dooley,<br /> -Meet Mr Lardner</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="MR_DOOLEY_MEET_MR_LARDNER">MR DOOLEY, MEET MR LARDNER</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">One</span> of the most illuminating things Van Wyck -Brooks ever said, about himself, was that Mr Dooley -is already forgotten. It was particularly illuminating -because Mr Brooks was in England when he -made that statement, and it was some time before -1914—and it happens that it was in England, in 1917 -that I was made to understand how living Mr Dooley -is, how relevant to affairs and situations of the -moment, and how much English men and women consider -him as one of the better items in the heritage of -Americans. The writer of <i>The Ordeal of Mark -Twain</i> is an invaluable critic for America; yet one -wishes that he, too, could see Mr Dooley’s place in -our literature; one still hopes that he will begin to -enjoy Ring Lardner.</p> - -<p>The juxtaposition of these two names would be -reasonable even if both of them did not write in -slang, for one is the greatest of our retired satirists -and the other has every chance (if not every intention) -of becoming the greatest of our active ones. I -should like to say at once that I am not addressing -an open letter to Dear Mr Lardner, bidding him, -while there is yet time, to think on higher things. I -do not want him to forswear for a moment his hold on -the popular imagination, nor to write for a more judicious -<i>clientèle</i>. I am satisfied to have Mr Lardner -amuse me; if the strain of satire in him is an accident -and he prefers to go on with his slang humour—I -can always read Mr Dooley or Dean Swift. But if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> -the growing vein of satire in all of Lardner’s work is -what I think it is, he has much to learn from Mr -Dooley. I shall presently come to Mr Dooley and -indicate what it is Lardner can learn in those beautiful -pages; the main thing is that he is probably the -only man in America with the capacity of learning -the lesson of the master, and happily he can learn it -without ceasing for a moment to live in his own -world. I do not wish to force upon him the ordeal of -being worried about.</p> - -<p>There may have been a time when Mr Lardner -gave cause for worry. Perhaps when <i>You Know Me, -Al</i> had run as long as it needed to run, one might have -feared that Mr Lardner, having discovered the -American language as his medium, simply didn’t -know what to do with it. If his humour was going -to depend for ever on “1-sided” and “4-taste” and -odd misspellings, it might cease to be funny. It was -necessary, in short, that Mr Lardner should have -something personal to say. He has answered the -question of his future by showing the beginnings of -a first-rate satirist, continuing the tradition of Mark -Twain and Mr Dooley. And having these tentatives -in mind we can begin to look back and wonder -whether he wasn’t always something of a satirist, unconsciously.</p> - -<p>The dates may confound my argument, so I will -omit them; substantially Lardner began writing the -letters of a busher just when the more serious magazines<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> -were exploiting the intellectual idea of “inside -baseball.” Those were the days—and they must -have been funny, we feel <i>circa</i> 1923 when the bought -and sold world’s series and the letters of the fishing -pitcher and suchlike scandal are in our memories, -carefully tucked away because the honour of the -national game is safe in the hands of a dictator—those -were the days when the manager of a baseball -team was regarded as a combination of a captain of -finance (later events rather justified that assumption) -a Freud, and an unborn Einstein. A fine body of college -graduates, clean-living, sport-loving, well-read -boys were the players; and a sport-loving, game-for-the-game’s -sake body of men the enthusiasts. Hughie -Fullerton and Paul Elmer More might be seen any -day in the same column, and John J. McGraw, who -allowed himself to be called Muggsy to show what a -good democrat he was, lunched daily at the President’s -table. Into this pretentious parade Mr -Lardner injected the busher—and baseball has never -recovered. The busher was simply a roughneck and -a fool, a braggart and a liar; he was on occasions a -good ball player, and he seemed to be inflated with -the hot air which had been written about him. He -pricked the bubble, and I do not wonder that Heywood -Broun, despairing of making interesting his accounts -of a recent world’s series, publicly prayed to -God to change places with him for duration. Nothing -short of divine power could save them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span></p> - -<p>It is a long time since the days of the busher and -when Lardner returned to baseball it was clear that -the subject interested him in no degree, and that he -had changed much as a writer. It is not necessary to -belittle the earlier work; only to note that in 1922 -the Lardner touch was much more deft, that the language -was both richer and more accurate, and that he -was continually writing parodies, sometimes of a -phrase, often of a whole style. Three or four of the -reports he wrote for the New York <i>American</i> were -jewels—and, although they had little to do with baseball, -they must have been written in the few hours -which intervene between the end of a game and the -moment of going to press. The whole series of articles -ought to be reprinted; I am limited to snatches from -two of them. The first set the theme: that Lardner -had promised his wife a fur coat from his winnings—he -had bet on the Yankees. The headline was</p> - -<p class="p1 b1 center"> -Rings’ Mrs.<br /> -<i>Outa Luck</i><br /> -On Fur Coat -</p> - -<p class="in0">and then followed:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Well friends you can imagine my surprise and horror when -I found out to-night that the impression had got around some -way another that as soon as this serious was over I was planning -to buy a expensive fur coat for my Mrs. and put a lot -of money into same and buy a coat that would probably run -up into hundreds and hundreds of dollars.</p> - -<p>Well I did not mean to give no such kind of a impression<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span> -and I certainly hope that my little article was not read that way -by everybody a specially around my little home because in the -first place I am not a sucker enough to invest hundreds and -hundreds of dollars in a garment which the chances are that -the Mrs. will not wear it more than a couple times all winter, -as the way it looks now we are libel to have the most openest -winter in history, and if women folks should walk along the st. -in expensive fur coats in the kind of weather which it looks like -we are going to have, why, they would only be laughed at and -any way I believe a couple can have a whole lot better time in -winter staying home and reading a good book or maybe have a -few friends in to play bridge.</p> - -<p>Further and more, I met a man at supper last night that -has been in the fur business all his life and ain’t did nothing -you might say only deal in furs and this man says that they are -a great many furs in this world which is reasonable priced that -has got as much warmth in them as high price furs and looks a -great deal better.</p> - -<p>For inst. he says that a man is a sucker to invest thousands -and thousands of dollars in expensive furs like Erminie, mule-skin, -squirrel skin and Kerensky when for a hundred dollars, or -not even that much, why a man can buy a owl skin or horse -skin or weasel skin garment that looks like big dough and practically -prostrates people with the heat when they wear them.</p> - -<p>So I hope my readers will put a quietus on the silly rumour -that I am planning to plunge in the fur market. I will see that -my Mrs. is dressed in as warm a style as she has been accustomed -to but neither her or I is the kind that likes to make a -big show and go up and down Fifth ave. sweltering in a $700 -hog-skin garment in order so as people will turn around and -gap at us. Live and let live is my slocum.</p> -</div> - -<p>If this were not funny its secondary qualities -would not be worth noting. The single sentence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span> -which makes up the second paragraph is a miracle of -condensation, for it contains the whole mind and character -of the individual created behind it (it is not -Ring Lardner, obviously) and at the same time it is a -miracle of the ear, for the rhythm and intonation of -the American spoken language is perfectly caught and -held in it. What is the use of <i>Babbitt</i> in five hundred -pages if we have Lardner in five hundred words? -The fur episode was continued two days later, the -Yankees continuing to lose and three kittens—“three -members of what is sometimes referred to as the feline -tribe”—out at Mr Lardner’s “heavily mortgaged -home in Great Neck ... is practically doomed you -might say ...” because Mr Lardner has met a -man “who has did nothing all his life but sell and -wear fur coats” and who assured him that catskin -garments no bigger than a guest towel were all the -rage and had been seen on “some of the best-dressed -women in New York strolling up and down Tenth -avenue....”</p> - -<p>“These 3 little members of the feline tribe is the -cutest and best behaved kitties in all catdom, their -conduct having always been above reproaches outside -of a tendency on the part of Ringer to bite strangers’ -knuckles. Nowhere on Long Island is there a more -loveable trio of grimalkins, and how it pierces my -old heart to think that some day next week these 3 -little fellows must be shot down like a dog so as their -fur can be fashioned into a warm winter coat for she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span> -who their antics has so often caused to screech with -laughter.”</p> - -<p>The annihilation of the whole Black Beauty-Beautiful -Joe style of writing in the last sentence is -complete, and is accomplished with the retention of -Lardner’s own peculiarities. It may shock Mr Lardner -to know that he has done in little what Mr -Joyce has done on the grand scale in <i>Ulysses</i>.</p> - -<p>Indeed I feel that there must be hidden parody in -the earlier writings of Mr Lardner, too, because he is -so clean in handling it now. Satire in detail he had—there -is a dictionary of it in his one word “he-ll.” -Elsewhere, in a series later than <i>You Know Me, Al</i> -he has described a half-fatuous, half-hardheaded -roughneck dragging his silly and scheming wife and -sister-in-law through the hotels and apartments of the -backwash of society, and the story grew more and -more sardonic, more and more entertaining; little of -the aimless, sickly, trivial life of the merely prosperous -escaped him. Unlike Mr Dooley, his chief -concerns were private ones; it is only recently that he -has touched upon public affairs. For a long time his -only “universal” was baseball—a form of entertainment -which now bores him exceedingly. He is also -bored, I gather from an interview in the New York -<i>Globe</i>, with the sort of fiction he has been writing, -and amuses himself with writing plays. But as a -satirist he is turning slowly towards matters of pith, -and the question of his ultimate rank depends on this:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span> -Can he, as he broadens out, retain the swift, destructive, -and tremendously funny turn of phrase, the hard -and resistant mind, the gaiety of spirit which have -made him a humorist? Can he, in short, learn from -Mr Dooley and remain Mr Lardner? For many -reasons I think he can.</p> - -<p>Between the busher and these newspaper reports -Mr Lardner has written much; among his ephemera, -even, there are many pages not to be lost. I shall -return to them after drawing a long course with Mr -Dooley as my centre, for it is one of the significant -things about Mr Dooley that you must always keep -him in your eye when you are scanning the horizon -for an American satirist.</p> - -<p>Mr Dooley was a satirist of the highest order -and an excellent humorist. The combination is interesting. -Psycho-analysts may determine at a later -date that the reason he wrote in dialect was that he -was afraid to attack the American people directly; I -prefer to believe that the good sense of his creator -(Finley Peter Dunne, to be sure; but one always -thinks of Martin Dooley in his independent existence) -saw that a benevolent humour was the correct -medium for a satire adequate to America. And that -is America’s good fortune. Read the criticism of -American warfare and politics as developed in the -satire of Mr Dooley and compare it with the satire -of French politics and warfare as expressed in the -irony of Anatole France; without measuring the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span> -quality of the one by the other, think only that each -is <i>adequate</i> to the subject. Less than the bitterness -of <i>Penguin Island</i> and the <i>Histoire contemporaine</i> -would not have served for France; more than the -laughter of Dooley would have been disproportionate -and unmanly for us.</p> - -<p>Satire is like parody in admitting the integrity of -the subject; it is a pruning knife applied for the good -of the tree; and irony is a dagger with corrosive -poison at the tip. Satire is proper to America because -essentially the satirist believes that life is all right, -and that only the extravagances and frailties of -American life, at the moment of writing, need correction -or are subject to mockery. The Frenchman, in a -highly organized society, which he takes to be not -only the best expression of life, but life itself, turns -to irony as his natural mode when he is confronted -with the ineluctable vision of its evil.</p> - -<p>The danger is, to be sure, that our satirists remain -superficial. When the thing is done roughly, without -much humour, with no rich sense of the vastness and -variety of the comic carnival, we get little more than -the eternal “wise crack”; and the wise crack is no -more entertaining in misspelled English than it is in -capital letters, no more in pidgin than in Yiddish. -I do not mean that George Ade and Wallace Irwin -and Bill Nye and Montague Glass haven’t each a -special quality which makes for amusement; I do -mean that they lack the great general qualities of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> -knowing and understanding which create humour. -An illustration will do more than any defining to -make the difference clear. The Japanese Schoolboy -used to begin his letters, “To Hon. Editor” and Ring -Lardner is, I suppose, the only man in America who -can begin, “Well, friends....”</p> - -<p>Ambrose Bierce is generally supposed to have had -this quality; certainly he had intelligence and wrote -respectable English with a cold pen. His <i>Dictionary</i> -does not impress me as the work of a spirit naturally -ironical. Ade wrote satirically a long time ago; once -in a while something occurs in the <i>Fables</i> to justify -the acclaim of which F. P. A. is the curator. There is -much more in Artemas Ward, whose glory is kept -alive, worthily, by the sardonic leader-writer of <i>The -Freeman</i>, Mr Albert Jay Nock. As language neither -Ade nor Ward approaches in interest the studies of -Mark Twain in <i>Life on the Mississippi</i>, nor those of -Dooley and Lardner. The difference between Bill -Nye and Ward on one side and Montague Glass and -Lardner on the other, is that the former did not use -an actually viable language or dialect, but used distortions -of English for a specific effect. (I am far -from suggesting that Ward did not use American -notably, nor that his language is the better part of his -work; he was a real satirist.) It is my guess that in -the beginning the misspelled words signified that the -speaker was the hard sensible common man with none -of “your” refinements. Juvenal and Johnson may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span> -have been superior to the thing attacked; it pleased -the democratic American to pretend to be beneath it. -The literary success of the dialects is another matter, -which anyone who believes that ours is still an Anglo-Saxon -country will do well to consider. Montague -Glass is particularly interesting in this respect. He -impresses me as being neither a wise nor a foolish -man, but a smart one. What gave him his vogue was -his conformity with the norm of business acuteness -and his use of a highly complex private racial idiom, -which expresses a highly complex integrated almost -secret racial life; he transferred, almost transliterated -it into recognizable, at least understandable English, -with such a climax as “I wish I were dead, God forbid!” -which was recognized by the populace as a part -of American life ten years before Mr Henry Ford -bought the Protocols. The racial dialect is also exploited, -but not with so reliable an ear, by Hugh -Wiley in his negro stories; it is possible that the -stories of Octavus Roy Cohen are more accurate (they -are not so entertaining); but the life they represent -is, in any case, too near to America to be surprising -to us.</p> - -<p>I am convinced that nearly all of Mr Dooley and -nearly all of the later Lardner would stand without -dialect. It is not an odd-looking word that impresses -most in Mr Dooley’s masterpieces about the Dreyfus -case. “The witness will confine himself to forgeries” -is English as Swift would have written it, and is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> -neither better nor worse than, “How th’ divvle can -they perjure thimsilves if they ain’t sworn?” or</p> - -<p>“’‘Let us proceed,’ says th’ impartial an’ fair-minded -judge, ‘to th’ thrile iv th’ haynious monsther -Cap Dhry-fuss’ he says. Up jumps Zola, an’ says he -in Frinch: ‘Jackuse,’ he says, which is a hell of a -mane thing to say to anny man. An’ they thrun him -out. ‘Judge’ says th’ attorney f’r th’ difinse, ‘an’ gintlemen -iv’ th’ jury’ he says. ‘Ye’re a liar,’ says th’ -judge. ‘Cap, ye’re guilty, an’ ye know it,’ he says.... -‘Let us pro-ceed to hearin’ th’ tisti-mony,’ he -says.... Be this time Zola has come back; an’ he -jumps up, an’, says he, ‘Jackuse,’ he says. An’ they -thrun him out.”</p> - -<p>It is no wonder that this passage was reprinted -by the New York <i>Evening Post</i> after the expulsion -of the Socialists from Albany. Nearly everything -serious in Dooley has the same relevance, and one -reads about war experts and “disqualifying the -enemy” (in relation to the Spanish-American and -Boer Wars) with a slightly dizzying sensation that -this man has said everything that needed to be said -twenty years in advance of his time. We needed -him badly during the war, but a comic song about him -had somehow withdrawn his name from the rank of -great literature and we had to do with sad second-bests. -There isn’t a chance in the world that he will -be forgotten, because he is recognized in England and -we shall some day reimport his reputation. For he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> -has the great advantage of being at the same time a -humorist and a social historian, an every-day philosopher -and the <i>homme moyen sensuel</i>.</p> - -<p>His qualities are so immediate that analyzing -them appears superfluous. He gets his effects by distortion, -not by exaggeration. When he told Mr -Roosevelt to call the next edition of his book <i>Alone in -Cubia</i> he extracted an essence from it, rather than inflated -it. His adversatives are surprising and devastating. -He conceives a Blood-is-thicker-than-Water -speech in these terms (from the English to the American): -“Foolish and frivolous people, cheap but thrue-hearted -and insincere cousins.... Ye ar-re savage -but inthrestin’.” Sometimes he leaves out the “but”: -“They was followed be th’ gin’rals iv th’ Fr-rinch -ar-rmy, stalwart, fearless men, with coarse, disagreeable -faces.” His unexpectedness goes farther; he -once said that left alone General Shafter could have -taken “Sandago” without losing an ounce.</p> - -<p>I do not wish to write a literary essay about Mr -Dooley, and having mentioned Swift I have little to -say. I must admit that the Irish of Mr Dooley is -stage-Irish; what makes it acceptable is that it is entirely -Dooley-Irish, and whatever the spelling, whatever -the oddities of words, the intonation is always -right. For of course it is possible to write a dialect -without imitation of sound, and to do it effectively -and honestly. Sherwood Anderson has done it in <i>I -Want to Know Why</i> and in <i>I’m a Fool</i>; Lardner has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span> -done it in <i>The Golden Honeymoon</i>; and the amiable -efforts of Mr John V. A. Weaver are ineffective because -in nine out of ten cases he is setting slang -words, well observed and accurately recorded, to the -rhythm of literary English. Mr Dooley’s rhythm is -always that of the estimable, easy-going barkeeper -who is speaking.</p> - -<p>One looks back with a certain envy to the time -when a barkeeper could talk about the world. Our -present social situation is disjected, and the period -before the war seems incredibly calm and halcyon. It -seems to us that then America was settling into the -character it had made for itself in the Civil War, a -time of consolidation and certainty. A minor passion -for social justice seems to have been the only great -force hostile to that sense of security and self-satisfaction -without which no civilization can become sophisticated -and refined. It was pre-eminently the time -when a satirist could exist. Mr Dooley is the proof -that he did. He understood his America, as in his -time, and without bitterness he makes it live again.</p> - -<p>Ten years from now, if we settle down, Mr Lardner -may have another such opportunity. For the -moment he is driven to the surface; he has no <i>point -d’appui</i> for his attack; in a bewildering and unsure -civilization, he is himself unsure. It is possible that -he will become so accustomed to shallow waters that -he will never venture into deep; I should be sorry, -because he has qualities too precious to be wasted.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span> -He is developing a strain of wild imagination, of -something approaching fantasy. And his occasional -pieces of fiction are far beyond the average of stories -written in America. <i>The Golden Honeymoon</i> (which -Mr Edward J. O’Brien had the acumen to put in his -collection of the best stories of 1922) is almost a -masterpiece; it has a sort of artistic wisdom, is without -tricks, and is beautifully written. He has also -written a burlesque which failed drearily with the -49-ers and a sketch, <i>The Bull Pen</i>, in which the -busher reappeared, which was a moderate success in -the Ziegfeld Follies. This piece and <i>The Golden -Honeymoon</i> show a fresh tendency on Lardner’s part -to understate; they are actually quiet, as if he were -tired of noisiness. I do not think he is tired of anything. -In an interview recently he said, “Some philosopher -once said that if you want a thing badly -when you’re young you’re likely to get too much of it -before you’re old; <i>I hope to God he knew what he was -talking about</i>.” He is afraid of nothing; one fancies -he doesn’t care for too many things.</p> - -<p>He grew weary, a little while ago, of the literary -diaries published from week to week by the highbrows, -these records “of who they seen and talked to -and what they done since the last time we heard from -them” and so he wrote his own for the New York -Sunday <i>American</i>. Among the items chronicled were:</p> - -<p>“When I got home Sousa was there and we played -some Brahms and Grieg with me at the piano and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> -him at one end of a cornet. ‘How well you play, -Lardy,’ was Sousa’s remark. Brahms called up in the -evening and him and his wife come over and played -rummy....” (This is grotesque, but he knows his -subject.) “Had breakfast with Mayor Hylan and -Senator Lodge.... Went home and played some -Rubinstein on the black keys.... President -Harding called up long distants to say hello. The -Mrs talked to him as I was playing with the cat.... -Took a ride on the Long Island R.R. to study -human nature....” And so on. It is a little -better than verbal parody, is it not, Lardy?</p> - -<p>Mr Lardner pretends still to feel some of the he-man’s -contempt for letters, suggesting at the same -time the fat-headed pride of a real-estate broker who -has had a patriotic poem printed in the local paper. -He is, as Sherwood Anderson says, “sticking to the -gang.” But he is wise and witty and he has few compunctions -about being vulgar. It is his most precious -asset. For in America the fear of vulgarity is the beginning -of deadness. Abase! (if I may quote Mr -Dooley).</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_129" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="A_Tribute_to"><i>A Tribute to<br /> -Florenz Ziegfeld</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_TRIBUTE_TO_FLORENZ_ZIEGFELD">A TRIBUTE TO FLORENZ ZIEGFELD</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> incurable romanticist, George Jean Nathan, -was the first to speak boldly in print and establish the -rule of the silver-limbed, implacable Aphrodite in the -theatre of Florenz Ziegfeld; and the equally incurable -realist, Heywood Broun, has discovered that it -isn’t so. Mr Nathan, obsessed by the idea that the -world in general, and America in particular, goes to -any extreme to conceal its interest in sex, really did -a service to humanity by pointing out that there <i>were</i> -beautiful girls in revues and that these girls constituted -one of the main reasons for the attendance of -men at the performances. Mr Broun, sensing a lack -of abandon and frenzy in the modern bacchanale, -says, simply, that it isn’t so, and implies that anyone -who could get a thrill out of that—! Like the king -in that story of Hans Christian Andersen, of which -Mr Broun is inordinately fond, the girls haven’t any -clothes on; and this little child, noticing the fact, is -dreadfully disappointed.</p> - -<p>Now Mr Ziegfeld is, in the opinion of those who -work for him, a genius, and can well afford to say, -“A plague on both your houses,” for he has built up -what he himself calls a national institution, glorifying, -not degrading, the American girl (<i>pauvre petite</i>). -He can afford to look with complacency upon -undergraduates charging upon his theatre in the anticipation -of unholy delights, and forced to bear the -clownings of Eddie Cantor or the wise sayings of -Will Rogers; then he can turn to Dr John Roach<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span> -Straton who, having heard from Mr Broun that the -Follies are chaste, approaches to see some monstrosity -of a classic ballet and hears the vast decent sensuality -of a jazz number instead.</p> - -<p>Mr Ziegfeld has lived through so much—through -the period when it was believed indecent to be undressed -and through the manlier period when nudity -was contrasted with nakedness (it is the basis of a -sort of Y. M. C. A. æsthetics that the nude is always -pure) and through the long period, 1911–15, when the -reviewers discovered the superior attractiveness of the -stockinged leg; art in the shape of Joseph Urban has -left a permanent mark upon him, and he has trafficked -in strange seas for numbers and devices; what -was vulgar and what was delicate, boresome and -thrilling, have all passed through his hands; he has -sent genius whistling down the wind to the vaudeville -stage and built up new successes with secondary -material; the storehouses are littered with the gaudy -monuments of his imitators. And all the time the -secret of his success has been staring Broadway in the -face.</p> - -<p>It is well to speak of Mr Ziegfeld’s success because -in the last few years several things have happened -to the revue; for almost as long as I remember -the Ziegfeld Follies, I remember the Winter Garden -opposition, the Passing Show, its exact antithesis.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">12</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span> -But lately there have arrived at least two productions -which give every guaranty of permanence, in addition -to some others which may turn out to be equally sure -of survival. I mean the Music Box Revue and the -Greenwich Village Follies. The Music Box is only -in its third year; its chiefs assets are one of the most -agreeable theatres in New York, assuring a reputation -on the road, and first call on the still unsatisfied -talents of Mr Irving Berlin. The Greenwich Village -Follies, even if it lose its present director, John -Murray Anderson, will continue to be successful for -one of the strangest reasons in the world—its reputation -for being “artistic.” The Winter Garden, the -two Follies, and the Music Box, are the four points -of the compass in this truly magnetic field. When -the needle points due north, I usually find Mr Ziegfeld -fairly snug under the Pole Star.</p> - -<p>There are, if you count the chorus individually, -about a hundred reasons for seeing a revue; there is -only one reason for thinking about it, and that is that -at one point, and only one point, the revue touches -upon art. The revue as a production manifests the -same impatience with half measures, with boggling, -with the good enough and the nearly successful, which -every great artist feels, or pretends to feel, in regard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> -to his own work. It shows a mania for perfection; it -aspires to be precise and definite, it corresponds to -those <i>de luxe</i> railway trains which are always exactly -on time, to the millions of spare parts that always fit, -to the ease of commerce when there is a fixed price; -jazz or symphony may sound from the orchestra pit, -but underneath is the real tone of the revue, the -steady, incorruptible purr of the dynamo. And with -the possible exception of architecture, <i>via</i> the back -door of construction, the revue is the most notable -place in which this great American dislike of bungling, -the real pleasure in a thing perfectly done, -apply even vaguely to the arts.</p> - -<p>If you can bring into focus, simultaneously, a -good revue and a production of grand opera at the -Metropolitan Opera House, the superiority of the -lesser art is striking. Like the revue, grand opera is -composed of elements drawn from many sources; like -the revue, success depends on the fusion of these elements -into a new unit, through the highest skill in -production. And this sort of perfection the Metropolitan -not only never achieves—it is actually absolved -in advance from the necessity of attempting it. -I am aware that it has the highest-paid singers, the -best orchestra, some of the best conductors, dancers -and stage hands, and the worst scenery in the world, -in addition to an exceptionally astute impresario; -but the production of these elements is so haphazard -and clumsy that if any revue-producer hit as low a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span> -level in his work, he would be stoned off Broadway. -Yet the Metropolitan is considered a great institution -and complacently permitted to run at a loss, because -its material is <span class="smcap">Art</span>.</p> - -<div id="i_132" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;"> - <img src="images/i_132.jpg" width="1824" height="1102" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">The Sun’s Dwelling.</span> By Joseph Urban</div></div> - -<p>The same thing is true in other fields—in producing -serious plays, in writing great novels, we will -stand for a second-rateness we would not for a moment -abide in the construction of a bridge or the making -of an omelette, or the production of a revue. And -because in a revue the bunk doesn’t carry, the revue -is one of the few places you can go with the assurance -that the thing, however tawdry in itself, will be -well done. If it is tawdry, it is so in keeping with the -taste of its patrons, and without pretense; whereas in -the major arts—no matter how magnificent the masquerade -of Art may be—the taste of a production is -usually several notches below the taste of the patrons.</p> - -<p>The good revue pleases the eye, the ear, and the -pulse; the very good revue does this <i>so well that it -pleases the mind</i>. It operates in that equivocal zone -where a thing does not have to be funny—it need -only sound funny; nor be beautiful if it can for a -fleeting moment appear beautiful. It does not have -to send them away laughing or even whistling; all -it needs to do is to keep the perceptions of the audience -fully engaged all the time, and the evaporation -of its pleasures will bring the audience back -again and again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span></p> - -<p>The secret I have alluded to is how to create -the atmosphere of seeming—and Mr Ziegfeld knows -the secret in every detail. In brief, he makes everything -appear perfect by a consummate smoothness -of production. Undoubtedly ten or fifteen other people -help in this—I use Mr Ziegfeld’s name because -in the end he is responsible for the kind of show put -out in his name and because the smoothness I refer -to goes far beyond the mechanism of the stage or skill -in directing a chorus. It is not the smoothness of -a connecting rod running in oil, but of a batter where -all the ingredients are so promptly introduced and so -thoroughly integrated that in the end a man may -stand up and say, This is a Show. Everyone with -a grain of sense knows that Mr Urban can make all -the sets for a production and Mr Berlin write all -the music; Mr Ziegfeld has the added grain to see -that if he’s going to have a great variety of things and -people, he had better divide his <i>décor</i> and his music -among many different talents.</p> - -<p>There have been funnier revues and revues more -pleasing to the eye and revues with far better popular -music; nowhere have all the necessary ingredients -appeared to such a high average of advantage. -Mr Anderson could barely keep Bert Savoy within the -bounds of a revue; the Music Box collapses entirely -as a revue at a few dance steps by Bobby Clark. -But Ziegfeld as early as 1910 was able to throw together -Harry Watson (Young Kid Battling Dugan,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span> -nowadays, in vaudeville), Fannie Brice, Anna Held, -Bert Williams, and Lillian Lorraine and, as if to -prove that he was none the less producing a revue, -bring down his curtain on a set-piece of “Our American -Colleges.” And twelve years later, with Will -Rogers and Gilda Grey and Victor Herbert and Ring -Lardner, he is still producing a revue and brings -both curtains down on his chorus—once <i>en masse</i> -and the second time undressing for the street in silhouette.</p> - -<p>I cannot estimate the amount of satisfaction which -since those early days Mr Ziegfeld has provided. -My own memories do not go back to the actual productions -in which Anna Held figured; I recall only -the virtuous indignation of elderly people and my -own mixed feelings of curiosity and disgust when I -overheard reports of the goings-on. But from the -time I begin to remember them until to-day there has -always been a peculiar quality of pleasure in the -Ziegfeld shows, and the uninterrupted supply of -things pleasant to see and entertaining to hear, has -been admirable. Mr Ziegfeld has never been actually -courageous; his novelties are never more audacious -than, say, radiolite costumes or an Urban backdrop. -He is apparently pledged to the tedious set-pieces -which are supposed to be artistic—the Ben Ali Haggin -effects, the Fan in Many Lands or the ballot of A -Night in Statuary Hall with the discobolus coming -to life and the arms of the Venus de Milo miraculously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span> -restored. There are years, too, in which Mr -Ziegfeld, discovering new talent, follows but one vein -and leaves his shows so much in one tone that a slight -depression sets in. Mr Edmund Wilson, in the -<i>Dial</i> repeats the plaint of Mr Heywood Broun in the -<i>World</i>—that the Follies are frigid—the girls are all -straight, the ballet becomes a drill, the very laughs -are organized and mechanical. Well, it happens to -be the function of the Ziegfeld Follies to be Apollonic, -not Dionysian; the leap and the cry of the bacchanale -give way to the song and dance, and when -we want the true frenzy we have to go elsewhere. -I doubt whether even the success of the negro shows -will frighten Ziegfeld into mingling with his other -elements some that will be riotous and wild; the -best they can do will be to prevent Ziegfeld from -growing too utterly “refined.” He tends at this moment -to quiet fun of the Lardner type and the occasional -horseplay with which he accentuates this murmur, -this smile, is usually unsuccessful. I am, myself, -more moved by broader strokes than his, but I -recognize that Ziegfeld, and not the producers of -<i>Shuffle Along</i>, is in the main current of our development—that -we tend to a mechanically perfect society -in which we will either master the machine or -be enslaved by it. And the only way to master it—since -we cannot escape—will be by understanding it -in every detail. That is exactly Mr Ziegfeld’s present -preoccupation. I dissent, however, from the suggestion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span> -that the physical loveliness of the Ziegfeld -chorus has ceased to be seductive. Some, as Mr Lardner -once said—some like ’em cold, and there are at -least five other choruses which affect me as pleasurably. -But for those that like the Ziegfeld-type -chorus, which has always a deal of stateliness and a -haughty air of being damned well bred, Mr Ziegfeld’s -production of the wares is perfect. He has simply -moved his chorus one step backward in order to make -them appear slightly inaccessible and so a little more -desirable. His attack is indirect, but it is no less -certain.</p> - -<p>In the back of the mind there always remains the -idea that a revue ought to be a revue of something, -and as far as I know, George M. Cohan is the last -of those who have tried to accomplish that. Weber -and Fields presented burlesque; Mr Cohan’s efforts -are not lost in that dim perspective, and they -seem superior, for he wove his amazingly expert parodies -of current successes into a new creation, a veritable -review. The high spirits and sophistication -of the Cohan revues have not frequently been -equalled on our stage, for the whole of Cohan’s talents -were poured into them without reserve. The -parodies and satire were merciless and spared not -even himself; for he took the old jibe about his -Yankee-Doodleism and wrote apropos of a show of -his which had failed: “Go, get a Flag, For you need -it, you need it, you know you need it!” He took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span> -off <i>Common Clay</i> in swift and expert patter; he -destroyed the “song hit” with <i>Down by the Erie</i> ten -years earlier and ten times better than the Forty-niners -did; he advertised himself and ridiculed his -own self-advertisement; he was the principal actor -and he played fair with Willie Collier and Charles -Winninger and Louise Dresser. Throughout he was -the high point of Cohanism, of that shrewd, cock-sure, -arrogant, wise, and witty man who was the true -expression of the America of Remember the Maine!, -the McKinley elections, the Yellow Kid, and <i>Coon! -Coon! Coon!</i> He was always smart, always versatile. -To this day he is smart enough to produce <i>Mary</i> -and <i>Little Nelly Kelly</i>, knowing that the old stuff -goes biggest and that even in the midst of his own sophistication -he can capture vaster audiences with his -own simplicity. This is an abdication of his proper -function, to be sure. The man who had so much to -do with the great-American-drama (I allude to <i>Seven -Keys to Baldpate</i> and the description “great-American” -is deliberate) and who could take any trash (<i>A -Prince There Was</i>) and make it go, through the indefatigable -energy and the cleverness of his own acting, -and who could fight the world with his preposterous -<i>Tavern</i>—this man had no right to give up -doing what he did so well. I care nothing for the -famous nasalities of George M. Cohan; after the -Four Cohans I saw him first as actor, so I do not -mourn for his dancing days. But I know that with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span> -only a fraction of Berlin’s gifts as a composer, he had -something which even Berlin lacks: the complete -sense of the boards. His revues would have been -desirable additions to each theatrical season if they -had done no more than produce himself. His hard -sense, his unimaginative but not unsympathetic response -to everything that took place on the street and -at the bar and on the stage made him a prince of -reviewers—he was not without malice and he was -wholly without philosophy. Perhaps that is why his -revues were wonderfully gay. Why they ever -stopped I cannot tell; when they stopped, strangely -enough, they left the field to the Winter Garden. -I make no claim that the revues at this house are -always pleasing; people apparently still exist who -are enthusiasts for Valeska Surratt. But I do claim -that they are always revues, even if they are sometimes -to be weighed by avoirdupois and not by critical -standard.</p> - -<div id="i_138" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_138.png" width="2464" height="3708" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">George M. Cohan.</span> By Alfred Frueh -</div></div> - -<p>The annihilation of all the vast and silly posturing -which went on a few years ago under the name -of <i>The Jest</i> was accomplished in a perfect burlesque -by Blanche Ring and Charles Winninger (the latter -played Leo Ditrichstein in one of the Cohan revues) -and if <i>The Sheik</i> never reached the stage it is possibly -because Eddie Cantor burlesqued it in advance -on a bicycle and with a time clock for the women of -the harem. What has held the Winter Garden down -(except, of course, when Al Jolson there inhabited)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span> -is the lack of good music; for the humour has always -been broad and the slap-stick merry. The shows -there always seem to be hankering a little for the -additional vulgarity of out-and-out burlesque, but the -Rath Brothers were as much at home there as the -Avon Comedy Four; if my head were at stake I -could not recall a single thing there which could be -called exquisite, but I swear that as the show girls -shuffled precariously up and down the runway I -did at times fancy I heard the stamping of a goatish -foot behind the scenes, and if I didn’t like the sound, -I was in the minority. The Winter Garden has always -been, in part, a direct assault on the senses and -the method of art is always indirect; Mr Ziegfeld -knows this and always manages to bathe his scenes -in a cool virginal light, to the intensification of -pleasure for the connoisseurs.</p> - -<p>The difference between these two shows can be -measured by watching one figure pass across the -stage of each. Last year at the Winter Garden Conchita -Piquer sang a <i>malagueña</i>. (You can discover -all you need to know about the <i>malagueña</i> in -Mr Santayana’s Soliloquies; to us it is the perfect -exotic, as strange to our ears as Chinese song—stranger -because it remains recognizably Occidental, -yet seems to be based on no intervals known to our -scales, and its rhythm is capricious and uncertain). -She sang it “wildly well,” with a pert assured air -of superiority. Yet she cast flowers into the audience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span> -as she did so, and the background and the massing -of the chorus behind her were all out of key and -prevented the song from being what at the Ziegfeld -Follies it inevitably must have been, exquisite.</p> - -<p>At the Follies passes Gilda Grey, a performer -of limited talents gifted with unutterable intensity. -Against a flaring background in which all the signs -of all of Broadway are crowded together, she sings a -commentary on the negro invasion—<i>It’s Getting Very -Dark on Old Broadway</i>—the scene fades and radiolite -picks out the white dresses of the chorus, the -hands and faces recede into undistinguishable black. -And while the chorus sings Miss Grey’s voice rises in -a deep and shuddering ecstasy to cry out the two -words, “Getting darker!” To disengage that cry, to -insure its repercussion, went all the skill of production -in everything that preceded and in everything -that followed. It was exciting, but it was also exquisite, -and that is exactly what the Winter Garden -could not have done.</p> - -<p>Neither of the two Music Box revues has reached -that height, because in neither has production kept -pace with Berlin’s music. It is part of the technique -of the revue to have “stunts” and Berlin, being <i>capable -du tout</i>, last year set a dining menu to music. -Yet nothing was added when lobster and mayonnaise -and celery appeared in the flesh; even worse, -this year something precious is lost when one of Berlin’s -veritable masterpieces, <i>Pack Up Your Sins and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span> -Go to the Devil</i>, is produced with an endless number -of trapdoors and hoists and all the other mechanics -of the stage. The first of the two revues flourished -on humour—Willie Collier and Sam Bernard were inexpressibly -funny—and on Berlin’s <i>Say It With Music</i>; -so long as it stayed in New York the appearance -in person of Mr Berlin, explaining to the well-remembered -tunes how he wrote each of his masterpieces -of ragtime, added much.</p> - -<p>The tone of this revue was the tone of the -building itself—varying from the cool and well-proportioned -exterior to the comfortable, a little -lavish interior. Florence Moore was as outrageous -as ever, and at least as active; she is the most tireless -person on the stage and to me the most tiring, -for her vitality affects me as a cyclone in which I am -quite unnecessarily involved. All the more surprising, -then, was her shift from horseplay to burlesque -in the house-hunting scene with Sam Bernard, at the -end of which the children were shot by their despairing -parents to remove the one obstacle between them -and the perfect apartment. In an earlier scene -Collier had had his chance—the one in which Bernard -tried to explain his difficulties and to read a -letter. All of Bernard’s stutterings and flounderings -in the English vocabulary availed nothing against -Collier’s imperturbable indifference. Collier has always -had a divine spark—it was visible even in <i>The -Hottentot</i>—and in that scene it glowed beautifully.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span> -The show was, to be sure, held in the matrix of Berlin’s -score, and was as much held <i>down</i> as up to that -level—I mean it was not spoiled by the intrusion of -alien theatrical elements. Since then a new hydraulic -system has apparently been added to the equipment -of the stage, and Hassard Short, confusing the dynamics -of the theatre with mere hoisting power, moves -everything that can be moved except the audience. -The elements are all there, but they are produced as -if it were a benefit, not a revue.</p> - -<div id="i_142" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 18em;"> - <img src="images/i_142.png" width="1647" height="3646" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Willie Collier.</span> By Alfred Frueh</div> -</div> - -<p>John Murray Anderson’s is the hardest case to be -sure about. A year ago he “struck a new note in revues”—by -producing one without a scintilla of interest -in any of its proceedings. Nothing quite so -lackadaisical and dull has ever had such a success. -Yet he had long before established a repute for being -artistic—and, as far as I can judge, it was by the -exploitation of millions of yards of draperies in place -of the usual canvas scenery. It was a sound notion, -and in the first of these productions, <i>What’s in a -Name?</i> there was a pretty air of the semi-professional, -a challenging suggestion of improvisation, as if the -chorus and principals weren’t sure from moment to -moment what the <i>régisseur</i> might suggest for them to -do next.</p> - -<p>He has always presented some of the loveliest -and some of the ugliest costumes in New York; and -now that draperies are no longer his only resource, -he falls back upon transformations in scenery, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span> -makes a painted backdrop of the Moonlight Sonata -come to life, with music, to the astonishment of the -multitude.</p> - -<p>In short, it would appear that Mr Anderson is introducing -into the revue precisely that element of -artistic bunk which has long been the property of the -bogus arts. I resent it, and resent it the more because -he doesn’t need it. In his recent show there -were elements beyond words to praise; the singing of -Yvonne George was superb and superbly arranged; -the Widow Brown song, sung and <i>danced</i> by Bert -Savoy, had a quality of tenderness which all the sentimental -songs in the Ziegfeld Follies try vainly to -transmit; the two little tumblers, Fortunello and -Cirillino, are by name and manner of the <i>commedia -dell’arte</i> and John Hazzard’s song about Alaska, with -slides by Walter Hoban, is the stuff that Forty-niners -are made of.</p> - -<p>It was in this show that the Herriman-Carpenter -ballet of Krazy Kat was tried and dismissed, and the -fault here is the fault of Mr Anderson throughout. -Again it was attempted with an artistic dancer, when -everyone who has intelligence of Krazy knows that -it should be done by an American stunt dancer until -the time when Mr Chaplin finds time to do it. Krazy -Kat is exquisite and funny—and whether Mr Carpenter -lets him remain so or not, it is clear that Mr -Anderson wanted him to be artistic at all cost. So -with his whole production; he has sacrificed fun all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span> -the way down the line; one is pleased, much more -than amused, and the gigantic revelry, the broad levity -of Bert Savoy stand apart from the show like a -stranger. It is the one revue in which the mass -dancing entirely fails to remain in the memory, and -I am convinced that if Miss Brice hadn’t, in the -Ziegfeld Follies, made <i>Mon Homme</i> a popular hit, -Miss George’s far more fiery and varied and more -generally interesting rendition of it would leave it -cold in the ears of the audiences. For Mr Anderson -has so far learned only to put over separate things, -and until you put the whole thing over the individual -things gain but half their victories.</p> - -<p>That completes the circle to Mr Ziegfeld, and, -since it is a question of putting it over, associates -with him another man who on at least one occasion -has done as well, Mr Charles Dillingham. If you -omit the one man shows as practised by Ed Wynn, -Frank Tinney and Al Jolson, and the nondescripts -of Hitchcock, and pass over <i>Stop! Look! Listen!</i> as -varying too far from the revue type, there remains -<i>Watch Your Step</i> as another high spot in production, -with the dancing of the Castles, the humours of that -very great comedian, Harry Kelly, and of Tinney, -the scenery and costumes by Robert McQuinn and -Helen Dryden, and the whole story of contemporary -dancing in Mr Berlin’s music. Except for Harry -Kelly, every item was bettered in <i>Stop! Look! Listen!</i>, -but in spite of the presence of Gaby Deslys,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span> -it was not a revue—whereas <i>Watch Your Step</i> almost -consciously set out to proclaim itself superior in fineness -and slickness to the Follies and almost succeeded.</p> - -<p>I am trying to sketch the main <i>types</i> of revue, -not to write a history of the revue; it is to be hoped -that some one sufficiently sentimental can be found -to do the job. Whether in a history the drunken -scene of Leon Errol in the subway would figure largely, -I do not know; I am not even sure that the scene in -the Grand Central while it was building, with Bert -Williams as the porter, would be noted; quite possibly -the memory of Lillian Lorraine on the swings—to -me merely a bearable necessity—and Frank Carter -singing, (1918) <i>I’m Going to Pin My Medal on the -Girl I Left Behind</i>, will seem more important than -Ina Claire’s mimicry of Frances Starr’s <i>Marie-Odile</i>. -It is possible that the injection of real humour, like -Lardner’s, may make the set scenes like Laceland or -the History of Shoes through the Ages or Our Colleges -more and more dispensable. I do not know. -I feel fairly certain only of this: that the relative importance -of the workers in the field is measured by -their mastery of the art of production far more than -by their skill in picking individuals and stunts. I -am also convinced that those who have arrived at -this perfection in an effort to give America pleasure -have done more for us than those who haven’t got -half way in trying to give us art.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_149" class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak semi"><i>The Darktown Strutters<br /> -on Broadway</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DARKTOWN_STRUTTERS_ON">THE DARKTOWN STRUTTERS ON -BROADWAY</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Anyone</span> so minded can write an entirely false -history of American civilization by setting down -in parallel columns the vogues and rages which have -overtaken us and Europe at the same time. The -highly patriotic, but a bit undergraduate, habit of -slanging your own country is always more effective -if the facts about any other country are a little obscure, -and, thanks to the cable and the efficacy of -transatlantic mails, we now know virtually everything -that isn’t so, and virtually nothing that is important, -about Europe. So it is quite possible for -a critic to say that in literature the taste of Europe -is far beyond ours, on the ground that Harold Bell -Wright is the typical American author and Conrad -and Anatole France and Tolstoi the typical European. -I mean that this is possible if a critic has -never heard of the work of Nat Gould and William -Le Queux in England, for instance.</p> - -<p>The latest of these false parallels would be this: -that while Europe was going in for the primitive -sculpture of the African negro, America devoted itself -and its theatres to musical shows composed and -produced by the nonprimitive negroes of Harlem, -New York.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> The wail of the saxophone in <i>Shuffle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span> -Along</i> had not yet died in my ears when a Serious -Critic made moan in his journal that the authors of -that piece were truckling to the white man’s sense of -superiority by exhibiting their own flesh and blood as -a pack of cheats and scoundrels. What had impressed -me as a fairly awkward mechanism for introducing -songs and dances was by him taken as a -libel on a race; and forgetting the picaresque romance -from the <i>Odyssey</i> to <i>Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford</i>, -forgetting that all peoples seem to take an abundant -pleasure in exposing themselves as delightful rogues, -he wept over this degradation. At about that time Mr -Clive Bell, marking a reaction from the extreme -vogue of African plastic, still ranked the sculptures -produced by savage and semicivilized negroes as -only a little below those of the two or three great -periods of artistic production. Again it would seem -that Europe had, in its effete way, stolen a march -on us.</p> - -<p>In effect the coloured shows were entertaining and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span> -interesting to think about, whether they were good or -bad, and most of them were pretty bad. As shows, -that is. As shows in a country which really knows -how to produce soul-satisfying eye-and-ear entertainment. -They had certain attractive qualities, and if -they were in essence second rate, they were at -least dynamic, while the first-rate thing in Europe -was static. While Europe remained calm after -the war we, hysterically, went in for an enormous -increase of pace in the active arts of the theatre. -I do not know whether we are altogether the -losers, and leave the question to others. I do know -that for a moment these pieces seem to have overshadowed -our (can I say?) native revues.</p> - -<p>Of course, in America no one cares for revues except -the unenlightened millions who pay to see them, -so there is no one to rise and make lamentation over -this state of affairs. For years we have laboured to -perfect our revues—and the shuffling feet of a barbarian -summon up an evil djinn to banish them. -The serene smoothness of manœuvre which Mr Wayburn -prepares for Mr Ziegfeld shrinks from the -boards before the haphazard leaping of unstudied -numbers; the sweet gravity of the dancers is forgotten -for the barbarous rhythm of any half dozen darkies -with a sense of syncopation innate in them. Lavishness -from Joseph Urban precariously maintains itself -against the smudged backdrop and the overall; -and over the prostrate and flowerlike and seductive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span> -beauty of the chorus-girl, there steps and struts, magnificently -struts, the high-yaller!</p> - -<p>The comparatively sober truth is that the negro -cabaret in the theatre is only a diversion, a necessary -and healthful variation from our norm. It has qualities -seldom exquisite and always arresting; and these -qualities, having slowly vanished from the revue, -have found themselves again in burlesque and in -these exotics. And I think it highly probable that -their only lasting effect will be to restore certain -highly desirable things to revue and musical comedy. -If there is any doubt of their goodness, another contrast -will prove the point.</p> - -<p>The one claim never made for the negro shows is -that they are artistic. Set beside them, then, a professedly -artistic revue, the <i>Pinwheel</i>, compounded of -native and exotic effects. It had two or three interesting -or exciting numbers; but the whole effect was -one of dreariness. The pall of art was upon it; it -died nightly. And <i>Shuffle Along</i>, without art, but -with tremendous vitality, not only lived through the -night, but dragged provincial New Yorkers to a midnight -show as well. Facing the other way, one beholds -a straight fake, the untimely efforts of Messrs -McIntyre and Heath, who served only to remind us -that in time since overpast the real nigger show, as -practised by Williams and Walker, existed, and that -what we are seeing now is actually a continuation -thereof, brought down from Harlem to Broadway.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span></p> - -<p>Now it was fairly obvious that <i>Shuffle Along</i> -had been conceived as an entertainment for negroes; -that is why it remained solid when it took Broadway, -to the intense surprise of its producers. It was, in -short, an exotic for us, but it wasn’t an exotic for -themselves. Its honesty was its success, and its honesty -put a certain stamp upon its successors. In all -of them there is visible a regrettable tendency to imitate, -at moments, the worst features of our usual musical -comedy. But the major portion of each show is -native, and so good.</p> - -<p>They have all of them an appearance of unpremeditated -violence which distinguishes them from -the calculated and beautiful effects of Mr Ziegfeld -or Mr John Murray Anderson. It goes much beyond -the celebrated (and by this time faked) appearance -of “enjoying themselves.” They may never -forgive me for it, but I really do not care whether -the actors and actresses who amuse me are having a -good time themselves. The theatre, for them, is a -place for <i>producing</i>, not for <i>enjoying</i> sensations and -effects; so the one thing I wish them is that when they -are good they may have the purely moral pleasure -of being good. It is the method that counts, and in -the negro shows the method has been always the maximum -pressure in song and dance, and the minimum -of subtlety in the conversations and patter songs. -The exceptions are not notable.</p> - -<p>The songs and dances must be scored <i>fff</i>, a <i>stretto</i>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span> -and after that those diverging lines which indicate -<i>crescendo</i>; the lines of violence never again approach -each other in these numbers, and one has to wait for -the appearance of a fairly silly sentimental song for -a moment of quiet. The strange people who direct -these shows and the responsive animals who sing and -dance have with some success controverted the notion -that it is in contrasts that the intelligent man has -his greatest pleasure. One feels that the show is a -continuous wild cry and an uninterrupted joyous -rage, that the <i>élan vital</i> is inexhaustible and unbridled -and enormously good.</p> - -<p>The most skilful individual player has been Florence -Mills; merely to watch her walk out upon the -stage, with her long, free stride and her superb, shameless -swing, is an æsthetic pleasure; she is a school and -exemplar of carriage and deportment; two other actors -I have seen so take a stage; Cohan by stage instinct, -Marie Tempest by a cultivated genius. Florence -Mills is almost the definition of the romantic -“<i>une force qui va</i>,” but she remains an original, with -little or nothing to give beyond her presence, her instinctive -grace, and her baffling, seductive voice. -Without that endowment, a small one in comparison -with, say, Gilda Grey’s, almost all the others give -nothing but energy, and the trouble there is that if -you have nothing but energy to give, you must give -more than you can afford. The wild cry is a little too -piercing at times, the postures and the pattings and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span> -the leapings all a little beyond the necessary measure. -It remains simple; but simplicity, even if it isn’t -usually vulgar, can be a bit rough.</p> - -<p>In the past few years the line of development -of most of our revues and musical shows has been -clearly marked; the bad old days were slowly forgotten -and whatever was suggestive had to become -subtle; and gradually, as the surface polish grew -brighter, the suggestive humours underneath were -forgotten; our revues became denatured in more -senses than one. There is one <i>risqué</i> moment in the -whole of a recent <i>Follies</i>, and that is one more than -usual. The twittering about love and a kiss goes on; -but the Great Reality of Sex is (quite properly, I am -sure) forgotten. And in an encore stanza of <i>He May -Be Your Man, But He Comes to See Me—Sometimes</i>, -as sung at the Plantation, the whole conventionalized -fabric of our popular love songs was -flung aside and the gay reality exposed. This amorous -frankness is part of a simple realism—a sophisticated -realism couldn’t occur in a musical show, unless -in the manner of Offenbach’s <i>La Belle Hélène</i>. -It is a fitting counterpart to the exaggerated postures, -the slightly lubricious gestures and movements, of the -dance. Another simplicity, and a very good one, is -in such a song as that about a dog from Tennessee in -<i>Oh, Joy</i>—a song which with that one quality, and -against indifferent music and unexceptional words, -broke up the show.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span></p> - -<p>Behind the frankness and the violence and the -simplicity there is found the most important factor -of all—the music. And behind that stands a figure -exceedingly attractive and, in its tragedy, almost -moving, that of the late Jim Europe. Of the music -itself—of jazz and the use of spirituals and the whole -question of our national music—this is clearly not -the place to write. One wishes to mention a name or -two: Shelton Brooks, least <i>habile</i> of pseudo-Balieffs, -wrote long ago <i>The Darktown Strutters’ Ball</i>, which -ought not to be forgotten; Creamer and Layton composed -all of <i>Strut, Miss Lizzie</i>, and therein appeared -<i>Sweet Angeline</i>, as complex a piece of syncopation -as Mr Berlin ever composed. What portion of <i>Shuffle -Along</i> was composed by Noble Sissle and Eubie -Blake I do not know, but Sissle in action and Blake -at the piano were wholly satisfying and expert. And -all of these composers, and all of the jazz bands who -play for them, have the ineffable advantage of being -assured, in advance, of dancers who in fancy or -straight dancing have the essential feelings for -rhythm and broken rhythm in their bones.</p> - -<p>And that interior response to syncopation Jim Europe -had to the highest possible degree. He had been, -before the war, the band leader at the Castles’; I am -told by one who knows of such matters that his -actual vogue was passing when the war came. He returned -with the 369th U. S. Infantry “Hell-Fighters” -Band and for a few Sunday nights in March,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span> -1919, he packed the old Manhattan Opera House to -the doors.</p> - -<p>Say that what he played had nothing to do with -music; say that to mention the name of a conductor -in the same breath with his name is an atrocity of -taste—I cannot help believing that Jim Europe had -the essential quality of music in him, and that, in his -field, however far from any other it may have been, -he was as great as Karl Muck in his. He did have -contrast; it was out of the contracting stresses of a -regular beat and a divergent that he created his effects. -The hand kept perfect time, and his right -knee, with a sharp and subtle little motion, stressed -the acceleration or retard of the syncope. His dynamics -were beautiful because he knew the value of -noise and knew how to produce it and how to make -it effective; he knew how to keep perfectly a running -commentary of wit over the masses of his sound; and -the ease and smoothness of his own performance as -conductor had all the qualities of greatness. He rebuked -a drummer in his band for some infraction of -discipline and was killed.</p> - -<p>Whatever the negro show has to give to the perfected -Broadway production has its sources fairly -deep in the negro consciousness, and I put Jim Europe -forth as its symbol because in him nearly all -that is most precious came to the surface. He seemed -sensitive to the ecstasy and pathos of the spirituals -as he was to the ecstasy and joy of jazz. He was,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span> -as conductor, vigorous and unaffected and clean. In -<i>Shuffle Along</i>, Messrs Sissle and Blake paid honour -to his memory, but the unacknowledged debt of the -others is greater. I am inclined to think that, if sterility -does not set in for the more notable Broadway -product, it will be because something of what Jim -Europe had to give has been quintessentialized by his -successors and adopted.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_161" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="Plan_For_a_Lyric"><i>Plan For a Lyric<br /> -Theatre in America</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PLAN_FOR_A_LYRIC_THEATRE_IN_AMERICA">PLAN FOR A LYRIC THEATRE IN AMERICA</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">I am</span> going to establish a lyric theatre in America. -Not an art theatre and not a temple of the -drama, and not an experimental theatre. A lyric -theatre where there will always be Mozart and Jerome -Kern and Gilbert-and-Sullivan and Lehar—and -<span class="allsmcap">NEVER</span> by any chance Puccini or the Ring or Ibsen. -I shall avoid the good things and the bad alike in -the serious forms; I shall have Russian Ballets and -American ballets. The chief thing is that it will be a -theatre devoted to <i>all</i> the forms of light musical entertainment -and to nothing else. My theatre will put -an end to those disheartening revivals (or resurrections) -of popular musical shows because the shows -will be kept alive, just as “grand” operas are kept -alive by appearing in a repertory. Into the repertory -I shall incorporate—as soon as their independent -existence is at an end—such successes as <i>The Night -Boat</i> and such failures as <i>The Land of Joy</i>. There -will never be a chance for <i>fashion</i> to destroy things -essentially good. I shall produce new pieces, too; -and if they are good they will run along with frequent -presentations until they are absorbed in the general -scheme. And I think I shall have pastiches frequently—of -revues and topical productions which -aren’t, as entireties, capable of continuing.</p> - -<p>That is the abridgement of a scheme, and I say I -shall do it in the hope that someone else, even if it -be the Messrs Shubert, will do it instead. Because -I like musical comedy and it annoys me that I can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span> -hear <i>Un bel di</i> (which I want never to hear again) -fifteen times a season, and cannot hear <i>The Sun Shines -Brighter</i> or <i>The Ragtime Melodrama</i> ever again. -And I know that our present type of musical comedy -is so good, so vigorous and snappy, that it tends to -kill off its predecessors; a repertory is the only -thing; and the usual objections to repertory will fail -here, because in this case the devotees of musical -shows will know in advance that “it is going to be a -good show.” I don’t know whether the bill should -change every day or every week; I feel certain that -there ought to be half a dozen centres across the continent, -and two or three touring companies. Further -details I cannot give now. I shall try to find some -means, however, of distinguishing between the second-act -finale of <i>The Mottled Mask</i> (“On to the ball -at the palace of Prince Gregory”) from the second-act -finale of <i>The Madcap in Motley</i> (“On to the ball at -the palace of Prince Gregory”). It is not part of my -scheme to keep bad shows alive.</p> - -<p>The rare entertainment such a theatre will afford -can be guessed if you look for a moment at the -changes in musical shows since 1900. We were then -coming out of the Gilbert and Sullivan tradition -and (after a great vogue of extravaganza) coming -into the Viennese mode. It is the fashion now, especially -in France, to belittle the Viennese operetta, to -call its waltz song heavy and its structure a bore. -Possibly these things are true; but Vienna has been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span> -the home of operetta for over a century and has done -well by itself most of the time. Illumination of this -predominant influence you can get by going to the -Redoutensaal and hearing a performance of <i>The Marriage -of Figaro</i>, and within the next few days hearing -<i>Die Fledermaus</i> and whatever new piece Lehar or -Fall or Oscar Straus has composed. For what one -seldom knows from its loftier production is that -<i>Figaro</i> is in essence and detail a musical comedy and -that almost all we know of the form stems from the -combination effected there by a great composer, a fine -dramatist, and an exceptionally skilful librettist.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">14</a> -The imperial ballroom with its tapestried walls, its -small stage on which only conventionalized scenery -can be set, its divided stairway coming down on the -stage, is a setting admirably contrived to give the -whole loveliness of operetta. The last scene is in the -garden of the count: six boxed trees and moonlight -create the effect. And at the last moment, the happy -ending, the electric lights are thrown on, the vast -crystal chandelier lighting up over the garden, and -the event recedes into its real, its secondary framework, -as entertainment. One recognizes it for what -it is—the gay and exquisite counterpart of grand -opera, from which neither the Savoy nor the Viennese -operetta ever departed. Musically the Viennese type -corresponds more clearly to Italian, the Gilbert and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> -Sullivan to French opera. The absurd conventions -of production are taken bodily from the older and -more respected type. The same thing is as obviously -true in Cimarosa’s <i>Marriage Secret</i> as it is in <i>The -Chocolate Soldier</i>—the latter being, except for a -weaker libretto, a perfect parallel to <i>Figaro</i>. (And -nearly as worthy of the perpetual life which is apparently -to be denied it.)</p> - -<p>It is still unnecessary to describe the Viennese operetta -in detail, for immediately after the war it -came again into vogue and one or two excellent examples—<i>The -Last Waltz</i> was one of them—re-established -some of its ancient prestige. It is at bottom -produced <i>for the music</i>. In one the music may be -chiefly sung, in another danced. Everything else—<i>décor</i>, -story, humorous episodes—is secondary. Recently -an effort has been made to change this. Oscar -Straus’ <i>Törichte Jungfrau</i> at the Grossesschauspielhaus -(Reinhardt’s catacombs in Berlin) was all production—and -nearly all dreadful. Lehar’s latest, <i>Das -Gelbe Jacke</i> (not, however, our <i>Yellow Jacket</i>) is entirely -in the pure Viennese mode, and the Vienna production -(February, 1923) indicates how Viennese -operetta is improved in transit to our shores. For -our production of musical comedy is almost equal to -our production of revue, which is incontestably the -finest in the world. With their emphasis on music -the Viennese shows naturally centre about the famous -waltz-song; and one good waltz has been able<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span> -to make a show a success. Rudolf Friml made a success -of <i>High Jinks</i> with a fox-trot.</p> - -<p>The English type as we know it, including Caryll -and Monckton and Rubens, has had for thirty years -the Savoy tradition. This requires a plot of more -frivolity than the Viennese, and lyrics of greater humour. -The successes have been moderate—“I’ve got -a motto” is no masterpiece. The degree of fun has -been higher and the seductiveness of the music less. -It was perfectly natural that (with <i>Adele</i> to help -them on) a combination of virtues should take place -in America in the beautiful <i>Princess Shows</i> of Comstock -and Gest, where the talents of P. G. Wodehouse, -Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern, stage-managed -perfectly by Robert Milton, produced a fresh and -attractive type of musical show which for five years -progressed in popularity—but had few imitators—and -suddenly seemed to disappear. It was, in fact, -transformed into something else, something good. -But one should look at the original closely to discern -its exceptional virtues.</p> - -<p>Each of the Princess shows had a reasonable, but -not serious, plot. The advantage of a plot isn’t, as -one often hears, that it gives the appearance of reality -to the piece, for who should expect that? There is -no reason why a musical comedy should not be wholly -preposterous, dramatically or psychologically, provided, -like <i>Iolanthe</i>, it has a logic of its own. No. -The advantage is that when there is a definitely perceptible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span> -structure everything else arrives with greater -intensity of effect. The best of the Princess shows -had the weakest plot, for <i>Leave It to Jane</i> was based -on Ade’s <i>College Widow</i>, which has no great quality. -Since songs and dances had to take up much time, -this plot was gratifyingly reduced to a few essential -lines and played without sentiment. The result was -a rush of action in which everything found place. -The later pieces were on librettos by Guy Bolton, -suggesting French farces, and full of neat arrangements. -None of them was stupid. They all gave -place for Mr Wodehouse’s exceptional talents as a -lyric-writer. He is as an English humorist superior -to most, and as a master of complicated, original, -amusing rhymes is the best man in the business. A -special quality of making fun is discernible in all his -lyrics, and he does good parodies, like <i>When It’s -Nesting Time in Flatbush</i>. The Princess type made -rather a fetish of simplicity (I quote from memory):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Although the thing that’s smart is</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To stay out all night on parties,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’ll be sitting, with my knitting,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the good old-fashioned way,</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">and of sentiment:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The breeze in the trees brings a scent of orange blossoms</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the skies turn soft and blue,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When there’s no one around except the girl you love</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And the girl you love loves you,</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span></p> -<p class="in0">which was often not amorous and rose to as fine a -thing as <i>The Siren Song</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Come to us, we’ve waited so long for you,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Every day we make a new song for you;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Come, come, to us, we love you so.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Leave behind the world and its fretting</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And we will give you rest and forgetting,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So sang the sirens ages and ages ago.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>There was also patter as in the Cleopatra song:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And when she tired, as girls will do,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Of Bill or Jack or Jim,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The time had come, his friends all knew,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To say good-by to him.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She would not stand by any means</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Regretful, stormy, farewell scenes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To such low stuff she would not stoop</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So she just put poison in the soup.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When out with Cleopatterer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Men always made their wills;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They knew they had no time to waste.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When the gumbo had that funny taste</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They’d take her hand and squeeze it</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And murmur, “Oh, you kid!”</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But they none of ’em liked to start to feed</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Till Cleopatterer did.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">and in each of these types Wodehouse was faultless.</p> - -<p>Fortunately for him and for us these songs were -set to a music which in addition to being delightful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span> -let the words appear, and occasionally was so fluent, -so inevitable, that it made the words seem even simpler -and more conversational than they are. Jerome -Kern composed nearly all of the Princess shows -and the collected scores are impressive. He is the -most erudite of our simple composers and he manipulates -material with inordinate skill. He can adapt -German folksong (<i>Freut euch das Leben</i> underlies -<i>Phoebe Snow</i>); he didn’t do so well by <i>Kingdom -Comin’</i>, which was botched and cut; he also understands -Sullivan. But his best work, <i>The Siren Song</i>, -<i>The Little Ships</i>, <i>The Sun Shines Brighter</i>, have a -melodious line, a structure, and a general tidiness of -execution which are all their own. <i>The Siren Song</i> -corresponds exactly to the Viennese waltz, but both -the words and the music are impersonal; they are a -gentle hymn to seduction, with humour. Scattered -between languorous rhythms are bursts of gaiety, like -a handful of pebbles thrown against a window—which -doesn’t open—for the song ends in a tender -melancholy. It is a real achievement. Compare the -lines I have quoted above with “Come, come, I love -you only,” from <i>The Chocolate Soldier</i>—phrases you -would expect to arrive at the same musical conclusion. -The crash of “<i>Oh, Hero Mine!</i>” in the second -is good drama, saved from being too obvious by -being sung to the coward Sergius and not to the protagonist -Bluntschli. But in comparison the gentle -ending of <i>The Siren Song</i> is, as song, superior: “So<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span> -sang the Sirens, ages and ages ago”—and you take it -or leave it. The music, at least, is not forcing your -hand.</p> - -<p>The Princess shows never had any great stars; -instead, they had the one quality which always makes -for success—<i>esprit de corps</i>. In each the company -was aware of the nature and quality of the piece it -was playing, and it worked in variations of that -genial and sophisticated atmosphere. It was simply -against the tone of the Princess shows to be dull; and -I, who like nearly all musical shows, found in them -my greatest delight.</p> - -<p>They passed into something else because they were -exquisitely proportioned on a small scale—the scale, -by the way of <i>The Beggar’s Opera</i>, which they resembled—and -the whole tendency of the time was -toward elaboration. They involved small choruses, -little eccentric dancing, and required no humorist -<i>hors de texte</i>. I count it a triumph for Mr Dillingham, -as well as for the others concerned, that they -have been able to preserve so much of the Princess -in some of the Globe productions. The best of these, -I think, is <i>Good-morning, Dearie</i>. It has an adequate -plot; it has room for Harland Dixon, a fine -dancer; for Ada Lewis, an expert broad comedienne; -for Maurice and his partner, whose name I don’t remember; -for a large dancing chorus and for stunts; -better still it did little to hinder Jerome Kern. It -was here that he took the most famous of waltzes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> -and implicated it masterfully in a blues; and here -that all the seductiveness and gaiety of the Princess -music returned with <i>Ka-lu-a</i> and <i>Didn’t You Believe?</i> -There were a few faults in the production; the <i>décor</i> -lacked freshness, although it didn’t actually offend; -the Chinese scene was hackneyed. But on the whole -it is the best musical comedy I have seen since the -Princess shows.</p> - -<p>What forced us to be elaborate was not the memory -of the Viennese type, but the growing complexity -of revue, always cutting into musical comedy. It -should be noted that <i>Around the Map</i> (which I hold -the best musical comedy—not operetta—I saw before -the Princess shows) first brought Joseph Urban into -the field, taking him from the Boston Opera House -and pushing him on the way to Ziegfeld, where he -was tardily recognized by the Metropolitan for whom -he has made <i>Oberon!</i> <i>Around the Map</i> had some -twenty scenes, it dealt with a trip around the world -in search of safety socks, and was all gay (with Else -Alder), all good music (Caryll) and only the beginning -of elaboration. But Mr Berlin’s two shows and -a host of others indicated that to survive musical -comedy would have to appear lavish. Comparatively -simple shows still occur—<i>Tangerine</i> was one; but -we seem to be in for something fairly elaborate—in -music as in the Le-Baron-Kreisler pieces, in <i>décor</i> as -in the Shubert-Century productions, in stars and stunts -as in Dillingham’s.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span></p> - -<p>I do not pretend to cover the ground, and to name -the names, in this sketch; not even to characterize all -the types. I don’t know what to say about <i>Mary</i>, in -which George M. Cohan worked a chorus into a state -of frantic energy and Louis Hirsch provided <i>The -Love Nest;</i> nor of twenty other individual successes. -One composer remains whose work is often so good, -whose case is so illuminating, that he must be considered. -That is Victor Herbert. It should be said -at once that even long after his early successes he -composed a fine musical comedy, <i>The Only Girl</i>. -The difficulty about Mr Herbert is that he has succumbed -to the American habit of thinking that grand -opera is great opera. I have heard him at one of -his <i>premières</i> speaking from the conductor’s dais to -assure the audience that the present piece was in the -high line of operetta, that more pieces like it would -put an end to the vulgarity of musical shows. The -regrettable fact was that <i>The Madcap Duchess</i> put -an end to nothing but itself; I recall the name, that -Ann Swinburne was in it, and that it had a good patter -song; the rest was doleful. Whereas two weeks -later in the same house I heard <i>The Lady of the Slipper</i>, -in which Mr Herbert, setting out to write an -ordinary simple musical show, was a thoroughly competent -composer, full of ingenuity and interest and -taste and invention. If he had only taken his eyes off -the Metropolitan Opera House he would probably -have been the best of the lot to-day. He suffers—although<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span> -he is vastly respected—because he failed in -respect to the fine art of the musical show.</p> - -<p>The wonderful thing about that art is that it is -made up of varied elements which are fused into -something greater than themselves. There is a song -and dance by Julia Sanderson, who is not a great artist; -or the sudden apparition of a little man pursued -in a harem, bounding upon a scarlet pouffe six feet -in diameter and nuzzling like a dog—Jimmy Barton, -in fact, who is one; and the rambling story told by -Percival Knight in <i>The Quaker Girl</i> or the drunken -scene by Clifton Crawford in <i>The Peasant Girl</i>; -there is <i>In the Night</i>, from <i>The Queen of the Movies</i> -or Johnny Dooley falling out of the clerk’s desk in -<i>Listen, Lester</i>; there is Donald Brian, the perpetual -<i>jeune premier</i>, or the amazing Spanish song in <i>Apple -Blossoms</i>, or a setting designed by Norman-Bel Geddes -or costumes by Helen Dryden or the <i>Sandman</i> -song from <i>The Dollar Princess</i>, or the entrance of -the Bulgarians in <i>The Chocolate Soldier</i> or the wickedly -expert prosody of Brian Hooker. What is it -takes all of these and composes them into something -beautiful and entertaining? Skill in production is -part of it, but not all, for the same elements: colour, -light, sound, movement, can be combined into other -forms which lack that particular air of urbanity, of -well-being, of rich contentment and interest which is -the special atmosphere of musical shows. I can only -find a word and say that the secret resides in it—high<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span> -spirits. For a musical comedy, even a sentimental -one, must be high-spirited in execution—that was the -lesson of an unsentimental one, <i>The Beggar’s Opera</i>; -and at the same time there must be some courage, -some defiance of nature and sound sense, a feeling -for fantasy, which means that the life of the spirit -is high, even when the life of the body is in chains. -It is for this freedom of the spirit, released by music -as always and diverted by all the other elements in -them, that these shows are cherished. It is, naturally, -as a counter-attack on solemnity that I am going to -found my theatre.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_177" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="The_One-Man_Show"><i>The One-Man Show</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE ONE-MAN SHOW</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">When</span> all the other grave æsthetic questions -about the stage are answered, some profound theorist -may explain the existence of the one-man show. -Since I am not a materialist, I cannot concede the obvious -solution—that a man finds enough money to -produce himself in a Broadway show—because there is -something attractive and mysterious about this type of -entertainment which the explanation fails to explain.</p> - -<p>The theory of the one-man show is apparently -that there are individuals so endowed, so versatile, -and so beloved, that no other vehicle will suffice to -let them do their work. Conversely, that they are of -such quality that <i>they</i> suffice for the strange entertainment -with which they are surrounded and that -nothing else matters provided they are long and frequent -on the stage. Six men and two women are in -the first roster of the one-man show: Fred Stone, Ed -Wynn, Raymond Hitchcock, Eddie Cantor, Frank -Tinney, and Al Jolson; below them, leading the -women, Elsie Janis and Nora Bayes. And omitting -Jolson because he is so great that he cannot be put in -any company, the greatest one-man show was one in -which none of these appeared—it was one in which -even the man himself didn’t appear. It was a show -in which one man succeeded where all of these, this -time not excluding Jolson, had failed: for he made -the whole production <i>his kind</i> of show—and the -others have never quite managed to do more than -make themselves.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span></p> - -<p>The chief example of this failure is Hitchcock, -whose series lapses ever so often, leaving him stranded -on the bleak shore of a <i>Pin Wheel Revue</i>—an -artistic, an intellectual, an incredibly stupid production -which Hitchy manfully tried first to save and -then to abandon. There were in the better Hitchy -shows other first-rate people: one who masqueraded -as Joseph Cook and was none other than Joe Cook -the Humorist out of vaudeville and out of his element; -Ray Dooley was with Hitchy, I believe, and -there were always good dancers. Hitchy kept on the -stage a long time, as <i>conférencier</i> and as participant, -and his amiable drollery was always at the same -level—just enough. He never quite concealed the -strain of making a production <i>go</i>; one always wanted -to be much more amused, and Hitchy never got beyond -the episode of the Captain of the Fire Brigade -or trying to buy the middle two-cent stamp in a sheet -of a hundred. A series of vaudeville sketches doesn’t -make a one-man show, even if he plays in all of them; -and the moment Hitchcock was off, <i>Hitchy-koo</i> went -to pieces, some good and some bad, and all trying a -little too hard to be something else.</p> - -<div id="i_179" class="figright" style="max-width: 12em;"> - <img src="images/i_179.png" width="922" height="451" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Eddie Cantor</span></p> - -<p>By Roland Young</p></div></div> - -<p>Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson appear in the two -different Winter Garden types of show—the Jolson -and the Winter Garden <i>in impuris naturalibus</i>. Jolson -infuses something both gay and broad into his -pieces; even the recurrence of Lawrence D’Orsay cannot -win back the original Winter Garden atmosphere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span> -and even the disappearance of Kitty Doner cannot -diminish Jolson’s private quality. Of the straight -Winter Garden shows, the 1922 with Eddie Cantor -was the best in ten years, made so by Cantor and -made by him, in spite of the billing, into a one-man -show. The nervous energy of Cantor isn’t sufficient -to animate the active, but indifferent choruses of the -Shuberts. One thing, however, -he can do superbly—the lamb led -to the slaughter. It is best when -he chooses to play the timid, -Ghetto-bred, pale-faced Jewish -lad, seduced by glory or the prospects -of pay into competing with -athletes and bruisers. One thing he cannot do and -should learn not to try—the black-face song and comedy -of his master, Jolson. The scenes of violence -vary; that of the osteopath was an exploitation of -meaningless brutality; I cared for nothing after -Eddie’s frightened entrance, “Are you the Ostermoor?” -But the aviation examination and the application -for the police force were excellent pieces -of construction, holding sympathy all the way -through and keeping on the safe side of nausea. Both -of these were before the Winter Garden days and -the Winter Garden exploit was better than either. -He played here a cutter in a hand-me-down clothing -store and it was his function to leap into the breach -whenever a customer showed the slightest tendency<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span> -to leave without buying a suit. The victim was obsessed -by some idea of having “a belt in the back” -and was forced into sailor suits and fancy costume -and was generally made miserable. Eddie’s terrific -rushes from the wings, his appeals to God to strike -him dead “on the spot” if the suit now being tried -on wasn’t the best suit in the world, his helplessness -and his, “Well, kill me, so kill me,” as apology when -his partner revealed the damning fact that that happened -to be the man’s old suit—all of this was worth -the whole of the Potash-Perlmutter cycle. And the -whole-heartedness of Cantor’s violence—essentially -the bullying of a coward who has at last discovered -some one weaker than himself, was faultless. He -sings well the slightly suggestive songs like <i>After the -Ball</i> (new version), and his three broken dance steps -with the sawing motion of his gloved hands create an -image exceedingly precise and palpable. There is -in him just enough for the one-man show, but so far -it has been limited by his tendency to imitate and by -failure to develop his own sources of strength. Even -in <i>Kid Boots</i> he just fails to make the grade.</p> - -<div id="i_181" class="figright" style="max-width: 12em;"> - <img src="images/i_181.png" width="886" height="1866" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Frank Tinney</span></p> - -<p>By Roland Young</p></div></div> - -<p>The one-man show <i>requires</i> its leader to leave -nothing in himself unexploited—there is too much for -him to do and he must take everything on himself—the -requirements are exactly opposite to those of the -vaudeville act where the actor must work in the briefest -compass, with the utmost concentration, and get -his effects in the shortest time. Frank Tinney’s success<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span> -in vaudeville marks the limitations of his success -in his shows—for he imposed on vaudeville that languid -easy-going manner of his and was just enough -out of vaudeville tempo (he is very deceptive in this) -to appear to be a novelty there. In essence he isn’t -a good one-man, for his line is limited -and his humour and his good-humour -(in which he is matched -only by Ed Wynn) are not capable -of the strain of a long winter’s -evening entertainment. Tinney -was excellent in a quarrel scene -with Bernard Granville (in a Ziegfeld -<i>Follies</i>, I think) the two pacing -in opposite directions, the -width of the stage between them, -always from footlights to backdrop -and never crossing the stage; he -was disputatious and entertaining -on the negative of the proposition -that the Erie railroad (pronounced -for reasons of his own, Ee-righ) -is a very expensive railroad; his -appearance in <i>Watch Your Step</i> -was almost perfect. (Consult Mr A. Woollcott’s -<i>Shouts and Murmurs</i> for everything about Tinney; -Mr Woollcott’s descriptions are accurate and evocative -and he errs only in his estimate of Tinney’s -quality.) Tinney has everything except the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span> -excess of vitality, the surcharge of genius. He has -method nearly to perfection and it is a wholly original, -ingratiating, and, up to a certain point, adaptable -method. What he has done is to destroy the “good -joke,” for all of Tinney’s jokes are bad ones and he -gets his effect by fumbling about with them, by -lengthening the preliminaries, by false starts, erasures, -corrections—until his arrival at the point relieves -the suspense. I have heard him take at least -ten minutes to put over: “Lend me a dollar for a -week, old man.—Who is the weak old man?” and not -a moment was superfluous. He is expert at kidding -the audience, and as he is never in character he never -steps out. There isn’t quite enough of him, that -is all.</p> - -<p>There is enough of Fred Stone for versatility and -not enough for specific personal appeal. As acrobat, -dancer, ventriloquist, and cut-up Stone is easily in -the lead; but the unnamable quality is lacking. See -him climbing up an arbour to meet his Juliet in the -balcony; he is discovered, hangs head downward in -peril of his life, seizes a potted flower and with it -begins to dust the vines—it is Chaplinesque in conception -and beautifully executed. See him on the -slack rope continually on the point of falling off -and continually recovering and seeming to hang on -by his boot toe; or in <i>The Lady of the Slipper</i> making -a beautiful series of leaps from chair to divan, -from divan to table, to a triumphant exit through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span> -unsuspected scenery; or in another quality recall the -famous “Very good, Eddie,” of <i>Chin-Chin</i>. He is -incredible; one wouldn’t miss him -for worlds; yet it is always what -he does and not himself that constitutes -the attraction. I wonder -whether I do not wrong him altogether -by classing him with the -one-men, for it was always something -more than Montgomery and -Stone in the days of <i>The Red Mill</i> -and Stone does not exaggerate -himself on the stage. His command -of attributes is greater than -that of any other player; he does -everything with a beautiful, errorless -accuracy—and the pleasure of -seeing things <i>exactly right</i>, all the -time, is not to be underestimated.</p> - -<div id="i_183" class="figright" style="max-width: 6em;"> - <img src="images/i_183.png" width="459" height="1003" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p><span class="smcap">Ed. Wynn</span></p> - -<p>By Roland Young</p></div></div> - -<p>It is Ed Wynn’s pleasure to -make everything seem utterly haphazard. -Wynn is a surd in the -theatre—there is always something left unresolved in -reducing him to the lowest term, and he is incommensurable -because there are no standards for him and no -similars. I prefer to see him wandering through a good -revue, changing hats, worrying about a “rewolwer” -in the first scene and stopping dead in the twentieth -to declare that it wasn’t a “rewolwer” at all, but a pistol.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span> -When he came to put on a one-man show he -preserved the best part of this incoherence. He made -it his business to appear before a drop curtain and -explain in an amazing vocabulary and with painstaking -gravity exactly what was to occur in the next -scene. He affects to be awkward (to quote him, I -might go so far as to call him uncouth.... I think -I <i>will</i> call him uncouth.... He is uncouth); his -gestures are florid and wide, his earnestness makes all -things vivid. Each of these explanations involves a -bad pun and none, of course, has anything to do with -the scene that actually follows. Like Jolson and -Cantor, he takes the stage at a given moment and -entertains. His famous inventions seemed to be the -crudest form of humour—a typewriter carriage for -eating corn on the cob, a burning candle to set in one’s -ears in order to wake up in time—yet sheer ebullition -carried them high into the field of “nice, clean -fun.” Wynn’s words come tumbling out of him, agglutinated, -chaotic, disorderly; he is abashed by his -own occasional temerity, he is timid and covers it -with brashness—and all of this is a carefully created -personage; it is <i>not</i> Ed Wynn. He has found a -little odd corner of life which no one else cultivates; -it is a sort of rusticity in the face of <i>simple</i> things; -he is a perpetual immigrant obsessed by hats and -shoes and words and small ideas, instead of bothering -about skyscrapers. The deepness of his zanylike -appreciation of every-day things is the secret of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span> -capacity for making them startling and funny. His -one fault is the show with which he surrounds himself.</p> - -<p>I have never seen Elsie Janis better than she was -in <i>The Lady of the Slipper</i>—with the exception of -Gaby Deslys I have never seen any woman comparable -to Miss Janis in that piece, and in it she had -qualities which ought to have made her appearance in -an individual show a much greater success than it actually -turned out to be. For, except a voice, Miss -Janis has everything. She is a beautiful dancer and -her legs are handsomer than Mistinguett’s, and she is -the finest mimic I have ever seen on the stage, several -shades ahead of Ina Claire. An exceptional intelligence -operates in the creation of these caricatures, -for they are all created by seizing upon vital characteristics -of tone, gesture, tempo of movement, spirit; -and the arrangement of her hair and the contortions -of her face are only guide-signs to the accomplished -act. She is herself of an abounding grace, a suppleness -of body and of mind, and the measure of her -skill is the exact degree in which her grace and simplicity -are transformed into harshness or angularity -or sophistication as she passes one after another of -our stage personalities before her mirror. This year -I saw her in a Paris music-hall take off Mistinguett -and Max Dearly. She presented them singing <i>Give -Me Moonlight</i> in their own imagined versions and -her throaty “Give me a gas light” for the creator of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span> -<i>Mon Homme</i> was superb. She offered to sing it, at -the end, as she herself ought to sing it—and danced -it without uttering a sound. It reminded one of Irene -Castle in <i>Watch Your Step</i>. For an exact calculation -of her capacities and a sensible, modest intention -to stay within them and to exploit them to the limit -are parts of Elsie Janis’s intelligence. To be sure, it -isn’t her intelligence—it is her loveliness and her -talent that endear her to us. But it is grateful, for -once in a way, to find a talent so great, a loveliness -so irresistible, joined to an intelligence which sets all -in motion and spoils nothing.</p> - -<p>I suspect that in spite of the best of the one-man -shows there is something wrong with the idea—perhaps -because the environment requires more than any -man has yet been able to give. And the one perfect -example is, as I have suggested, proof of this. Because -<i>Stop! Look! Listen!</i> which was only a moderate -success on Broadway and involved the talents of -Gaby Deslys, Doyle and Dixon, Harry Fox, Tempest -and Sunshine, the beautiful Justine Johnston, Helen -Barnes, Helen Dryden as costumer and Robert McQuinn -as scenic designer, a beautiful chorus and an -excellent producer, was actually the one-man show -of Irving Berlin. For once a complete and varied -show expressed the spirit of one man to perfection. -In that piece, Berlin wrote two of his masterpieces -and about four other superb songs; and, more than -that, suffused the entire production with the gay spirit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span> -of his music. There occurred <i>The Ragtime Melodrama</i> -danced by Doyle and Dixon—only the Common Clay -scene from the Cohan revue ever approached it, and -Doyle and Dixon never danced better (unless, possibly, -a quarter of an hour earlier in <i>The Hula-Hula</i>); -there was <i>The Girl on the Magazine Cover</i>, -perfectly set and costumed, a really good sentimental -song with its quaint introduction of <i>Lohengrin</i> (not -the <i>Wedding March</i>); there was <i>When I Get Back to -the U. S. A.</i> sung against a chorus of <i>My Country, -’Tis of Thee</i>; there was Gaby’s wicked <i>Take Off a -Little Bit</i> and Harry Fox’s <i>Press-Agent Song</i>—and -finally the second of Berlin’s three great tributes to -his art: <i>I Love a Piano</i>, which, like the mother of -Louis Napoleon, he wrote for six pianos and in which -everything in syncopation up to that time was epitomized -and carried to a perfect conclusion. Whatever -was gay, light, colourful, whatever was accurate, -assured, confident, and good-humoured, was in this -miraculous production. I saw it twelve times in two -weeks—lured partly, I must confess, by the hope that -Harry Pilcer would break at least a leg in his fall -down the golden stairs. He never did; in spite of -which, seeing it again, months later, it still seemed -to me the apotheosis of pure show. I think I could -reconstruct every moment of it, including the useless -plot and Justine Johnston’s ankles; it seems a pity -that all of it, the ephemeral and the permanent, -should have already passed from the stage. It was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span> -beginning in ragtime operetta which Mr Berlin has -never followed up; his inexhaustible talents have been -diverted into other things; he is now a maker of revues. -Yet when he saw <i>The Beggar’s Opera</i>, Mr -Berlin felt something plucking at his sleeve, reminding -him that it was his job, and his alone, to create -the comparable type for America.</p> - -<p>At that moment he thought back to <i>Stop! Look! -Listen!</i>—but he had already begun to build the Music -Box—and we must wait patiently for what time -will bring as a real successor to his one-man show. -At any rate, we have had it. We know, now, what -it can amount to—and it is enough. Enough, at any -rate, to put the veritable one-man show fairly definitely -out of the running.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_191" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="The_D_monic_in_the"><i>The Dæmonic in the<br /> -American Theatre</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_D_MONIC_IN_THE_AMERICAN">THE DÆMONIC IN THE AMERICAN -THEATRE</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">One</span> man on the American stage, and one woman, -are possessed—Al Jolson and Fanny Brice. Their -dæmons are not of the same order, but together they -represent all we have of the Great God Pan, and we -ought to be grateful for it. For in addition to being -more or less a Christian country, America is a Protestant -community and a business organization—and -none of these units is peculiarly prolific in the creation -of dæmonic individuals. We can bring forth -Roosevelts—dynamic creatures, to be sure; but the -fury and the exultation of Jolson is a hundred times -higher in voltage than that of Roosevelt; we can produce -courageous and adventurous women who shoot -lions or manage construction gangs and remain pale -beside the extraordinary “cutting loose” of Fanny -Brice.</p> - -<p>To say that each of these two is possessed by a -dæmon is a mediæval and perfectly sound way of -expressing their intensity of action. It does not prove -anything—not even that they are geniuses of a fairly -high rank, which in my opinion they are. I use the -word possessed because it connotes a quality lacking -elsewhere on the stage, and to be found only at moments -in other aspects of American life—in religious -mania, in good jazz bands, in a rare outbreak of mob -violence. The particular intensity I mean is exactly -what you do not see at a baseball game, but may at -a prize fight, nor in the productions of David Belasco,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span> -nor at a political convention; you may see it on -the Stock Exchange and you can see it, canalized and -disciplined, but still intense, in our skyscraper architecture. -It was visible at moments in the old Russian -Ballet.</p> - -<p>In Jolson there is always one thing you can be -sure of: that whatever he does he does at the highest -possible pressure. I do not mean that one gets the -sense of his effort, for his work is at times the easiest -seeming, the most effortless in the world. Only he -never saves up—for the next scene, or the next week, -or the next show. His generosity is extravagant; he -flings into a comic song or three-minute impersonation -so much energy, violence, so much of the <i>totality</i> -of one human being, that you feel it would suffice -for a hundred others. In the days when the runway -was planked down the centre of every good theatre in -America, this galvanic little figure, leaping and -shouting—yet always essentially dancing and singing—upon -it was the concentration of our national -health and gaiety. In <i>Row, Row, Row</i> he would -bounce up on the runway, propel himself by imaginary -oars over the heads of the audience, draw equally -imaginary slivers from the seat of his trousers, and -infuse into the song something wild and roaring and -insanely funny. The very phonograph record of his -famous <i>Toreador</i> song is full of vitality. Even in -later days when the programme announces simply -“Al Jolson” (about 10.15 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> in each of his reviews)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span> -he appears and sings and talks to the audience -and dances off—and when he has done more -than any other ten men, he returns and, blandly announcing -that “You ain’t heard nothing yet,” proceeds -to do twice as much again. He is the great -master of the one-man show because he gives so much -while he is on that the audience remains content while -he is off—and his electrical energy almost always develops -activity in those about him.</p> - -<div id="i_192" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_192.jpg" width="1214" height="1811" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Fanny Brice</span></div> -</div> - -<p>If it were necessary, a plea could be made for -violence <i>per se</i> in the American theatre, because -everything tends to prettify and restrain, and the energy -of the theatre is dying out. But Jolson, who -lacks discipline almost entirely, has other qualities -besides violence. He has an excellent baritone voice, -a good ear for dialect, a nimble presence, and a distinct -sense of character. Of course it would be impossible -not to recognize him the moment he appears on -the stage; of course he is always Jolson—but he is -also always Gus and always Inbad the Porter, and -always Bombo. He has created a way of being for -the characters he takes on; they live specifically in -the mad world of the Jolson show; their wit and their -bathos are singularly creditable characteristics of -themselves—not of Jolson. You may recall a scene—I -think the show was called <i>Dancing Around</i>—in -which a lady knocks at the door of a house. From -within comes the voice of Jolson singing, “You made -me love you, I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t wanna do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span> -it”—the voice approaches, dwindles away, resumes—it -is a swift characterization of the lazy servant coming -to open the door and ready to insult callers, since -the master is out. Suddenly the black face leaps -through the doorway and cries out, “We don’ want no -ice,” and is gone. Or Jolson as the black slave of -Columbus, reproached by his master for a long absence. -His lips begin to quiver, his chin to tremble; -the tears are approaching, when his human independence -softly asserts itself and he wails, “We all have -our <i>moments</i>.” It is quite true, for Jolson’s technique -is the exploitation of these moments; he has -himself said that he is the greatest master of hokum -in the business, and in the theatre the art of hokum -is to make each second count for itself, to save any -moment from dulness by the happy intervention of a -slap on the back, or by jumping out of character and -back again, or any other trick. For there is no question -of legitimacy here—everything is right if it -makes ’em laugh.</p> - -<p>He does more than make ’em laugh; he gives them -what I am convinced is a genuine emotional effect -ranging from the thrill to the shock. I remember -coming home after eighteen months in Europe, during -the war, and stepping from the boat to one of the -first nights of <i>Sinbad</i>. The spectacle of Jolson’s -vitality had the same quality as the impression I got -from the New York sky line—one had forgotten that -there still existed in the world a force so boundless,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span> -an exaltation so high, and that anyone could still -storm Heaven with laughter and cheers. He sang on -that occasion <i>’N Everything</i> and <i>Swanee</i>. I have -suggested elsewhere that hearing him sing <i>Swanee</i> is -what book reviewers and young girls loosely call an -experience. I know what Jolson does with false sentiment; -here he was dealing with something which by -the grace of George Gershwin came true, and there -was no necessity for putting anything over. In the -absurd black-face which is so little negroid that it -goes well with diversions in Yiddish accents, Jolson -created image after image of longing, and his existence -through the song was wholly in <i>its</i> rhythm. -Five years later I heard Jolson in a second-rate show, -before an audience listless or hostile, sing this outdated -and forgotten song, and create again, for each -of us seated before him, the same image—and saw -also the tremendous leap in vitality and happiness -which took possession of the audience as he sang it. -It was marvelous. In the first weeks of <i>Sinbad</i> he -sang the words of <i>’N Everything</i> as they are printed. -Gradually (I saw the show in many phases) he interpolated, -improvised, always with his absolute sense -of rhythmic effect; until at the end it was a series of -amorous cries and shouts of triumph to Eros. I have -heard him sing also the absurd song about “It isn’t -raining rain, It’s raining violets” and remarked him -modulating that from sentimentality into a conscious -bathos, with his gloved fingers flittering together and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span> -his voice rising to absurd <i>fortissimi</i> and the general -air of kidding the piece.</p> - -<p>He does not generally kid his Mammy songs—as -why should he who sings them better than anyone -else? He cannot underplay anything, he lacks restraint, -and he leans on the second-rate sentiment of -these songs until they are forced to render up the -little that is real in them. I dislike them and dislike -his doing them—as I dislike Belle Baker singing -<i>Elie, Elie!</i> But it is quite possible that my discomfort -at these exhibitions is proof of their quality. -They and a few very cheap jokes and a few sly remarks -about sexual perversions are Jolson’s only -faults. They are few. For a man who has, year -after year, established an intimate relation with no -less than a million people, every twelvemonth, he is -singularly uncorrupted. That relation is the thing -which sets him so far above all the other one-man-show -stars. Eddie Cantor gives at times the effect of -being as energetic; Wynn is always and Tinney sometimes -funnier. But no one else, except Miss Brice, -so holds an audience in the hollow of the hand. The -hand is steady; the audience never moves. And on -the great nights when everything is right, Jolson is -driven by a power beyond himself. One sees that he -knows what he is doing, but one sees that he doesn’t -half realize the power and intensity with which he -is doing it. In those moments I cannot help thinking -of him as a genius.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p> - -<p>Quite to that point Fanny Brice hasn’t reached. -She hasn’t, to begin with, the physical vitality of -Jolson. But she has a more delicate mind and a -richer humour—qualities which generally destroy -vitality altogether, and which only enrich hers. She -is first a great farceur; and in her songs she is exactly -in the tradition of Yvette Guilbert, without the -range, so far as we know, which enabled Mme Guilbert -to create the whole of mediæval France for us -in ten lines of a song. The quality, however, is the -same, and Fanny’s evocations are as vivid and as -poignant as Yvette’s—they require from us exactly -the same tribute of admiration. She has grown in -power since she sang and made immortal, <i>I Should -Worry</i>. Hear her now creating the tragedy of <i>Second-Hand -Rose</i> or of the one Florodora Baby who—“five -little dumbells got married for money, And I got married -for love....” These things are done with -two-thirds of Yvette Guilbert’s material missing, for -there are no accessories and, although the words -(some of the best are by Blanche Merrill) are good, -the music isn’t always distinguished. And the effects -are irreproachable. Give Fanny a song she can -get her teeth into, <i>Mon Homme</i>, and the result is less -certain, but not less interesting. This was one of a -series of realistic songs for Mistinguett, who sang it -very much as Yvonne George did when she appeared -in America. Miss Brice took it <i>lento affetuoso</i>; since -the precise character of the song had changed a bit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span> -from its rather more outspoken French original. Miss -Brice suppressed Fanny altogether in this song—she -was being, I fear, “a serious artist”; but she is of such -an extraordinary talent that she can do even this. -Yvonne George sang it better simply because the -figure she evoked as Mon Homme was exactly the -fake apache about whom it was written, and not the -“my feller” who lurked behind Miss Brice. It was -amusing to learn that without a Yiddish accent and -without those immense rushes of drollery, without -the enormous gawkishness of her other impersonations, -Miss Brice could put a song over. But I am -for Fanny against Miss Brice and to Fanny I return.</p> - -<p>Fanny is one of the few people who “make fun.” -She creates that peculiar quality of entertainment -which is wholly light-hearted and everything else is -added unto her. Of this special quality nothing can -be said; one either sees it or doesn’t, savours it or not. -Fanny arrives on the scene with an indescribable gesture—after -seeing it twenty times I believe that it -consists of a feminine salute, touching the forehead -and then flinging out her arm to the topmost gallery. -There is magic in it, establishing her character at once—the -magic must reside in her incredible elbow. She -hasn’t so much to give as Jolson, but she gives it with -the same generosity, there are no reserves, and it is -all for fun. Her Yiddish Squow (how else can I -spell that amazing effect?) and her Heiland Lassie -are examples—there isn’t an <i>arrière-pensée</i> in them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span> -“The Chiff is after me ... he says I appil to him -... he likes my type ...” it is the complete -give away of herself and she doesn’t care.</p> - -<div id="i_198" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_198.jpg" width="1203" height="1832" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Al Jolson</span></div> -</div> - -<p>And this carelessness goes through her other exceptional -qualities of caricature and satire. For the -first there is the famous Vamp, in which she plays the -crucial scene of all the vampire stories, preluding it -with the first four lines of the poem Mr Kipling -failed to throw into the wastepaper basket, and fatuously -adding, “I can’t get over it”—after which point -everything is flung into another plane—the hollow -laughter, the haughty gesture, the pretended compassion, -that famous defense of the vampire which here, -however, ends with the magnificent line, “I may be a -bad woman, but I’m awful good company.” In this -brief episode she does three things at once: recites a -parody, imitates the moving-picture vamp, and -creates through these another, truly comic character. -For satire it is Fanny’s special quality that with the -utmost economy of means she always creates the -original in the very process of destroying it, as in two -numbers which are exquisite, her present opening -song in vaudeville with its reiterations of Victor Herbert’s -<i>Kiss Me Again</i>, and her Spring Dance. The -first is pressed far into burlesque, but before she gets -there it has fatally destroyed the whole tedious business -of polite and sentimental concert-room vocalism; -and the second (Fanny in ballet, with her amazingly -angular parody of five-position dancing) puts an end<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span> -forever to that great obsession of ours, classical interpretative -dancing.</p> - -<p>Fanny’s refinement of technique is far beyond -Jolson’s; her effects are broad enough, but her -methods are all delicate. The frenzy which takes -hold of her is as real as his. With him she has the -supreme pleasure of knowing that she can do no -wrong—and her spirits mount and intensify with -every moment on the stage. She creates rapidly and -her characterizations have an exceptional roundness -and fulness; when the dæmon attends she is superb.</p> - -<p>It is noteworthy that these two stars bring something -to America which America lacks and loves—they -are, I suppose, two of our most popular entertainers—and -that both are racially out of the dominant -caste. Possibly this accounts for their fine carelessness -about our superstitions of politeness and -gentility. The medium in which they work requires -more decency and less frankness than usually exist in -our private lives; but within these bounds Jolson and -Brice go farther, go with more contempt for artificial -notions of propriety, than anyone else. Jolson has -re-created an ancient type, the scalawag servant with -his surface dulness and hidden cleverness, a creation -as real as Sganarelle. And Fanny has torn through -all the conventions and cried out that gaiety still -exists. They are parallel lines surcharged with vital -energy. I should like to see that fourth-dimensional -show in which they will meet.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_203" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="These_Too"><i>These, Too ...</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">THESE, TOO ...</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Remy de Gourmont</span> has propounded, somewhere, -an interesting theory. If life is worth anything -<i>per se</i>, is the substance of the argument, then -we do wrong to live it in a series of high moments -separated by long hours of dulness. We ought to -take the <i>amount</i> of energy, or ecstasy, we possess, and -spread it as thin as possible, relishing each moment -for itself, each being as good as any other. (I do not -mean that Gourmont endorsed this philosophy; he -discussed it.) It is, of course, the logical conclusion -of burning <i>always</i> with a hard gemlike flame, for if -one is to be always <i>anything</i> it is more likely to be -calm and languorous and reserved; that is the difference -between burning and burning up—of which -Pater was aware.</p> - -<p>We have all had these days of halcyon perfection, -when the precise degree of warmth was a -miracle, when the aroma of a wine seemed to have -the whole fragrance of the earth, when one could do -anything or nothing and be equally content. In the -presence of great works of art we experience something -similar. We are suspended between the sense -of release from life, the desire to die before the image -of the supremely beautiful, and a new-found capacity -for living. Our daily existence gives us no such -opportunity; we cannot live languorously because we -have no leisure, and we are compelled to be intense -at rare intervals if life isn’t to be entirely a hoax and -a bore. In the preoccupations of daily life a tragic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span> -incident or an outburst of temper or a perfectly cut -street dress or the dark-light before a storm, may give -us, apart from our emotional lives, the intensity we -require. We rather defend ourselves from the impact -of great beauty, of nobility, of high tragedy, because -we feel ourselves incompetent to master them; -we preserve our individual lives even if we diminish -them.</p> - -<p>The minor arts are, to an extent, an opiate—or -rather they trick our hunger for a moment and we are -able to sleep. They do not wholly satisfy, but they -do not corrupt. And they, too, have their moments -of intensity. Our experience of perfection is so limited -that even when it occurs in a secondary field -we hail its coming. Yet the minor arts are all transient, -and these moments have no lasting record, and -their creators are unrewarded even by the tribute of a -word. A moment comes when everything is exactly -right, and you have an occurrence—it may be something -exquisite or something unnamably gross; there -is in it an ecstasy which sets it apart from everything -else. The scene of the “swaree” in the <i>Pickwick -Papers</i> has that quality; nearly the whole of <i>South -Wind</i> has it (I choose examples as disparate as possible). -The whole performance of <i>Boris</i> by Chaliapin -(the second time he sang it at the Metropolitan -on his second visit to the United States) had precisely -the same exaltation—and Conrad Veidt as -Cesare had one comparable moment: the breathless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span> -second when the draperies seem to cling to the ravished -virgin in the hands of the Somnambulist. It -is an unpredictable event; but there are those on -whom one can count to approach it. All of those I -am writing about here have given me that thrill at -least once—and my memory goes back to these occasions, -trying to catch the incredible moment again.</p> - -<div id="i_204" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> - <img src="images/i_204.png" width="1284" height="1565" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Courtesy of A. and C. Boni</i>)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Leon Errol.</span> By Alfred Frueh</div> -</div> - -<p>It will be impossible to communicate even the -sense of it unless the material be dissociated from the -event. Surely there is nothing exquisite in the roaring -charwoman created by George Monroe. He had -to an inspiring degree the capacity to be one of those -vast figures in Dickens—Mrs Gamp to perfection—and -it is odd that another impersonator, Bert Savoy, -should have created, in Margie, Mrs Gamp’s own -confidante and admirer, the devoted Mrs Harris. -George Monroe’s creation was huge and cylindrical—more -like a drainpipe than a woman in shape. There -was no effort at realism, for Monroe roared in a deep -bass voice, and his “Be that as it ma-a-y” was a leer -in the face of all logic, order, and decency. There -was in it an unrestraint, a wildness, an independent -commonness which rendered it immortal. The creation -of Bert Savoy is at the other extreme. It is -female impersonation and the figure is always the -same—the courtesan whose ambition it is to be a -demi-mondaine. Savoy makes capital of all his defects -down to the rakish slanting hat over one eye. -His repetitions, apparently so spontaneous, are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span> -beautifully timed and spaced; the buzz and pause in -the voice—“you muzzt com’over ... you don’t -know the ha-ff of it, dear-ie” fix themselves in memory. -He is remembered for the excellent stories he -tells, and they are worth it, but the interpolations -are funnier than the climax. The audacity is colossal -and disarming. The occurrence of a character out of -Petronius on our stage is exceptional in itself, that it -should at the same time be slightly vicious and altogether -charming, funny and immoral and delicate, is -the wonder.</p> - -<p>Last year there was an added touch, when Savoy -danced while he sang a stanza about the Widow -Brown. It was as delicate, it passed as quickly, as -breath on a windowpane.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">15</a></p> - -<p>I repeat the material doesn’t matter. For Leon -Errol has nothing but the type drunkard to work -with, and is wonderful. In his case it is easy to -analyse the basis of the effect—it is in the loping -dance step into which he converts the lurch of the -drunkard. The tawdry moment—funny enough if -you can bear it—is always Errol’s breathing into -someone else’s face; the great moment comes directly -after, when the lurch and the fall are worked up into -a complete arc of dance steps, ending in three little -hops as a sort of proof of sobriety. Jimmy Barton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span> -has the same quality in his skating scene—he uses less -material and the movement round the rink is beautiful -to watch. But of him it is useless to speak. -Someone has pointed out that he can slap the bare -back of a woman and make that funny!</p> - -<p>It is interesting to see how many of the people -who give this special quality arrive out of burlesque. -Harry Kelly is another. I recall him first with Lizzie -the Fish Hound in <i>Watch Your Step</i> and last in a -quite useless musical comedy, <i>The Springtime of -Youth</i> (textually that was the title—and in 1922!) -For two acts he was wholly wasted. In the third he -was magnificent. He was playing the obdurate -father: “No son of mine shall ever marry a daughter -of the Baxters” was his line. He was informed that -she was, in fact, an adopted daughter and that her -uncle had left her the bulk of his fortune. For precisely -a minute and a half Kelly played with the -word “bulk”—one saw it registered in his brain, saw -an idea germinating, felt it working forward to the -jaw before the cavernous voice gave it utterance—and -again one felt the inner struggle <i>not</i> to say it a -third time, one felt the conflict of pride and avarice. -It was remarkably delicate and fine—so is all of -Kelly’s work when he has a chance. His spare figure, -long hands, and unbelievable voice always create a -character—and it isn’t always the same character.</p> - -<p>Bobby Clarke’s scene with the lion comes at once -to mind (it is another burlesque act), and Bert<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span> -Williams—in many scenes—always soft spoken, always -understanding his case. There were five minutes -of Blanche Ring and Charles Winninger, once, at the -Winter Garden; to my surprise, there were more than -that for Eugene and Willie Howard at the same -house, but they were gained in spite of the Winter -Garden technique which underestimates even the -lowest intelligence. Willie is rather like Fanny Brice -at moments; when he cuts loose one has an agreeable -sense of uncertainty. Joe Jackson,<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">16</a> actually a great -clown, although one doesn’t recognize this in the highly -developed medium he chooses, has exactly the opposite -effect—he doesn’t cut loose at all; he develops. -Everything he does is careful and nothing exaggerated, -so you think at first that, although he will be -funny, he will not quite reach that top notch on which -an artist teeters perilously while you wonder whether -he will fall over or keep his balance. Yet Jackson -gets there. As the tramp cyclist his acrobatics are -good, his make-up enchanting; but his expressed attitude -of mind is his most precious quality. It becomes -almost too much to watch him worrying with a motor -horn which has become detached from the handlebars -and which he cannot replace. He tries it everywhere; -at the end he is miserably trying to hang it up on the -air, and when it fails to catch there he is actually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span> -wretched. His movements are full of grace—like -those of the grotesque, Alberto, among the Fratellini—and -the ecstasy he gives comes by a surexcess of -laughter. Another moment of great delicacy, without -laughter, however, is that in which Fortunello -and Cirrilino swing about on the broomstick. They -are a lovely pair, and the little one seated on the -palm of the other’s hand is a beautiful picture.</p> - -<div id="i_208" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_208.jpg" width="1199" height="1798" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Bert Savoy</span></div> -</div> - -<p>Either few women are brought out of burlesque, -or women haven’t the exceptional quality I care for. -In any case they have seldom given me the excess of -emotion by what they have done. Their beauty is -quite another matter on which I fail to commit myself. -Ada Lewis, in her broad and grand way, has -the stuff, and Florence Moore. And once in each performance -you can be sure that Gilda Grey will utter -a sound or tremble herself into a bacchanalian revel. -For the most part her singing is undistinguished, and -I do not care for the anxious way in which she regards -her members, as if she fancied they would fall off by -dint of shimmying. Yet I have never gone to a show -of hers without hearing some echo of the nymphs pursued, -or seeing a movement of abandon and grace. -The dark shuddering voice is sub-human, the movement -divinely animal.</p> - -<p>Different in every way, but exquisite in every -way, was Gaby Deslys. It is good form now to belittle -her; she was so vulgar; she came so much on the -crest of a revolution, she was such a bidder for our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> -great precious commodity—news space. Ah, well! -we have given publicity to less worthy causes. For -she was perfect of her type, and in her hard, calculating, -sublimely decent way she made us like the -type. It was gently vicious—the whole manner. It -was overdone—the pearls and the peacock feathers. -But behind was a lovely person—lovely to look at -and enchanting to all the senses. No, she couldn’t -act—how pitiable her loyal efforts; she sang badly; -she wasn’t one of the world’s great dancers. But she -had something irreducible, not to be hindered or infringed -upon—her definite self. She was, to begin -with, outcast of our moral system, and she made us -accept her because she was an independent human -being. She had a sound and accurate sense of her -personal life, of her rights as an individual. Nothing -could stand against her—and it is said that when -she was at grips, at the end, with something more -powerful than popular taste, she still held her own, -and died rather than suffer the spoiling of her beauty. -If that were true one could hardly wish even her -beauty back again.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_213" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="The_Vulgar"><i>The “Vulgar”<br /> -Comic Strip</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_VULGAR_COMIC_STRIP">THE “VULGAR” COMIC STRIP</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Of</span> all the lively arts the Comic Strip is the most -despised, and with the exception of the movies it is -the most popular. Some twenty million people follow -with interest, curiosity, and amusement the daily -fortunes of five or ten heroes of the comic strip, and -that they do this is considered by all those who have -any pretentions to taste and culture as a symptom of -crass vulgarity, of dulness, and, for all I know, of -defeated and inhibited lives. I need hardly add that -those who feel so about the comic strip only infrequently -regard the object of their distaste.</p> - -<p>Certainly there is a great deal of monotonous stupidity -in the comic strip, a cheap jocosity, a life-of-the-party -humour which is extraordinarily dreary. -There is also a quantity of bad drawing and the intellectual -level, if that matters, is sometimes not high. -Yet we are not actually a dull people; we take our -fun where we find it, and we have an exceptional -capacity for liking the things which show us off in -ridiculous postures—a counterpart to our inveterate -passion for seeing ourselves in stained-glass attitudes. -And the fact that we do care for the comic strip—that -Jiggs and Mutt-and-Jeff and Skinnay and the -Gumps have entered into our existence as definitely -as Roosevelt and more deeply than Pickwick—ought -to make them worth looking at, for once. Certainly -they would have been more sharply regarded if they -had produced the counterpart of Chaplin in the comic -film—a universal genius capable of holding the multitude<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span> -and exciting the speculations of the intellectuals. -It happens that the actual genius of the comic -strip, George Herriman, is of such a special sort that -even when he is recognized he is considered something -apart and his appearance among other strips is -held to be only an accident.</p> - -<p>It is by no means an accident, for the comic strip -is an exceptionally supple medium, giving play to a -variety of talents, to the use of many methods, and -it adapts itself to almost any theme. The enormous -circulation it achieves imposes certain limitations: -it cannot be too local, since it is syndicated throughout -the country; it must avoid political and social -questions because the same strip appears in papers of -divergent editorial opinions; there is no room in it for -acute racial caricature, although no group is immune -from its mockery. These and other restrictions have -gradually made of the comic strip a changing picture -of the average American life—and by compensation -it provides us with the freest American fantasy.</p> - -<p>In a book which appeared about two years ago, -<i>Civilization in the United States</i>, thirty Americans -rendered account of our present state. One of them, -and one only, mentioned the comic strip—Mr Harold -E. Stearns—and he summed up the “intellectual” -attitude perfectly by saying that <i>Bringing Up Father</i> -will repay the social historian for all the attention he -gives it. I do not know in what satisfactions the -social historian can be repaid. I fear that the actual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span> -fun in the comic strip is not one of them. <i>Bringing -Up Father</i>, says Mr Stearns, “symbolizes better than -most of us appreciate the normal relation of American -men and women to cultural and intellectual values. -<i>Its very grotesqueness and vulgarity are revealing</i>” -(italics mine). (Query: Is it vulgar of Jiggs to prefer -Dinty’s café to a Swami’s lecture? Or of Mrs -Jiggs to insist on the lecture? Or of both of them to -be rather free in the matter of using vases as projectiles? -What, in short, is vulgar?) I am far from -quarreling with Mr Stearns’ leading idea, for I am -sure that a history of manners in the United States -could be composed with the comic strip as its golden -thread; but I think that something more than its vulgarity -would be revealing.</p> - -<p>The daily comic strip arrived in the early ’nineties—perhaps -it was our contribution to that artistic -age—and has gone through several phases. In 1892 -or thereabouts Jimmy Swinnerton created <i>Little -Bears and Tigers</i> for the San Francisco <i>Examiner</i>; -that forerunner has passed away, but Swinnerton remains, -and everything he does is observed with -respect by the other comic-strip artists; he has had -more influence on the strip even than Wilhelm Busch, -the German whose <i>Max und Moritz</i> were undoubtedly -the originals of the <i>Katzenjammer Kids</i>. The -strip worked its way east, prospered by William -Randolph Hearst especially in the coloured Sunday -Supplement, and as a daily feature by the Chicago<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span> -<i>Daily News</i>, which was, I am informed, the first to -syndicate its strips and so enabled Americans to think -nationally. About fifteen years ago, also in San -Francisco, appeared the first work of Bud Fisher, <i>Mr -Mutt</i>, soon to develop into <i>Mutt and Jeff</i>, the first -of the great hits and still one of the best known of -the comic strips. Fisher’s arrival on the scene corresponds -to that of Irving Berlin in ragtime. He had -a great talent, hit upon something which took the -popular fancy, and by his energy helped to establish -the comic strip as a fairly permanent idea in the -American newspaper.</p> - -<p>The files of the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i> will one -day be searched by an enthusiast for the precise date -on which Little Jeff appeared in the picture. It is -generally believed that the two characters came on -together, but this is not so. In the beginning Mr -Mutt made his way alone; he was a race-track follower -who daily went out to battle and daily fell. -Clare Briggs had used the same idea in his <i>Piker Clerk</i> -for the Chicago <i>Tribune</i>. The historic meeting with -Little Jeff, a sacred moment in our cultural development, -occurred during the days before one of Jim -Jeffries’ fights. It was as Mr Mutt passed the asylum -walls that a strange creature confided to the air the -notable remark that he himself was Jeffries. Mutt -rescued the little gentleman and named him Jeff. -In gratitude Jeff daily submits to indignities which -might otherwise seem intolerable.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p> - -<p>The development in the last twenty years has -been rapid, and about two dozen good comics now -exist. Historically it remains to be noted that between -1910 and 1916 nearly all the good comics were -made into bad burlesque shows; in 1922 the best of -them was made into a ballet with scenario and music -by John Alden Carpenter, choreography by Adolph -Bolm; costumes and settings after designs by George -Herriman. Most of the comics have also appeared -in the movies; the two things have much in common -and some day a thesis for the doctorate in letters will -be written to establish the relationship. The writer -of that thesis will explain, I hope, why “movies” is -a good word and “funnies,” as offensive little children -name the comic pages, is what charming essayists -call an atrocious vocable.</p> - -<p>Setting apart the strip which has fantasy—it is -practised by Frueh and by Herriman—the most interesting -form is that which deals satirically with -every-day life; the least entertaining is the one which -takes over the sentimental magazine love-story and -carries it through endless episodes. The degree of -interest points to one of the virtues of the comic strip: -it is a great corrective to magazine-cover prettiness. -Only one or two frankly pretty-girl strips exist. -<i>Petey</i> is the only one which owes its popularity to the -high, handsome face and the lovely flanks of its -heroine, and even there the pompous awkwardness of -the persistent lover has a touch of wilful absurdity.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> -Mrs Trubble, a second-rate strip unworthy of its -originator, is simply a series of pictures dramatizing -the vampire home-breaker; I am not even sure she is -intended to be pretty. When nearly everything else -in the same newspapers is given over to sentimentality -and affected girl-worship, to advice to the lovelorn -and pretty-prettiness, it is notable that the comic -strip remains grotesque and harsh and careless. It -is largely concerned with the affairs of men and children, -and, as far as I know, there has never been an -effective strip made by, for, or of a woman. The -strip has been from the start a satirist of manners; -remembering that it arrived at the same time as the -Chicago World’s Fair, recalling the clothes, table -manners, and conversation of those days, it is easy to -see how the murmured satiric commentary of the strip -undermined our self-sufficiency, pricked our conceit, -and corrected our <i>gaucherie</i>. To-day the world of -Tad, peopled with cake-eaters and finale-hoppers, -the world of the <i>Gumps</i> and <i>Gasoline Alley</i>, of <i>Abie -the Agent</i> and <i>Mr and Mrs</i> serve the same purpose. -I am convinced that none of our realists in fiction -come so close to the facts of the average man, none -of our satirists are so gentle and so effective. Of -course they are all more serious and more conscious -of their mission; but—well, exactly who cares?</p> - -<div id="i_218" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/i_218.jpg" width="2006" height="887" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Copyright by the Star Company. By permission of the publishers of the</i> New York Journal)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Mike and Mike.</span> By T. E. Powers</div> -</div> - -<p>The best of the realists is Clare Briggs, who is an -elusive creator, one who seems at times to feel the -medium of the strip not exactly suited to him, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span> -at others to find himself at home in it. His single -pictures: <i>The Days of Real Sport</i> and <i>When a Feller -Needs a Friend</i>, and the now rapidly disappearing -<i>Kelly Pool</i> which was technically a strip, are notable -recreations of simple life. Few of them are actively -funny; some are sentimental. The children of <i>The -Days of Real Sport</i> have an astonishing reality—and -none are more real than the virtually unseen -Skinnay, who is always being urged to “come over.” -They are a gallery of country types, some of them -borrowed from literature—the Huck Finn touch is -visible—but all of them freshly observed and dryly -recorded. Briggs’ line is distinctive; one could identify -any square inch of his drawings. In <i>Kelly Pool</i> -he worked close to Tad’s <i>Indoor Sports</i>, and did what -Tad hasn’t done—created a character, the negro -waiter George whom I shall be sorry to lose. George’s -amateur interest in pool was continually being submerged -in his professional interest: gettings tips, and -his “Bad day ... ba-a-ad day” when tips were low -is a little classic. Deserting that scene, Briggs has -made a successful comedy of domestic life in <i>Mr and -Mrs</i>. No one has come so near to the subject—the -grumbling, helpless, assertive, modest, self-satisfied, -self-deprecating male, in his contacts with his sensible, -occasionally irritable, wife. As often as not these -episodes end in quarrels—in utter blackness with -harsh bedroom voices continuing a day’s exacerbations; -again the reconciliations are mushy, again they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span> -are genuine sentiment. And around them plays the -child whose one function is to say “Papa loves -mamma” at the most appropriate time. It is quite -an achievement, for Briggs has made the ungrateful -material interesting, and I can recall not one of these -strips in which he has cracked a joke. Tad here follows -Briggs, respectfully. <i>For Better or Worse</i> is -considerably more obvious, but it has Tad’s special -value, in sharpness of caricature. The surrounding -types are brilliantly drawn; only the central -characters remain stock figures. Yet the touch of romance -in Tad, continually overlaid by his sense of -the ridiculous, is precious; he seems aware of the -faint aspirations of his characters and recognizes the -<i>rôles</i> which they think they are playing while he mercilessly -shows up their actuality. The finest of the -<i>Indoor Sports</i> are those in which two subordinate -characters riddle with sarcasm the pretentions of the -others—the clerk pretending to be at ease when the -boss brings his son into the office, the lady of the -house talking about the new motor car, the small-town -braggart and the city swell—characters out of -melodrama, some, and others so vividly taken from -life that the very names Tad gives them pass into -common speech. He is an inveterate creator and -manipulator of slang; whatever phrase he makes or -picks up has its vogue for months and his own variations -are delightful. Slang is a part of their picture, -and he and Walter Hoban are the only masters of it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span></p> - -<p>Ketten’s <i>Day of Rest</i> is another strip of this -<i>genre</i>, interesting chiefly as a piece of draughtsmanship. -He is the most economical of the comic-strip -artists, and his flat characters, without contours or -body, have a sort of jack-in-the-box energy and a -sardonic obstinacy. The Chicago School I have -frankly never been able to understand—a parochialism -on my part, or a tribute to its exceptional privacy -and sophistication. It pretends, of course, to be -simple, but the fate of every metropolis is to enter -its small-town period at one time or another, to call -itself a village, to build a town hall and sink a town -pump with a silver handle. The Gumps are common -people and the residents of Gasoline Alley are -just folks, but I have never been able to understand -what they are doing; I suspect they do nothing. It -seems to me I read columns of conversation daily, -and have to continue to the next day to follow the -story. The campaign of Andy Gump for election -to the Senate gave a little body to the serial story—he -was so abysmally the ignorant Congressman that -he began to live. But apart from this, apart from the -despairing cry of “Oh, Min,” one recalls nothing of -the Chicago School except the amusing vocabulary of -Syd Smith and that Andy has no chin. It is an excellent -symbol; but it isn’t enough for daily food.</p> - -<p>The small-town school of comic strip flourishes -in the work of Briggs, already mentioned, in Webster’s -swift sketches of a similar nature, and in Tom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span> -MacNamara’s <i>Us Boys</i>. The last of these is an exceptional -fake as small-town, but an amusing and -genuine strip. It is people by creation of fancy—the -alarmingly fat, amiable Skinny, the truculent Eaglebeak -Spruder, the little high-brow Van with his innocence -and his spectacles, and Emily, if I recall the -name, the village vampire at the age of seven. Little -happens in <i>Us Boys</i>, but MacNamara has managed to -convey a genuine emotion in tracing the complicated -relations between his personages—there is actual -childhood friendship, actual worry and pride and anger—all -rather gently rendered, and with a recognizable -language.</p> - -<p>It is interesting to note that none of these strips -make use of the projectile or the blow as a regular -<i>dénoûement</i>. I have nothing against the solution by -violence of delicate problems, but since the comic strip -is supposed to be exclusively devoted to physical exploits -I think it is well to remark how placid life is -in at least one significant branch of the art. In -effect all the themes of the comic strip are subjected -to a great variety of treatments, and in each of them -you will find, on occasions, the illustrated joke. This -is the weakest of the strips, and, as if aware of its -weakness, its creators give it the snap ending of a -blow, or, failing that, show us one character in consternation -at the brilliance of the other’s wit, flying -out of the picture with the cry of “Zowie,” indicating -his surcharge of emotion. This is not the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span> -thing as the wilful violence of <i>Mutt and Jeff</i>, where -the attack is due to the malice or stupidity of one -character, the resentment or revenge of the other.</p> - -<p>Mutt is a <i>picaro</i>, one of the few rogues created -in America. There is nothing too dishonest for him, -nor is there any chance so slim that he won’t take it. -He has an object in life: he does not do mean or vicious -things simply for the pleasure of doing them, -and so is vastly superior to the Peck’s Bad Boy type -of strip which has an apparently endless vogue—the -type best known in <i>The Katzenjammer Kids</i>. -This is the least ingenious, the least interesting as -drawing, the sloppiest in colour, the weakest in conception -and in execution, of all the strips, and it is -the one which has determined the intellectual idea -of what all strips are like. It is now divided into -two—and they are equally bad. How happy one -could be with neither! The other outstanding picaresque -strip is <i>Happy Hooligan</i>—the type tramp—who -with his brother, Gloomy Gus, had added to the -gallery of our national mythology. <i>Non est qualis -erat</i>—the spark has gone out of him in recent years.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">17</a> -Elsewhere you still find that exceptionally immoral -and dishonest attitude toward the business standards -of America. For the comic strip, especially after -you leave the domestic-relations type which is itself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span> -realistic and unsentimental, is specifically more -violent, more dishonest, more tricky and roguish, than -America usually permits its serious arts to be. The -strips of cleverness: <i>Foxy Grandpa</i>, the boy inventor, -<i>Hawkshaw the Detective</i>, haven’t great vogue. <i>Boob -McNutt</i>, without a brain in his head, beloved by the -beautiful heiress, has a far greater following, although -it is the least worthy of Rube Goldberg’s -astonishing creations. But Mutt and Jiggs and <i>Abie -the Agent</i>, and <i>Barney Google</i> and <i>Eddie’s Friends</i> -have so little respect for law, order, the rights of -property, the sanctity of money, the romance of marriage, -and all the other foundations of American life, -that if they were put into fiction the Society for the -Suppression of Everything would hale them incontinently -to court and our morals would be saved again.</p> - -<p><i>The Hall-room Boys</i> (now known as <i>Percy and -Ferdy</i>, I think) are also picaresque; the indigent pretenders -to social eminence who do anything to get -on. They are great bores, not because one foresees -the denunciation at the end, but because they somehow -fail to come to life, and one doesn’t care whether -they get away with it or not.</p> - -<p><i>Abie</i> and <i>Jerry on the Job</i> are good strips because -they are self-contained, seldom crack jokes, and -have each a significant touch of satire. Abie is the -Jew of commerce and the man of common sense; you -have seen him quarrel with a waiter because of an -overcharge of ten cents, and, encouraged by his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span> -companion, replying, “Yes, and it ain’t the principle, -either; it’s the ten cents.” You have seen a thousand -tricks by which he once sold Complex motor cars and -now promotes cinema shows or prize fights. He is -the epitome of one side of his race, and his attractiveness -is as remarkable as his jargon. Jerry’s chief -fault is taking a stock situation and prolonging it; -his chief virtue, at the moment, is his funny, hard-boiled -attitude towards business. Mr Givney, the -sloppy sentimentalist who is pleased because some one -took him for Mr Taft (“Nice, clean fun,” says Jerry -of that), is faced with the absurd Jerry, who demolishes -efficiency systems and the romance of big business -and similar nonsense with his devastating logic -or his complete stupidity. The railway station at -Ammonia hasn’t the immortal character of <i>The Toonerville -Trolley</i> (that meets all the trains) because -Fontaine Fox has a far more entertaining manner -than Hoban, and because Fox is actually a caricaturist—all -of his figures are grotesque, the powerful -<i>Katinka</i> or <i>Aunt Eppie</i> not more so than the Skipper. -Hoban and Hershfield both understate; Fox -exaggerates grossly; but with his exaggeration he is -so ingenious, so inventive that each strip is funny -and the total effect is the creation of character in -the Dickens sense. It is not the method of <i>Mutt and -Jeff</i> nor of <i>Barney Google</i> in which Billy de Beck -has done much with a luckless wight, a sentimentalist, -and an endearing fool all rolled into one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span></p> - -<p>These are the strips which come to life each day, -without forcing, and which stay long in memory. I -am stating the case for the strip in general and have -gone so far as to speak well of some I do not admire, -nor read with animation. The continued existence -of others remains a mystery to me; why they live -beyond change, and presumably beyond accidental -death, is one of the things no one can profitably speculate -upon. I do not see why I should concede anything -more to the enemies of the strip. In one of -<i>Life’s</i> burlesque numbers there was a page of comics -expertly done by j held in the manner of our most -popular artists. Each of the half dozen strips illustrated -the joke: “Who was that lady I seen you with -on the street last night?” “That wasn’t a lady; that -was my wife.” Like so many parodies, this arrived -too late, for the current answer is, “That wasn’t a -street; that was an alley.” Each picture ended in a -slam and a cry—also belated. The actual demolition -of the slam ending was accomplished by T. E. Powers, -who touches the field of the comic strip rarely, -and then with his usual ferocity. In a footnote to -a cartoon he drew <i>Mike and Mike</i>. In six pictures -four represented one man hitting the other; once to -emphasize a pointless joke, twice thereafter for no -reason at all, and finally to end the picture. It was -destruction by exaggeration; and no comic strip artist -missed the point.</p> - -<p>At the extremes of the comic strip are the realistic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span> -school and the fantastic—and of fantasy there -are but few practitioners. Tad has some of the quality -in <i>Judge Rummy</i>, but for the most part the Judge -and Fedink and the rest are human beings dressed -up as dogs—they are out of Æsop, not out of LaFontaine. -But the Judge is actually funny, and I recall -an inhuman and undoglike episode in which he and -Fedink each claimed to have the loudest voice, and -so in midwinter, in a restaurant, each lifted up his -voice and uttered and shouted and bellowed the word -“Strawberries” until they were properly thrown into -the street. This is the kind of madness which is required -in fantasy, and Goldberg occasionally has it. -He is the most versatile of the lot; he has created -characters, and scenes, and continuous episodes—foolish -questions and meetings of ladies’ clubs and -inventions (not so good as Heath Robinson’s) and -through them there has run a wild grotesquerie. The -tortured statues of his <i>décors</i> are marvelous, the way -he pushes stupidity and ugliness to their last possible -point, and humour into everything, is amazing. Yet -I feel he is <i>manqué</i>, because he has never found a -perfect medium for his work.</p> - -<p>Frueh is a fine artist in caricature and could have -no such difficulty. When he took it into his head to -do a daily strip he was bound to do something exceptional, -and he succeeded. It is a highly sophisticated -thing in its humour, in its subjects, and pre-eminently -in its execution. His series on prohibition enforcement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span> -had infinite ingenuity, so also his commentaries -on political events in New York city. He remains -a caricaturist in these strips, indicating, by his use of -the medium, that its possibilities are not exhausted. -Yet for all his dealing with “ideas” his method remains -fantastic, and although he isn’t technically a -comic-strip artist he is the best approach to the one -artist whom I have only mentioned, George Herriman, -and to his immortal creation. For there is, in -and outside the comic strip, a solitary and incomprehensible -figure which must be treated apart. The -Krazy Kat that Walks by Himself.</p> - -<div id="i_228" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_228.jpg" width="1554" height="1769" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">HOW LONG <span class="bold">SHALL THIS GO ON</span>?</div> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Courtesy of</i> Life—<i>from the burlesque Sunday Supplement Number</i>)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">A Cartoon.</span> By R. L. Goldberg</div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_231" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="The_Krazy_Kat_That"><i>The Krazy Kat That<br /> -Walks by Himself</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KRAZY_KAT_THAT_WALKS_BY">THE KRAZY KAT THAT WALKS BY -HIMSELF</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Krazy Kat,</span> the daily comic strip of George Herriman -is, to me, the most amusing and fantastic and -satisfactory work of art produced in America to-day. -With those who hold that a comic strip cannot be a -work of art I shall not traffic. The qualities of Krazy -Kat are irony and fantasy—exactly the same, it would -appear, as distinguish <i>The Revolt of the Angels</i>; -it is wholly beside the point to indicate a preference -for the work of Anatole France, which is in the great -line, in the major arts. It happens that in America -irony and fantasy are practised in the major arts by -only one or two men, producing high-class trash; and -Mr Herriman, working in a despised medium, without -an atom of pretentiousness, is day after day producing -something essentially fine. It is the result -of a naïve sensibility rather like that of the <i>douanier</i> -Rousseau; it does not lack intelligence, because it is -a thought-out, a constructed piece of work. In the -second order of the world’s art it is superbly first -rate—and a delight! For ten years, daily and frequently -on Sunday, Krazy Kat has appeared in America; -in that time we have accepted and praised a hundred -fakes from Europe and Asia—silly and trashy -plays, bad painting, woful operas, iniquitous religions, -everything paste and brummagem, has had its vogue -with us; and a genuine, honest native product has -gone unnoticed until in the year of grace 1922 a -ballet brought it a tardy and grudging acclaim.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span></p> - -<p>Herriman is our great master of the fantastic -and his early career throws a faint light on the invincible -creation which is his present masterpiece. For -all of his other things were comparative failures. He -could not find, in the realistic framework he chose, -an appropriate medium for his imaginings, or even -for the strange draughtsmanship which is his natural -mode of expression. <i>The Family Upstairs</i> seemed to -the realist reader simply incredible; it failed to give -him the pleasure of recognizing his neighbours in -their more ludicrous moments. <i>The Dingbats</i>, hapless -wretches, had the same defect. Another strip -came nearer to providing the right tone: <i>Don Koyote -and Sancho Pansy</i>; Herriman’s mind has always been -preoccupied with the mad knight of La Mancha, who -reappears transfigured in <i>Krazy Kat</i>. And—although -the inspirations are <i>never</i> literary—when it isn’t Cervantes -it is Dickens to whom he has the greatest affinity. -The Dickens mode operated in <i>Baron Bean</i>—a -figure half Micawber, half Charlie Chaplin as man -of the world. I have noted, in writing of Chaplin, -Mr Herriman’s acute and sympathetic appreciation -of the first few moments of <i>The Kid</i>. It is only fair -to say here that he had himself done the same thing -in his medium. Baron Bean was always in rags, penniless, -hungry; but he kept his man Grimes, and -Grimes did his dirty work, Grimes was the Baron’s -outlet, and Grimes, faithful retainer, held by bonds -of admiration and respect, helped the Baron in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span> -one great love affair. Like all of Herriman’s people, -they lived on the enchanted mesa (pronounced: ma-cey) -by Coconino, near the town of Yorba Linda. -The Baron was inventive; lacking the money to -finance the purchase of a postage stamp, he entrusted -a love letter to a carrier pigeon; and his “Go, my -paloma,” on that occasion, is immortal.</p> - -<p>Some of these characters are reappearing in Herriman’s -latest work: <i>Stumble Inn</i>. Of this I have -not seen enough to be sure. It is a mixture of fancy -and realism; Mr Stumble himself is the Dickens character -again—the sentimental, endearing innkeeper -who would rather lose his only patron than kill a -favourite turkey cock for Thanksgiving. I have heard -that recently a litter of pups has been found in the -cellar of the inn; so I should judge that fantasy has -won the day. For it is Herriman’s bent to disguise -what he has to say in creations of the animal world -which are neither human nor animal, but each <i>sui -generis</i>.</p> - -<p>That is how the Kat started. The thought of a -friendship between a cat and a mouse amused Herriman -and one day he wrote them in as a footnote to -<i>The Family Upstairs</i>. On their first appearance -they played marbles while the family quarreled; and -in the last picture the marble dropped through a hole -in the bottom line. An office boy named Willie was -the first to recognize the strange virtues of <i>Krazy Kat</i>. -As surely as he was the greatest of office boys, so the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> -greatest of editors, Arthur Brisbane, was the next to -praise. He urged Herriman to keep the two characters -in action; within a week they began a semi-independent -existence in a strip an inch wide under -the older strip. Slowly they were detached, were -placed at one side, and naturally stepped into the full -character of a strip when the <i>Family</i> departed. In -time the Sundays appeared—three quarters of a page, -involving the whole Krazy Kat and Ignatz families<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">18</a> -and the flourishing town of Coconino—the flora and -fauna of that enchanted region which Herriman created -out of his memories of the Arizona desert he so -dearly loves.</p> - -<p>In one of his most metaphysical pictures Herriman -presents Krazy as saying to Ignatz: “I ain’t a -Kat ... and I ain’t Krazy” (I put dots to indicate -the lunatic shifting of background which goes on -while these remarks are made; although the action is -continuous and the characters motionless, it is in -keeping with Herriman’s method to have the backdrop -in a continual state of agitation; you never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span> -know when a shrub will become a redwood, or a hut -a church) ... “it’s wot’s behind me that I am ... -it’s the idea behind me, ‘Ignatz’ and that’s wot I am.” -In an attitude of a contortionist Krazy points to the -blank space behind him, and it is there that we must -look for the “Idea.” It is not far to seek. There is -a plot and there is a theme—and considering that -since 1913 or so there have been some three thousand -strips, one may guess that the variations are infinite. -The plot is that Krazy (androgynous, but according -to his creator willing to be either) is in love with -Ignatz Mouse; Ignatz, who is married, but vagrant, -despises the Kat, and his one joy in life is to “Krease -that Kat’s bean with a brick” from the brickyard of -Kolin Kelly. The fatuous Kat (Stark Young has -found the perfect word for him: he is crack-brained) -takes the brick, by a logic and a cosmic memory presently -to be explained, as a symbol of love; he cannot, -therefore, appreciate the efforts of Offisa B. Pupp -to guard him and to entrammel the activities of Ignatz -Mouse (or better, Mice). A deadly war is -waged between Ignatz and Offisa Pupp—the latter is -himself romantically in love with Krazy; and one -often sees pictures in which Krazy and Ignatz conspire -together to outwit the officer, both wanting the -same thing, but with motives all at cross-purposes. -This is the major plot; it is clear that the brick has -little to do with the violent endings of other strips, -for it is surcharged with emotions. It frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> -comes not at the end, but at the beginning of an action; -sometimes it does not arrive. It is a symbol.</p> - -<p>The theme is greater than the plot. John Alden -Carpenter has pointed out in the brilliant little foreword<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">19</a> -to his ballet, that Krazy Kat is a combination -of Parsifal and Don Quixote, the perfect fool and -the perfect knight. Ignatz is Sancho Panza and, I -should say, Lucifer. He loathes the sentimental excursions, -the philosophic ramblings of Krazy; he interrupts -with a well-directed brick the romantic excesses -of his companion. For example: Krazy blindfolded -and with the scales of Justice in his hand declares: -“Things is all out of perpotion, ‘Ignatz.’” -“In what way, fool?” enquires the Mice as the scene -shifts to the edge of a pool in the middle of the desert. -“In the way of ‘ocean’ for a instinct.” “Well?” -asks Ignatz. They are plunging head down into mid-sea, -and only their hind legs, tails, and words are -visible: “The ocean is so innikwilly distribitted.” -They appear, each prone on a mountain peak, above -the clouds, and the Kat says casually across the chasm -to Ignatz: “Take ‘Denva, Kollorado’ and ‘Tulsa, -Okrahoma’ they ain’t got no ocean a tall—” (they -are tossed by a vast sea, together in a packing-case) -“while Sem Frencisco, Kellafornia, and Bostin, Messachoosit, -has got more ocean than they can possibly -use”—whereon Ignatz properly distributes a brick -evenly on Krazy’s noodle. Ignatz “has no time” for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span> -foolishness; he is a realist and Sees Things as They -ARE. “I don’t believe in Santa Claus,” says he; -“I’m too broad-minded and advanced for such nonsense.”</p> - -<p>But Mr Herriman, who is a great ironist, understands -pity. It is the destiny of Ignatz never to -know what his brick means to Krazy. He does not -enter into the racial memories of the Kat which go -back to the days of Cleopatra, of the Bubastes, when -Kats were held sacred. Then, on a beautiful day, a -mouse fell in love with Krazy, the beautiful daughter -of Kleopatra Kat; bashful, advised by a soothsayer -to write his love, he carved a declaration on a brick -and, tossing the “missive,” was accepted, although -he had nearly killed the Kat. “When the Egyptian -day is done it has become the Romeonian custom to -crease his lady’s bean with a brick laden with tender -sentiments ... through the tide of dusty years” ... -the tradition continues. But only Krazy knows this. -So at the end it is the incurable romanticist, the victim -of acute Bovaryisme, who triumphs; for Krazy -faints daily in full possession of his illusion, and -Ignatz, stupidly hurling his brick, thinking to injure, -fosters the illusion and keeps Krazy “heppy.”</p> - -<p>Not always, to be sure. Recently we beheld -Krazy smoking an “eligint Hawanna cigar” and -sighing for Ignatz; the smoke screen he produced hid -him from view when Ignatz passed, and before the -Mice could turn back, Krazy had handed over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span> -cigar to Offisa Pupp and departed, saying “Looking -at ‘Offisa Pupp’ smoke himself up like a chimly is -werra werra intrisking, but it is more wital that I find -‘Ignatz’”—wherefore Ignatz, thinking the smoke -screen a ruse, hurls his brick, blacks the officer’s eye, -and is promptly chased by the limb of the law. Up -to this point you have the usual technique of the -comic strip, as old as Shakespeare. But note the final -picture of Krazy beholding the pursuit, himself disconsolate, -unbricked, alone, muttering: “Ah, there him -is—playing tag with ‘Offisa Pupp’—just like the -boom compenions wot they is.” It is this touch of -irony and pity which transforms all of Herriman’s -work, which relates it, for all that the material is preposterous, -to something profoundly true and moving. -It isn’t possible to retell these pictures; but that is -the only way, until they are collected and published, -that I can give the impression of Herriman’s gentle -irony, of his understanding of tragedy, of the <i>sancta -simplicitas</i>, the innocent loveliness in the heart of -a creature more like Pan than any other creation of -our time.</p> - -<p>Given the general theme, the variations are innumerable, -the ingenuity never flags. I use haphazard -examples from 1918 to 1923, for though the Kat -has changed somewhat since the days when he was -even occasionally feline, the essence is the same. -Like Charlot, he was always living in a world of his -own, and subjecting the commonplaces of actual life<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span> -to the test of his higher logic. Does Ignatz say that -“the bird is on the wing,” Krazy suspects an error and -after a careful scrutiny of bird life says that “from -rissint obserwation I should say that the wing is on -the bird.” Or Ignatz observes that Don Kiyote is -still running. Wrong, says the magnificent Kat: -“he is either still or either running, but not both still -and both running.” Ignatz passes with a bag containing, -he says, bird-seed. “Not that I doubt your -word, Ignatz,” says Krazy, “but could I give a look?” -And he is astonished to find that it is bird-seed, after -all, for he had all the time been thinking that birds -grew from eggs. It is Ignatz who is impressed by a -falling star; for Krazy “them that don’t fall” are -the miracle. I recommend Krazy to Mr Chesterton, -who, in his best moments, will understand. His mind -is occupied with eternal oddities, with simple things -to which his nature leaves him unreconciled. See -him entering a bank and loftily writing a check for -thirty million dollars. “You haven’t that much -money in the bank,” says the cashier. “I know it,” -replies Krazy; “have you?” There is a drastic simplicity -about Krazy’s movements; he is childlike, regarding -with grave eyes the efforts of older people to -be solemn, to pretend that things are what they seem; -and like children he frightens us because none of our -pretensions escapes him. A king to him is a “royal -cootie.” “Golla,” says he, “I always had a ida they -was grend, and megnifishint, and wondafil, and mejestic ... but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> -my goodniss! It ain’t so.” He -should be given to the <i>enfant terrible</i> of Hans Andersen -who knew the truth about kings.</p> - -<p>He is, of course, blinded by love. Wandering -alone in springtime, he suffers the sight of all things -pairing off; the solitude of a lonesome pine worries -him and when he finds a second lonesome pine he -comes in the dead of night and transplants one to the -side of the other, “so that in due course, Nature has -her way.” But there are moments when the fierce -pang of an unrequited passion dies down. “In these -blissfil hours my soul will know no strife,” he confides -to Mr Bum Bill Bee, who, while the conversation -goes on, catches sight of Ignatz with a brick, flies -off, stings Ignatz from the field, and returns to hear: -“In my Kosmis there will be no feeva of discord -... all my immotions will function in hominy and -kind feelings.” Or we see him at peace with Ignatz -himself. He has bought a pair of spectacles, and -seeing that Ignatz has none, cuts them in two, so that -each may have a monocle. He is gentle, and gentlemanly, -and dear; and these divagations of his are -among his loveliest moments; for when irony plays -about him he is as helpless—as we are.</p> - -<div id="i_240" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 57em;"> - <img src="images/i_240.jpg" width="3641" height="2150" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Copyright by The Star Company</i>)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="l4"><span class="smcap">Fragment from The Krazy Kat of the Door.</span> By George Herriman.</span><br /> - (The original, of which this reproduces only the central episodes, is in colour. Cf. text, <a href="#Page_244">page 244</a>.)</div> -</div> - -<p>To put such a character into music was a fine -thought, but Mr Carpenter must have known that -he was foredoomed to failure. It was a notable effort, -for no other of our composers had seen the possibilities; -most, I fear, did not care to “lower themselves”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span> -by the association. Mr Carpenter caught -much of the fantasy; it was exactly right for him to -make the opening a parody—The Afternoon Nap of -a Faun. The “Class A Fit,” the Katnip Blues were -also good. (There exists a Sunday Krazy of this -very scene—it is 1919, I think, and shows hundreds -of Krazy Kats in a wild abandoned revel in the -Katnip field—a rout, a bacchanale, a satyr-dance, -an erotic festival, with our own Krazy playing the -viola in the corner, and Ignatz, who has been drinking, -going to sign the pledge.) Mr Carpenter almost -missed one essential thing: the ecstasy of Krazy when -the brick arrives at the end; certainly, as Mr Bolm -danced it one felt only the triumph of Ignatz, one did -not feel the grand leaping up of Krazy’s heart, the -fulfilment of desire, as the brick fell upon him. The -irony was missing. And it was a mistake for Bolm -to try it, since it isn’t Russian ballet Krazy requires; -it is American dance. One man, one man only can -do it right, and I publicly appeal to him to absent -him from felicity awhile, and though he do it but -once, though but a small number of people may see -it, to pay tribute to his one compeer in America, to -the one creation equalling his own—I mean, of course, -Charlie Chaplin. He has been urged to do many -things hostile to his nature; here is one thing he is -destined to do. Until then the ballet ought to have -Johnny and Ray Dooley for its creators. And I hope -that Mr Carpenter hasn’t driven other composers off<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span> -the subject. There is enough there for Irving Berlin -and Deems Taylor to take up. Why don’t they? -The music it requires is a jazzed tenderness—as Mr -Carpenter knew. In their various ways Berlin and -Taylor could accomplish it.</p> - -<p>They may not be able to write profoundly in the -private idiom of Krazy. I have preserved his spelling -and the quotations have given some sense of his -style. The accent is partly Dickens and partly Yiddish—and -the rest is not to be identified, for it is -Krazy. It was odd that in <i>Vanity Fair’s</i> notorious -“rankings,” Krazy tied with Doctor Johnson, to whom -he owes much of his vocabulary. There is a real sense -of the colour of words and a high imagination in -such passages as “the echoing cliffs of Kaibito” and -“on the north side of ‘wild-cat peak’ the ‘snow squaws’ -shake their winter blankets and bring forth a chill -which rides the wind with goad and spur, hurling -with an icy hand rime, and frost upon a dreamy -land musing in the lap of Spring”; and there is the -rhythm of wonder and excitement in “Ooy, ‘Ignatz’ -it’s awfil; he’s got his legs cut off above his elbows, -and he’s wearing shoes, and he’s standing on top of -the water.”</p> - -<p>Nor, even with Mr Herriman’s help, will a ballet -get quite the sense of his shifting backgrounds. -He is alone in his freedom of movement; in his large -pictures and small, the scene changes at will—it is -actually our one work in the expressionistic mode.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span> -While Krazy and Ignatz talk they move from mountain -to sea; or a tree stunted and flattened with odd -ornaments of spots or design, grows suddenly long -and thin; or a house changes into a church. The -trees in this enchanted mesa are almost always set -in flower pots with Coptic and Egyptian designs in -the foliage as often as on the pot. There are adobe -walls, fantastic cactus plants, strange fungus and -growths. And they <i>compose designs</i>. For whether -he be a primitive or an expressionist, Herriman is an -artist; his works are built up; there is a definite relation -between his theme and his structure, and between -his lines, masses, and his page. His masterpieces in -colour show a new delight, for he is as naïve and -as assured with colour as with line or black and -white. The little figure of Krazy built around the -navel, is amazingly adaptable, and Herriman economically -makes him express all the emotions with -a turn of the hand, a bending of that extraordinary -starched bow he wears round the neck, or with a twist -of his tail.</p> - -<p>And he has had much to express for he has suffered -much. I return to the vast enterprises of the -Sunday pictures. There is one constructed entirely -on the bias. Ignatz orders Krazy to push a huge rock -off its base, then to follow it downhill. Down they -go, crashing through houses, uprooting trees, tearing -tunnels through mountains, the bowlder first, Krazy -so intently after that he nearly crashes into it when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span> -it stops. He toils painfully back uphill. “Did it -gather any moss?” asks Ignatz. “No.” “That’s -what I thought.” “L’il fillossiffa,” comments Krazy, -“always he seeks the truth, and always he finds it.” -There is the great day in which Krazy hears a lecture -on the ectoplasm, how “it soars out into the limitless -ether, to roam willy-nilly, unleashed, unfettered, and -unbound” which becomes for him: “Just imegine -having your ‘ectospasm’ running around, William -and Nilliam, among the unlimitliss etha—golla, it’s -imbillivibil—” until a toy balloon, which looks like -Ignatz precipitates a heroic gesture and a tragedy. -And there is the greatest of all, the epic, the Odyssean -wanderings of the door:</p> - -<p>Krazy beholds a dormouse, a little mouse with a -huge door. It impresses him as being terrible that -“a mice so small, so dellikit” should carry around a -door so heavy with weight. (At this point their -Odyssey begins; they use the door to cross a chasm.) -“A door is so useless without a house is hitched to it.” -(It changes into a raft and they go down stream.) -“It has no ikkinomikil value.” (They dine off the -door.) “It lecks the werra werra essentials of helpfilniss.” -(It shelters them from a hailstorm.) “Historically -it is all wrong and misleading.” (It fends -the lightning.) “As a thing of beauty it fails in -every rispeck.” (It shelters them from the sun and -while Krazy goes on to deliver a lecture: “You never -see Mr Steve Door, or Mr Torra Door, or Mr Kuspa<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span> -Door doing it, do you?” and “Can you imagine my -li’l friends Ignatz Mice boddering himself with a -door?”) his li’l friend Ignatz has appeared with the -brick; unseen by Krazy he hurls it; it is intercepted -by the door, rebounds, and strikes Ignatz down. -Krazy continues his adwice until the dormouse sheers -off, and then Krazy sits down to “concentrate his -mind on Ignatz and wonda where he is at.”</p> - -<div id="i_244" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_244.jpg" width="1537" height="1810" alt="" /> - <div class="captionl smaller">(<i>Courtesy of the artist and the</i> New York American)</div> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Krazy Kat.</span> By George Herriman</div> -</div> - -<p>Such is our Krazy. Such is the work which America -can pride itself on having produced, and can -hastily set about to appreciate. It is rich with something -we have too little of—fantasy. It is wise with -pitying irony; it has delicacy, sensitiveness, and an -unearthly beauty. The strange, unnerving, distorted -trees, the language inhuman, un-animal, the events -so logical, so wild, are all magic carpets and faery -foam—all charged with unreality. Through them -wanders Krazy, the most tender and the most foolish -of creatures, a gentle monster of our new mythology.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_249" class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="semi nobreak"><i>The Damned Effrontery<br /> -of the Two-a-Day</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DAMNED_EFFRONTERY_OF_THE">THE DAMNED EFFRONTERY OF THE -TWO-A-DAY</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> narrator of the following episode is Mr -Percy Hammond of the New York <i>Tribune</i>; the -stars are Montgomery and Stone; the Mr Mansfield -is Richard himself again, the actor who played <i>Dr -Jekyll and Mr Hyde</i> better than Thomas E. Shea -did:</p> - -<p>“As the stars appeared in the last act in evening -dress, Mr Mansfield turned to me and with venomous -indignation said, ‘That is damned effrontery!’ -It seemed to be Mr Mansfield’s belief that mere dancers -had no right to wear the vestments of refined -society.”</p> - -<p>To me that is a very funny story and the humour -of it has nothing to do with upon what meat -has this our Cæsar fed that he is grown so great. -The eminence of Mansfield and the worthlessness of -Montgomery and Stone may be assumed; the recrudescence -of the mediæval attitude toward strolling -players, even if it be in the mind of another -player, is also conceivable; snobbism is always conceivable -and often interesting. The story is funny -because it so perfectly illustrates the genteel tradition -in America. (I am rather freely applying Mr -Santayana’s phrase, without any effort to do it justice.) -Montgomery and Stone were in revue or extravaganza, -and were therefore outcast; they didn’t -count as Art. Whereas Mr Mansfield played Shakespeare -and high-school girls went to see him, and so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span> -he was Art. The application to vaudeville is immediate, -because vaudeville is considered on Broadway -as the grave of artistic reputations. An actor of -established prestige <i>may</i> venture into vaudeville; he -usually makes his audience feel exactly how far he -has condescended to appear before them and accept, -even if he doesn’t earn, a salary three times as great -as usual; but the actor in the middle distance very -well knows that if he goes into vaudeville he is digging -his own grave, because there is a stigma attached -to the two-a-day. Vaudeville players, in -short, are not entitled to “the vestments of refined society.” -About every ten years the corrupt desire to -be refined takes hold of vaudeville itself; but it -dies out quickly and vaudeville remains simple and -good.</p> - -<p>It is in one of the stages of simple goodness now, -and I propose to discuss it without reference to a -possibly more noble past. I am well acquainted with -the other method, which was founded, I believe, by -Arthur Symons, and beautifully practised by him. -To him we owe the peculiarly attractive attitude of -sentimental reminiscence which, invented or borrowed -by him, has become classic. It leads to excellent -prose at times, and by showing that there was a -golden age even in vaudeville sometimes creates the -suspicion that vaudeville itself need not be all brass. -But the attitude is unsatisfactory because it invokes, -in dealing with the most immediate of the minor arts,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span> -more than a share of the pathos of distance. Vaudeville -is brightly coloured, zestful, with sharp outlines; -and the classic attitude softens and blurs. It -is required of you to name and describe the acts and -numbers of a better day; one <i>must</i> say “music-hall” -or be slain in the passages of the Jordan; in -America a reference to the <i>commedia dell’arte</i> is, as -scientists say, indicated. Yet the time must come -when it is possible to say, “Vaudeville is. Surely it -could never have been worse than this—or for that -matter, never better. Let us regard it as it is.” -The moment must come in the history of general culture -when vaudeville can be taken without comparisons. -That is, it happens, the only way I can take it, -for in my youth I saw little of it and cared less. -I recall a skit called <i>Change Your Act or Go Back -to the Woods</i>; there were Fours and among them -were Cohans; there was, I remember, The Man Who -Made the Shah of Persia Laugh; once I saw an artist -in pantomime. Yet I am not moved to beat my -breast and begin <i>Einst in meinen Jugendjahren</i>. -Nothing I have heard leads me to believe that there -were better days in vaudeville than those which -open benignant and wide over Joe Cook and Fanny -Brice and the Six Brown Brothers, over the two -Briants and Van and Schenck and the four Marxes -and the Rath Brothers and the team of Williams and -Wolfus; over Duffy and Sweeney and Johnny Dooley -and Harry Watson, Jr., as Young Kid Battling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span> -Dugan, and Messrs Moss and Frye, who ask how high -is up.</p> - -<p>I shall arrive in a moment at the question of refined -vaudeville, a thing I dislike intensely; there -is another sort of refinement in vaudeville which demands -respect. It is the refinement of technique. -It seems to me that the unerring taste of Fanny -Brice’s impersonations is at least partly due to, and -has been achieved through, the purely technical mastery -she has developed; I am sure that the vaudeville -stage makes such demands upon its artists that they -are compelled to perfect everything. They have to do -whatever they do swiftly, neatly, without lost motion; -they must touch and leap aside; they dare not -hold an audience more than a few minutes, at least -not with the same stunt; they have to establish an -immediate contact, set a current in motion, and exploit -it to the last possible degree in the shortest -space of time. They have to be always “in the picture,” -for though the vaudeville stage seems to give -them endless freedom and innumerable opportunities, -it holds them to strict account; it permits no -fumbling, and there are no reparable errors. The materials -they use are trivial, yes; but the treatment -must be accurate to a hair’s breadth; the wine they -serve is light, it must fill the goblet to the very brim, -and not a drop must spill over. There is no great -second act to redeem a false entrance; no grand climacteric -to make up for even a moment’s dulness.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span> -The whole of the material must be subsumed in the -whole of the presentation, every page has to be <i>written</i>, -every scene <i>rendered</i>, every square inch of the -canvas must be <i>painted</i>, not daubed with paint. It -is, of course, obvious, that the responsibility in this -case is exactly that of the major arts. It is at least -tenable that in this case, as in the major arts, the responsibilities -are fulfilled.</p> - -<p>And nothing could be more illuminating than the -moments in vaudeville when the tricky and the bogus -appear. I face here willingly the protest of intelligent -men and women who have gone to vaudeville -to see or hear one turn and have sat through some -of the dreariest æsthetic dancing,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> have heard the -most painfully polite vocalism, have witnessed -“drama.” If vaudeville requires half of what I have -said, how do these things get in and get by? Largely -as a concession to debased public taste. Note well -that all the culture elements in vaudeville, the dull -and base and truly vulgar ones, are importations. -The dance appropriate to the vaudeville stage is the -stunt dance; its proper music is ragtime or jazz; -the playlet which belongs to it (witness the success -of <i>A Slice of Life</i>) is burlesque. Yet like every -other popular art in America, vaudeville is required, -by the tradition of gentility, to be cultural; and its -dull defenders often make it their boast that it does<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span> -give culture to the masses (the same sort of thing -is heard in connexion with the music played at moving-picture -houses) because among its native acts -appear <i>tableaux vivants</i> out of Landseer or because -a legitimate actor brings to the common herd scraps -and snatches of <i>Les Misérables</i>. The process continues, -regrettably, and extends to the spoiling of -good vaudeville material. It isn’t a loss of anything -precious, except time which could be filled by something -better, when Mr Lou Tellegen struts about on -the variety stage; it is a defamation of something -good in the major line and equally a loss of moments -when the <i>“Affairs of” Anatol</i> are inexpertly and -tastelessly produced “for vaudeville.” But what -shall we say of such a real disaster as the return of -Miss Ethel Levey to vaudeville, still so rich in attraction -that she plays four weeks at the Palace in -New York, wholly spoiled for variety because she -has had a triumph abroad and has become a “great -actress” or is it “an <i>artiste</i>”? There was in Miss -Levey something roughly elemental, something common -and pure; whatever she did had broadness and -sharpness both. Corrupted by her success abroad, -she returns still magnificent, the voice still throbbing, -the form heavy but dominant—yet no longer vaudeville. -She has the grandeur of a star and appears in -full stage with a grand piano and silk-shaded lamps -and draperies and sings <i>All by Myself</i> with shocking -bad sentimental <i>acting</i>, and gets all she can out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span> -of <i>Love’s Old Sweet Song</i> before the touch of her old -spirit protests—and recites a dramatic monologue entitled -<i>Destiny!</i> Now and again flashes of burlesque -reveal her ancient flavour; but it is an axiom in -vaudeville that you can’t be good in it if you are too -good for it.</p> - -<div id="i_254" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> - <img src="images/i_254.jpg" width="1249" height="1729" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Vaudeville.</span> By Charles Demuth</div> -</div> - -<p>I omit the people who aren’t, simply, good -enough; there are second-rate people in vaudeville -as in everything else, and first-rate people of <i>its</i> -second order. The part that is pure, I am convinced, -is rarely matched on our other stages. Certainly not -in the legitimate, nor in the serious artistic playhouse -where knowing one’s job perfectly and doing it simply -and unpretentiously are the rarest things in the -world. Revue and musical comedy require and often -attain the pitch of technical accuracy which vaudeville -sets as a standard, and these two forms draw -heavily upon vaudeville for material and stars, whom -they incorporate only in so far as the stars are not -pure variety themselves. They are as much entitled -to the jazz bands as any other stage, but to me a -jazz band is not essentially variety, although it has -a legitimate place there. That is why I reject Mr -Walter Haviland’s ranking of Ted Lewis as one of -the greatest of vaudeville acts, for the great acts in -vaudeville are those which could not be perfectly -appreciated elsewhere. (The æsthetics of the question -have been canvassed in Laokoön, I believe.) -Johnny Dooley, who always breaks up the show in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span> -musical comedy, is a real vaudeville player, and -Jack Donahue, who was the sole attraction of another -such piece, is always right, his fumbling for -words is inspired, and so is his dancing, and altogether -it is a completely realized act. Among the -most popular of the big-time acts I am left cold by -Van and Schenck, who are perpetually stopping short -of perfection; their songs are funny, but not witty; -their music is current, no more; their rendition is -always near enough right to be passed. The Four -Marx Brothers do better in creating their special -atmosphere of low comedy; the Six Brown Brothers -are at the very top with their saxophones. It is an -independent act, wholly self-contained, not nearly -so appropriate in any other framework, except possibly -a one-ring circus; it is a real variety turn where -a jazz band is only half and half; and in the case -of these performers everything they do is exquisite.</p> - -<p>It isn’t possible to describe the acts, nor even to -suggest the distinctive quality of the head-liners. -There are inexplicable things in vaudeville, things -no rational explanation can touch, such as the persistence -of sawing a woman in half, or the terrific -impact of the singing of Belle Baker, who destroys you -with <i>Elie! Elie!</i> Houdini is variety as all magicians -are and all tricksters—the circus side of vaudeville, -to be sure, and the sensational side. Here belong -the acrobats; I have written elsewhere of the Rath<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span> -Brothers, who alone are in the spirit and tone of -vaudeville, without any intrusion of the circus. At -the present moment nearly everything in vaudeville -which is best has a touch of parody; not infrequently -it burlesques itself. Herbert Williams, of Williams -and Wolfus, exaggerates wholly in the manner of a -clown; his despairing cry for the “spot<i>li-i-i-ght</i>,” his -wail of unhappiness, with his appearance, his gesture, -his shambling walk, make him a figure out of the -<i>commedia dell’arte</i>—one of the few in vaudeville. -Duffy and Sweeney are parodists of their <i>métier</i>; -their whole fun is in their elaborate pretense of not -caring to amuse the audience. Harry Watson, Jr., -has taken out of burlesque the accentuated form, the -built-up face, the wide and fatuous gesture peculiar -to that type, and in his broken-down prize-fighter has -created a real character with his jumping the rope -“fi’ thousand conseggitiv times” and “tell ’em what -I did to Philadelphia Jack O’Brien.” I am dragged -into a catalogue of names, which I want to avoid; -but I cannot omit the macabre Moving-Man’s Dream -of the Briants, the rustic studies of Chic Sale, the -elaborate burlesque of melodrama by Charles Withers, -and the exceptional mad magician of Frank Van -Hoven. Van Hoven carries farther than anyone else -the appearance of not knowing the audience is to be -amused. He complains in a mutter of the presence -of human beings, individually probably all right, -but <i>en masse</i>...! He leaves the stage and passes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span> -out of the auditorium, bidding the audience amuse -itself while he’s gone. And his great finale, with -a bowl of goldfish, a handkerchief in a trunk, a table -covered with a cloth, an inflated paper bag, and a revolver -shot—at the sound of which exactly nothing -happens, is the last word in destroying the paraphernalia -of the magician and all his works.</p> - -<p>I have committed myself to the statement that Joe -Cook is perfect and am in no mood to withdraw it. -As vaudeville he is perfect; I can see him in no other -<i>milieu</i> because he lacks the gift—not needed in vaudeville, -though useful there—of holding the audience -in his hand. He is liked, not loved; his act is met -with continuous chuckles, smiles, and laughter; seldom -with guffaws. This is not necessarily to his -credit; it means that he does one sort of thing, and -does it extremely well. It happens to be just the -thing for which vaudeville is made. As Ethel Levey -is what most vaudeville players aspire to be, so Cook -is what they ought to be. He is exactly right. Yet -to give the quality of his rightness is difficult. To -recognize it is easier.</p> - -<p>He is versatile, but not in the manner of Sylvester -Schaeffer. He is a master of parody and burlesque, -yet not in the fashion of Charles Withers; his delicate -impersonations have an ease and certainty far beyond -the studies of Chic Sale. Essentially what distinguishes -Joe Cook is that he is very wise and -slightly mad, and his madness is not the “dippy” kind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span> -so admirably practised by Frank Van Hoven. It is -structural. Mr Cook’s is probably the longest single -act in vaudeville, and after it is over he saunters -into one or more of the acts that follow his on the -programme, as his fancy takes him.</p> - -<p>His own starts as a running parody of old-time -vaudeville, beginning with the musicians coming out -of the pit, through the magician and the player of instruments -to—but no one has ever discovered where -it does go to. For after the card tricks—the ace of -spades is asked for and, as he remarks after five minutes -of agonized fumbling behind his back, the ace -of spades is asked for and practically at a moment’s -notice the ace of spades is produced; and it never is—Mr -Cook finds it necessary to explain to the audience -in one of the most involved pieces of nonsense ever -invented why he will not imitate four Hawaiians -playing the ukulele. After that literally nothing -matters. He might be with Alice in Wonderland or -at a dada ballet or with the terribly logical clowns -of Shakespeare. I think that Chaplin would savour -his humours.</p> - -<p>In an art which is hard and bright and tends to -glitter rather than radiate, he has a gleam of poetry; -but he is like the best of poets because there are no -fuzzy edges, no blurred contours; he is exact and his -precision is never cold. He holds conversations of -an imbecile gravity: How are you? How are <i>you</i>? -Fine, how’s yourself? Good. And you? Splendid.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span> -How’s your uncle? I haven’t got an uncle. -Fine, how is he? He’s fine. How are <i>you</i>? He -is amazingly inventive, creating new stunts, writing -new lines, doing fresh business from week to -week. His little bits are like witty epigrams in -verse, where the thing done and the skill of the -method coincide and pleasing separately please more -by their fusion. His sense of the stage is equalled -by but one man I have ever seen: George M. Cohan.</p> - -<div class="tb">* * * * *</div> - -<div id="i_260" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_260.jpg" width="1196" height="1668" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Joe Cook</span></div> -</div> - -<p>Had I had any doubts about vaudeville as we -practice it in the United States they would have -been dispelled in the past two years by one great -success and one notable failure: the <i>Chauve-Souris</i> -of Balieff and the show of the Forty-niners. Balieff -seemed for a moment to be destroying B. F. Keith; -here was something certainly vaudeville, with turns -and numbers, appealing to every grade of intelligence; -here were good music, exciting scenery, and -good fun; here were voices caressing the ear and dancers -dazzling the eye; here was a gay burlesque and -a sophisticated <i>conférencier</i>. Now if our native -product were only like that ... (the implication -was, Wouldn’t we just go every day to the nearest -vaudeville house!). Then, to be sure, a reaction. -Put Ed Wynn and Leon Errol and ... I omit the -list—Wynn was almost unanimously chosen as <i>conférencier</i>—and -we could give the Russians at least -a good run for the money—and it <i>was</i> money, loads -of it, much to their surprise. And then, without Ed -Wynn and the list, the attempt; for the Forty-niners -were cheerfully setting out to be a company of Americans -stranded in Russia, giving the Russians to understand -what the folk and popular arts of America -were. Months earlier the thing had been perfectly -done, as a game, in the <i>No-Siree</i>, a wholly amateur -single performance which was without doubt the gayest -evening of the year in New York. (The tribute -is not exactly wrung from me, for friends of mine -were concerned in it; it was the high moment of the -Algonquin Circle and they should have disbanded -the following morning. Since I was not an adherent -of the group, my advice was not asked; I do not know -whether it still exists, has passed to further triumphs, -or has repeated the Forty-niners.) Put on professionally, -high class vaudeville showed all the weaknesses -of the commercial kind, and had a dulness of -its own. The Dance of the Small-town Mayors was -exactly right, but most of the parodies were outdated, -the burlesques were too <i>voulus</i>, the strain too great. -There was lacking that technical proficiency which is -essential to vaudeville, and the adjustment of means -to material was sloppy. One fell back on Balieff and -discovered, as the exoticism wore off, that he too had -his weak points. Sentimental songs in however -beautiful voices, the choreographics of figures come -to life from Copenhagen plate however accurately -the footfall coincided with Anitra’s Dance, and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span> -number of other things suggested that in Russia, too, -refinement could corrupt and stultify. There remained -elements we could not match: we hadn’t encouraged -our legitimate stage sufficiently to be justified -in expecting cubist settings in vaudeville; nor -when we heard American folk music (and its contemporary -form in ragtime) did we so earnestly applaud -as to keep them fresh in variety shows. Balieff -never was “variety,” and we asked of variety that it -be like him; we missed the meaning of Balieff as -surely as we appreciated the fun. For he was a lesson -not to vaudeville, but to us, to those of us who -left vaudeville in the hands of the least cultivated -audiences. We have asked nothing of vaudeville -simply because we haven’t suspected what it had to -give. Yet week after week at the Palace Theatre in -New York there have been bills equal in entertainment -to the average Balieff programme; there has -been evident an expertness in technique, a skill in -construction, a naturalness of execution, a soundness -of sense and judgement, which ought to have appealed -to all who had taste and discrimination. The -people who do go there have something, at least; -and lack snobbism generally. If the audiences of -the Theatre Guild and the Neighborhood Playhouse -were to add themselves to their number, were to -accept what is given and be receptive to something -more, it could not hurt vaudeville. Because like -everything else variety must grow, and there is no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span> -reason why it should shut itself off from the direction -of civilized life. It can exist very well without -the Theatre Guild audience; I wonder whether that -audience can exist as well without variety.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_267" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="They_Call_It_Dancing"><i>They Call It Dancing</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">THEY CALL IT DANCING</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">One</span> of the most tiresome of contemporary intellectual -sentimentalities is the cult of “the dance”—a -cult which has almost nothing in the world to do -with dancing. “The dance” is “art”; dancing is a -form of popular entertainment, one of the very few -which can be practised by its admirers. It is also one -of the arts which can be “polite” without danger of -atrophy, the danger in this case being that the technical -refinement may eventually make dancing a trick, -a rather graceful sort of juggling.</p> - -<p>In any case, we shall not have in America anything -corresponding to folk dances; the ritual dance, -the dance as religion, simply isn’t our type, and none -of the tentatives in favour of that kind of dancing -has made me regret our natural bent toward ballroom -and stunt dancing as a mode of expression. In the -rue Lappe in Paris nearly every other house is a -<i>Bal Musette</i> and in all but one of these dance halls -the floor is taken by men and women of that quarter, -working men and women who come in and dance and -pay a few <i>sous</i> for each dance. They do this every -night and enjoy it; they enjoy the sometimes wheezing -accordeon and the bells which, on the right ankle -of the player, accentuate the beat. They dance -waltzes and polkas and, since the Java is forbidden, -the mazurka. Once I saw two couples rise and dance -the <i>bourrée</i>, presumably as it was danced in their -native province of Auvergne; it is possible to see -other provincial dances of France, as they are remembered,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span> -in the Bal Musette of this district and -elsewhere—occasionally and not by pre-arrangement. -The ancient dances of America haven’t such roots, -nor such vitality; and we may have to become much -more simple, or much more sophisticated, before we -will proceed naturally to buck-and-wing and cakewalk -and the ordinary breakdown on the floor of the -Palais Royal. There are Kentucky mountain and -cowboy dances which the moving picture inadequately -reconstructs, and I am afraid that even -negro levee dancing has lost much of its own character -in the process of influencing the steps of the ordinary -American dance. Undoubtedly those who can -should preserve these provincial and rooted dances; -but it is idle to pretend that dancing itself can be -a subject for archæology. It is essentially for action, -not for speculation.</p> - -<p>I do not belittle dancing when I attempt to deprive -it of the cachet of “Art.” Nothing so precise, -so graceful, so implicated with music, can escape being -artistic; in the hands of its masters it becomes an -intuitive creative process, but this happens most -frequently when the dancer gives himself to the music -and seldom when he tries to interpret the music. -From the waltz to the tango, from the tango to the -current fox-trot or one-step, polite dancing has held -more of what is essentially artistic than the art-dance, -and it has had no pretensions. The old tango and the -maxixe were the only ones which could not easily be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span> -danced by those who applauded them on the stage; -classic dancing, on the contrary, has always been an -art of professionals—almost a contradiction in terms -in this case, for it is the essence of the dance that it -can be danced. It is not the essence of the dance that -it can be staged, or made into a pantomime. The -Russian Ballet has no reference to the subject for it -is essentially the work of mimes and the dancing is -either folk dance or choreography.</p> - -<div id="i_268" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;"> - <img src="images/i_268.jpg" width="1198" height="1550" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Irene Castle</span></div> -</div> - -<p>The reason politeness is not fatal to the dance is -that there is only one standard of vulgarity in dancing, -which is ugliness. Vulgarity means actively disagreeable -postures and steps not exceptionally -adapted to the music. The relation of the dancers to -one another is the basis of their relation to the music, -and that is why the shimmy has little to do with -dancing, whereas the cheek-to-cheek position—the -<i>bête-noire</i> of chaperons a few weeks, or is it years, -ago?—is fundamentally not objectionable, since it -brings two dancers to as near a unit, with the same -centre of gravity, as the dance requires. One doesn’t -dance the fox-trot as one danced the Virginia reel, -and the question of morals has little to do with the -case. The “indecencies” of the turkey-trot, as we -used to phrase it, disappeared not because we are -better men and women, but because we are dancing -more beautifully.</p> - -<p>Two influences have worked to accomplish this. -One is that our music has become more interesting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span> -and is written specifically to be danced, as the waltz-song -always was and as our older ragtime was not. -The other is the effect of the stage (through which -we have, recently, learned a vast amount from negro -dancing, an active influence for the last fifteen years -at least, touching the dance at every point in music, -and tending always to prevent the American dance -from becoming cold and formal.) Dancing masters -go to the stage to perform the dances they have elaborated -in their studios; from the stage the dance is -adapted to the floor. This is what makes it so unnerving -to go through a year seeing nothing but men -jumping over their own ankles, or to witness Carl -Randall dancing himself into his evening clothes. -One doesn’t know how soon one will be called upon -to do the same sort of thing in the semi-privacy of -the night club. Acrobatic dancing is interesting as -all acrobatics are—brutally for the stunt and æsthetically -for the picture formed while doing the trick. -The dancing of choruses has something of the same -interest. The Tiller or Palace Girls do very little -that would merit attention if done by one of them; -done by sixteen, it is entertaining; so are the ranks -of heads appearing over the top step of the Hippodrome -or at the New Amsterdam, and the ranks of -knees rhythmically bending as row follows row down -the stairs. But none of these affect actual dancing -appreciably.</p> - -<p>Acrobatic or stunt dancing has a tendency to corrupt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span> -good exhibition dancing—the desire to do something -obviously difficult displaces the more estimable -desire to do something beautiful. Yet some of our -best stunt dancers can and do combine all the elements -and to watch them is to experience a double -delight. George M. Cohan always danced interestingly; -he has sardonic legs and he is, I suppose, the -repository of all the knowledge we have of the 1890–1910 -dance. Frisco took up the same work near the -place where Cohan dropped it; he is (but where I -do not know) a character dancer with a specific sense -of jazz, and was, for a moment, the symbolic figure -of what was coming. His eccentricities were premature, -his comparative disappearance unmerited. Eccentric -also, and not chiefly dancers, are Leon Errol -and Jimmy Barton. Eccentric and essentially a -dancer is the fine comic Johnny Dooley. The difference -is that almost all of Dooley’s comedy is <i>in</i> his -dancing, whereas the others are great comedians and -their dances are also funny. It seems to be Dooley’s -natural mode to walk on the side of his feet and to -catch a broken, wholly American rhythm in every -movement—to create dances, therefore, which are -untouched by the Russian Ballet and other trepaks -and hazzazzas. The foreign influence has touched -Carl Randall, a gain in expertness, a loss in freshness. -There seems to be nothing he cannot do, nothing -he doesn’t do well, nothing he does superbly.</p> - -<p>The dancing team which ought to have been the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span> -best of our time and wasn’t is that of Julia Sanderson -and Donald Brian.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">21</a> The suppleness of Miss -Sanderson’s body, the breathless sway of the torso on -the hips, the suggestion of languor in the most rapid -of her movements, are not to be equalled; and Brian -was always smart, decisive, accurate. It is difficult -to define the defect which was always in their work; -probably a reserve, a not giving themselves away to -the music, a shade too much of the stiffness which -dancing requires. Miss Sanderson gets along quite -well without the lyric knees (as they were—one -doesn’t see them now) of Ann Pennington; nor has -she the exceptional height which makes the grace of -Jessica Brown so surprising and her curve of beauty -so exceptional. Miss Brown, I take it, is one of the -best dancers of the stage, and, unlike Charlotte -Greenwood, has nothing to do with grotesque. Miss -Greenwood makes a virtue of her defect—the longest -limbs in the world. Miss Brown is unconscious of -hers as defects at all; like most people’s, her legs are -long enough to reach the ground. It is marvellous -to see what she can do when she lifts them off the -ground.</p> - -<p>I choose these names as examples, fully aware -that I may be omitting others equally famous. But -what remains is deliberate: two groups of dancers -who were at the very top, I think, of their profession,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span> -of their art. Of Doyle and Dixon only Harland -Dixon is now visible; the team is broken, but -Dixon continues to be a wonderful dancer, in the -tradition rather of Fred Stone, and with recent leanings -toward acting. It was 1915 or so when I saw -them dance Irving Berlin’s <i>Ragtime Melodrama</i>, and -although I have never seen that equalled, I have -never seen the team or Dixon alone dance anything -unworthy of that piece. It was a beautiful duo, perfectly -cadenced, creating long grateful lines around -the stage; it was full of tricks and fun and character. -And gradually the duo resolved itself into feats -of individual prowess, in which Dixon slowly surpassed -his partner and became a miracle of acrobatics -in rhythm. He is agile, never jerky, with a nice -sense of syncopation; he requires Berlin rather than -Kern for his full value.</p> - -<p>Kern gives all (and more) that Maurice can require, -and whether with Florence Walton or Leonora -Hughes the dancing of Maurice is always icily regular, -and nearly null. His type of mechanism is exactly -wrong and he sets off in bold relief the accuracy, -the inspired rightness of Irene and Vernon -Castle. That these two, years ago, determined the -course dancing should take is incontestable. They -were decisive characters, like Boileau in French -poetry and Berlin in ragtime; for they understood, -absorbed, and transformed everything known of -dancing up to that time and out of it made something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span> -beautiful and new. Vernon Castle, it is possible, -was the better dancer of the two; in addition to the -beauty of his dancing he had inventiveness, he anticipated -things of 1923 with his rigid body and his -evolutions on his heel; but if he were the greater, -his finest creation was Irene.</p> - -<p>No one else has ever given exactly that sense of -being freely perfect, of moving without effort and -without will, in more than accord, in absolute identity -with music. There was always something unimpassioned, -cool not cold, in her abandon; it was certainly -the least sensual dancing in the world; the -whole appeal was visual. It was as if the eye following -her graceful motion across a stage was gratified -by its own orbit, and found a sensuous pleasure in -the ease of her line, in the disembodied lightness -of her footfall, in the careless slope of her lovely -shoulders. It was not—it seemed not to be—intelligent -dancing; however trained, it was still intuitive. -She danced from her shoulders down, the straight -scapular supports of her head were at the same time -the balances on which her exquisitely poised body -depended. There were no steps, no tricks, no stunts. -There was only dancing, and it was all that one -ever dreamed of flight, with wings poised, and -swooping gently down to rest. I put it in the past, -I hardly know why; unless because it is too good to -last.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_277" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="St_Simeon_Stylites"><i>St Simeon Stylites</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">ST SIMEON STYLITES</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> most sophisticated of the minor arts in America -is that of the colyumist. It is, except for occasional -lapses into the usual journalistic disrespect for -privacy, a decent art, and if it never rises to the polish -and wit of such an outstanding colyumist as La-Fourchardière -of <i>l’Œuvre</i>, it never sinks to the pretentious -pseudo-intelligent vulgarity of the English -counterpart. The colyumist is, to begin with, a -newspaper humorist, and there are times, when questions -of art and letters are discussed, when one wishes -he had remained one. Phillips, who is now with the -<i>Sun and Globe</i> in New York, sticks to his game manfully; -he tells nothing about himself, discusses no -plays, and his colyum, which he illustrates with grotesque -little drawings, is self-contained. You do -not have to be in the secret to read him. His usual -manner is to take a notable or obscure item of news -and play with it, in the manner of Mark Twain. -When Ambassador Harvey made a speech on the -topic, “Have Women Souls”? Phillips reported the -proceedings and the aftermath:</p> - -<p>“Latest bulletins from Europe and Asia on the -conduct of other American diplomats follow:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="in0"> -“Warren G. Harding,<br /> -<span class="in1">President, United States:</span><br /> -Excellency:— -</p> - -<p>American ambassador here has brought about grave crisis by -speech, “Are Bananas a Fruit or a Flower?” and “Can Fresh<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span> -Roasted Peanuts Think?” Understand he has stated publicly -his opinion that John McCormack is greater singer than Caruso. -People are near uprising. Will you recall him or shall -we give him the bum’s rush?</p> - -<p class="sigright">KING OF ITALY.</p> -</div> - -<p class="in0">and so on.</p> - -<p>It is horseplay; but when he is in form it achieves -a wild carelessness and gaiety which the intellectual -colyumist entirely forswears. He has for compeer -Arthur “Bugs” Baer, by all odds the funniest of the -colyumists and a too-much-neglected creator of -American humour. There is, also, a considerable -number of colyumists of the Phillips type in other -cities. I make no apology for not knowing them, -for a colyum correctly conceived is written for the -readers of its paper. It ought to be partly private, -and wholly provincial. Even Mencken when he ran -the colyum of the Baltimore <i>Sun</i>, and gathered much -material for <i>The American Language</i>, and told of -each new consignment of German beer after the -blockade began in 1915, even he was not all things -to all men.</p> - -<p>The last man who kept his colyum balanced between -the high and low comic touch was Bert Leston -Taylor. He was a very wise and humane person, -wise and humane enough to appreciate and to publish -fun of a sort differing by much from the humour -he created. There was something unnervingly oblique -in his vision of the world, perfectly illustrated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span> -by the captions he wrote for clippings from rustic -journals. He would take an item, “Our popular -telegraphist Frank Dane had a son presented to him -last week. Frank says he is going to stay home nights -hereafter,” and write over it, “How the Days Are -Drawing In.” There was nothing incongruous in -the appearance side by side of his own expert parodies -and the horseplay humour of some of his contributors. -Taylor’s touch made everything light, everything -right. In his house there were indeed many -mansions. After him—before his death even—the -colyumists divided and went separate ways. The -Chicago <i>Tribune</i> continues the Field-Taylor tradition -indifferently well. Riq of the Chicago <i>Evening -Post</i> comes near the golden mean, but his own character -as a colyumist is jeopardized by his contributors; -when he gets a good theme—such as the necessity -for keeping the seam of a stocking straight, -he can be counted on. Calverley indicated his difficulty—or -almost: Themes are so scarce in this world -of ours.</p> - -<p>The colyumists are sophisticated, or <i>faux-naïfs</i>, -or actually <i>naïf</i>. Of the first, F. P. A. of the New -York <i>World</i> is the most notable and Baird Leonard -of the <i>Morning Telegraph</i> the best. F. P. A. has -all the virtues of the colyumist in the highest degree; -unfortunately he has almost all the faults, in -nearly the same measure. He is a defeated Calverley, -writing the best light verse in America, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span> -best parodies in verse. His Persicos Odi, one of -several (published in the quarterly “1910”), seems -to me better than Field’s—which had the lines, “And -as for roses, Holy Moses, they can’t be got at living -prices.” Adams’, as I recall it, ran:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The pomp of the Persian I hold in aversion;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I hate all their gingerbread tricks;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their garlicky wreathings and lindeny tree-things</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nix.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Boy, us for plain myrtle while under this fertile</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Old grapevine myself I protrude</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For your old bibacious Quintus Horatius</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Stewed.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">and his treatment of the same poem according to -Service is perfect parody. Algernon St. John -Brenon used to quarrel magisterially with Adams -about Latin quantities, but he could never undermine -Adams’ feeling for the ease and urbanity of Horace—and -Adams isn’t in the business of preserving the -tradition of dignity.</p> - -<p>His trick verse is not exceptional; he has no Dobsonian -feeling for form; in prose parody he is a -duffer. His own prose has the one essential quality -for wit—it is not diffuse.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">22</a> His actual character is that -of a civilized man who cannot be imposed upon by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span> -the bunk, and as he is fairly independent he recognizes -fake—in the world of politics, business, and -society—wherever it occurs. This is what prevents -him from being a good radical (type: Heywood -Broun; other things in his nature keep him from the -insolence of martyrdom), and what makes his work -sympathetic to mature and disillusioned minds. His -exceptional good sense—he seems to have no sensibility—makes -stupidity an irritation to him; he follows -half of the biblical precept and does not suffer -fools gladly. The habit of pontificating has grown -on him, and from expressing himself with justifiable -arrogance on minor matters he has proceeded to speak -with assurance on manners, art, and letters. It would -be more accurate to say that he speaks without the -humility becoming to one who for many months -boosted W. B. Maxwell in opposition to Joseph -Conrad. He hasn’t, essentially, any idea of his great -influence; for if he knew that a vast number of semi-intelligent -people were guided by him he would not -so rapidly praise and damn (or praise with faint -damns, if I may quote another colyum). He is the -most exasperating of colyumists; and his triviality -when confronted by things he does not understand—I -am thinking of his comment on <i>The Waste Land</i>—is -appalling. Yet this same quality is what makes -him precious; he is a gadfly to an exceptionally sluggish -beast—the New York intellectual. He has, inevitably, -become the patron saint of the smart. At<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span> -any rate, he has done something to destroy the tradition -that what is witty is unsound. It is only when -he is serious that he becomes a little ridiculous.</p> - -<p>I quarrel as much with Baird Leonard’s judgement -on art and letters, but I am not irritated because -Miss Leonard (who writes for a paper devoted -to horse-racing and the theatre) is almost always willing -to indicate the path by which she arrives at her -discriminations. She hasn’t F. P. A.’s weak fear of -the common, and her own mind is as far removed as -his from the commonplace, it has movements of grace -and lightness, and her humour is smooth and wholly -urban. Too often for me she fills her column with -Bridge Table Talk, a sardonic report of fake intellectualism -done with vigour and ferocity, but hampered -by the framework which is not adaptable. I -do not, at this moment, recall a line she has written; -I recall the tone of her whole work—it is unaffected, -not self-conscious, brightly aware of everything, keen -and curious and always on the alert. If the stage -were what it seems from out in front, Miss Leonard -would be well placed on a theatrical paper. She is -writing for people wise enough to know the place -of wit. Adams, I fear, is beginning to write for people -witty enough (and no more) to despise wisdom.</p> - -<p>The creator of an American legend—I quote -from the advertisements—is certainly a wise man. -Don Marquis, who now writes his colyum alone, has -always had a good second-rate talent for verse, and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span> -good first-rate understanding of humanity. It is the -second quality which makes him appreciate the -memoirs of William Butler Yeats, and helps him -create <i>The Old Soak</i>. “Here’s richness”! It was -right for him to make an entire second act of that -play an ode to hard liquor, with lyric interludes about -the parrot, for he is on the side of humanity, against -the devils and angels alike. Hard liquor, loafing, -decency, are his gods, and he fights grimly, with a -tendency to see the devil in modern art. He is -against a great many American fetiches: efficiency -and Y. M. C. A. morality and getting on; and he has -a strong, persistent sentiment for common and simple -things. All of these together would not make him a -good colyumist without some expressive gift. He has -enough to render his most endearing qualities fully. -And beyond them he has at times a bitterness which -drives him to write like Swift and a fantasy which -creates archie and Captain Fitz-Urse, and these also -are parts of his wisdom.</p> - -<p>Christopher Morley, like Rolla (not, however, -Rollo), has come too late into a world too old, and -daily dreams himself back into the time when a gentle -essayist was the noblest man of letters and William -McFee a great novelist. His latest work is bound in -Gissing Blue Leather, is admired by Heywood Broun, -and has been compared to nearly everything except -the Four Gospels. Little children should not be permitted -to read his colyum in the New York <i>Evening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span> -Post</i>, for it is a sort of literary <i>boy-scoutisme</i>, and -very wrong! (It has recently ceased to exist.)</p> - -<p>The influence of the daily column is so great that -by this time a goodly portion of the literary criticism—or -book-reviewing—appears in that form. Keith -Preston is partly colyumist, partly literary critic, -estimable if not always just in both departments, and -a writer of excellent verse. Of the literary colyumists -Broun is the most interesting case. He has a -peculiar mind, apt to find a trifling detail the clue -to too many great things; he has a great sense for the -pompous and the pretentious; he is actually a -humorist when he lets go. But a strange thing has -happened to him. While he was acquiring a reputation -as arbiter of taste in New York by putting down -his simple feelings about books and other things, he -was slowly becoming aware of the existence of the -intellect. It was borne in upon him, as I believe the -phrase is, that a work of art is the product of an -intellect working upon materials provided by a sensibility. -The discovery unnerved him—I might almost -say deflowered. For Broun has lost his native innocence; -he is a little frightened by the hard young men -who sudden let loose the jargon of æsthetics, of philosophy, -of the intellect in general—and what is -worse, he <i>thinks</i> that they may not be bluffing. He -has gone manfully to work, but the middle distance -is dangerous. It is likely to produce more dicta like -his notorious dismissal of rhythmic prose by a reference<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span> -to verse rhythms in prose. His characteristic -statement is, however, apropos of a flying catch by -Aaron Ward, of which, Broun said that no book had -ever so affected him with the sense that the humanly -impossible had been accomplished. He seems to -wonder, now, whether discovering the mind will ever -console him if he loses the catch, whether being an -amiable, intelligent, courageous, radical humorist, -with sufficient taste to dislike the third-rate and a -jocular respect for the first rate—whether all this -isn’t enough. And all the while the young men of -three nations are giving him to believe that the really -new movement is going to be intellectual. In the -moment of hesitation he does one thing which may -save him—slowly renouncing literature, he digs into -his humour and works it hard. He or it will be exhausted -presently; when that happens he will be out -of the woods—on either side.</p> - -<p>But I doubt whether Broun ever was as simple -as Bugs Baer. His is called roughneck humour—for -all I care. The truth is that Baer is one of the few -people writing for the newspapers who have a distinct -style. K. C. B. has a form which becomes a -formula—it is exasperating to read it—one continues -as one continues to read the Bull Durham signs along -a railroad track. Baer writes like the speech of Falstaff -and his companions, with a rowdy exaggeration. -His comparisons are far fetched, his conceptions -utterly fantastic. His daily commentaries on sport<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span> -are concise and entertaining, his best work occurs -there,<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">23</a> but in <i>The Family Album</i>, a Sunday feature -of the Hearst papers, he succeeds, despite the subject -and the length, in communicating his peculiar quality. -It is mingled with banalities like “he was hunting -quail on toast up in Canada,” but you also get:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>So he felt better and met a friend of his and they skipped -the Eighteenth Amendment a couple of times and uncle came -home and challenged pop to anything. Pop wanted to know -what, and uncle said, “Anything at all. There ain’t one thing -that you can do that I can’t do better than you.”</p> - -<p>He kept up his anonymous boasting and pop said to mom, -“Your escaped brother is loose again. That’s him. He takes -one drink of that radio liquor and he starts broadcasting.”</p> - -<p>Uncle said, “I’ll broadcast you for a row of weather-beaten -canal boats. I’m mad and hungry. I’m as hot and hollow as -a stovepipe.”</p> - -<p>Mom said to pop, “Don’t turn Abimelech away hungry. -What does the Good Book say <span class="locked">about—”</span></p> - -<p>Pop said, “Oh! That’s been vetoed by the President.”</p> -</div> - -<p>There follows what he calls “another quaint tribal -quarrel” in which “pop laughed a whole octave above -sarcastic” and “Mom said, ‘Stop that debate before -I take the negative.’”</p> - -<p>Everything of Bugs Baer is foreshortened; he -is elliptical, omits the middle step. His language is -syncopation. His points of reference are all in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span> -common life; I don’t suppose that he has ever touched -a book or a play in his column. For all that, he impresses -me as a naturally subtle spirit. I may be -wrong. He is certainly a joyful one.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_291" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="Burlesque_Circus"><i>Burlesque, Circus,<br /> -Clowns, and Acrobats</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BURLESQUE_CIRCUS_CLOWNS_AND">BURLESQUE, CIRCUS, CLOWNS, AND -ACROBATS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">This</span> is a footnote in the interest of justice more -than anything else. The general scheme of this book -is that it is to be an outline, for each of its major -chapters is devoted to a subject about which a book -ought to be written—but not by me. In such an outline -there is no specified allotment of space, and I -have written most on the lively arts in which I myself -take the liveliest pleasure. Burlesque is not of these—and -I confess to enjoying it most in the person of -those artists who come out of it into revue, or vaudeville, -or any other framework with which I am -familiar and which I admire. I can understand an -enthusiast feeling the same way about them as I feel -about revue and vaudeville players who try to enter -the legitimate stage—that they are corrupted by a -desire to be refined. The great virtues of burlesque -as I (insufficiently) know it are its complete lack of -sentimentality in the treatment of emotion and its -treatment of appearance. The harsh ugliness of the -usual burlesque make-up is interesting—I have seen -sinister, even macabre, figures upon its stage—and -the dancing, which has no social refinement, occasionally -develops angular positions and lines of exciting -effect. I find the better part of burlesque elsewhere, -notably in clowns. And instead of trying to -be fair to a medium I do not know well, nor care too -much about, I have put in a picture which I greatly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span> -admire and which probably is more to the point than -anything I could write.</p> - -<p>I shall try to find a picture for the circus, too. Because -the circus is a mixed matter and some of it is -superb. The <i>jeux icariens</i> I have never seen except -in France: they are really exquisite. They are -usually performed by a whole family. The training -is exceedingly arduous, must be begun in childhood, -and the art is dying out. In this act the essential -thing is the use of human bodies as maniable material. -The small boy I saw rolled himself into a tight round -ball and was caught on the upturned feet of his -father, flat on his back, and tossed to another grownup -in the same position, the little rolled-up body -spinning like a ball through the air. The beauty of -the movements, the accuracy and the finesse of the -exploitation of energy, delighted. Trained elephants, -however, haven’t exactly this quality; and trained -seals, agreeable to watch because they are graceful -and supple of body, lack something. I have seen a -diabolo player who was beautiful to follow, and a -juggler who placed two billiard cues end to end on -his forehead, threw a ball and caught it at the top -of the cues, then dislodged the ball and put it into -play with three others. This extraordinary mixture -of good and dull things, this lack of character, makes -the circus easy to like and useless to think about. -The special atmosphere of the circus, the sounds and -sights, and smells, are, of course, another matter.</p> - -<div id="i_292" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37em;"> - <img src="images/i_292.jpg" width="1839" height="1143" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">Cirque Medrano.</span> By Henri Toulouse-Lautrec</div> -</div> - -<p>Two of its actual features justify speculation: -acrobats and clowns. The American vaudeville -player can say nothing worse of an audience than -“they like the acrobats.” When they hang by their -teeth I cannot respect them; the development of any -part of the human body is interesting, no doubt, and -I do not wish to insist that there <i>must</i> be an æsthetic -interest in every act. But I feel about them as the -Chinese philosopher felt about horse-racing: that it -is a well-established fact that one horse can beat -another, and the proof is superfluous. But there are -trapeze workers whose technique is a joy to see and -who exploit all the possible turns, leaps, somersaults -in air, so that one is pleased and dazzled. I do not -wonder that painters in every age have found them -a lovely subject. But a lady balanced on one leg of -a trapeze bar, smoking a cigarette, fanning herself, -<i>not holding on to anything</i>—means exactly nothing -to me unless it is accomplished with some other quality -than nerve. I am sure she will never fall and do -not care to be present when she does.</p> - -<p>Clowns are different. Even those poor nameless -ones who dash in between major acts and with noise -and toy balloons divert little children, have some -quality. They partake of our tradition about masks, -they can’t help having background. Everything exaggerated -and ugly in burlesque is here put to the -uses of laughter; even the dullest has some gaiety in -make-up, in a mechanical contrivance, in gait or gesture.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span> -Marceline helping the attendants with Powers’ -Elephants at the <i>Hippodrome</i>, so busy, so in the way, -so unconscious of hindering, always created a little -world around himself. Grock is incredible in the -faultlessness of his method; as musical-eccentric he -surpasses all other clowns, and his simple attitude -before chairs and pianos and the other complications -of life is a study in creativeness. I have written elsewhere -of Fortunello and Cirillino, also great clowns; -and they complete this sketchy footnote, since for the -greatest clowns I have ever seen, nothing short of a -separate title will suffice.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">24</a></p> - -<div id="i_294" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 16em;"> - <img src="images/i_294.png" width="1598" height="3971" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">National Winter<br /> - Garden Burlesque.</span><br /> - By E. E. Cummings<br /> - (<i>Courtesy of</i> The Dial)</div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_297" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="The_True_and_Inimitable"><i>The True and Inimitable<br /> -Kings of Laughter</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_TRUE_AND_INIMITABLE_KINGS">THE TRUE AND INIMITABLE KINGS -OF LAUGHTER</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">Clowns</span> are the most traditional of all entertainers -and one of the most persistent of the traditions -about them is that those who have just died -were better than those one has laughed at a moment -ago. A very obvious reason is that the clowns of the -recent past are the clowns of our own childhood. It -is my fortunate position never to have seen a clown -when I was a child, and all those I have ever laughed -at are alive and funny. One of them, the superb -Grock, was a failure in New York; the remarkable -Fortunello and Cirillino who arrived with the <i>Greenwich -Village Follies</i> of 1922 are acrobats of an exceptional -delicacy and humour; there isn’t a touch of -obvious refinement about them and they are exquisite. -And the real thing in knockabout grotesquerie are the -three who call themselves, justifiably, the true and -inimitable kings of laughter, the brothers Fratellini -at the Cirque Medrano in Paris.</p> - -<div id="i_298" class="figleft" style="max-width: 7em;"> - <img src="images/i_298.png" width="483" height="608" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Francesco</span></div></div> - -<p>The Cirque Medrano is a one-ring circus in a permanent -building near the Place Pigalle; ten times a -week it fills the vast saucer of its seating capacity at -an absurdly low price—the most expensive seats, I -believe, are six francs—and presents something a -little above the average European circus bill. There -are more riding and a few more stunts than at others, -and there are less trained animals. And ten times -weekly the entire audience shouts with gratification -as Francesco Fratellini steps gracefully over the ring,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span> -hesitates, retreats, and finally sits -down in a ringside seat and begins -a conversation with the lady sitting -beside him.</p> - -<div id="i_298b" class="figright" style="max-width: 7em;"> - <img src="images/i_298b.png" width="487" height="631" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Paolo</span></div></div> - -<p>The thing which distinguishes -the Fratellini and makes them -great is a sort of internal logic in -everything they do. When the -spangled figure with the white-washed -face sits down by the ring -and chats a moment it is merely -disconcerting; at once the logic -appears—he is waiting for the show to begin. An -attendant approaches and tells him to stop stalling, -that the people are waiting to be amused. He replies -in an odd English that he has paid his “mawney” and -why doesn’t the show begin. Promptly another attendant -repeats the message of -the first in English; Francesco replies -in Italian. By the time the -process has been gone through in -five languages the clown has -changed his tack entirely; you -realize that since he doesn’t understand -what all these uniformed -attendants are saying to him, he -thinks that <i>they</i> are the show and -he is trying to conceal his own irritation -at being made the object<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span> -of their addresses and at the same time he is pretending -to be amused at their antics. The last time he speaks -in what seems to be gibberish (it is credibly reported -to be rather fair Turkish) and the attendants fall back. -From the opposite entrance to the ring arrives a figure -of unparalleled grotesqueness—garments -vast and loose in unexpected -places, monstrous shoes, -squares like windowpanes over -his eyes, a glowing and preposterous -nose. His gait is of the -utmost dignity, he senses the situation -and advances to Francesco’s -seat; and as a pure matter -of business he delivers a terrific -slap, bows nobly, and departs. -Francesco enters the ring. At -the same time a third figure appears—a bald-headed -man in carefully arranged clothes, a monocle, and a -high hat, a stick. The three Fratellini are on the -scene.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">25</a></p> - -<div id="i_299" class="figleft" style="max-width: 12em;"> - <img src="images/i_299.png" width="951" height="1142" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Alberto</span></div></div> - -<p>It is impossible to say what happens there, for the -Fratellini have an inexhaustible repertoire. The -materials are always of the simplest, and the effects, -too; they have hardly any “props,” the costumes, the -smiles, the movements, the gestures, are almost exactly -alike from day to day. Much of their material<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span> -is old, for they are the sons and grandsons of clowns -as far back as their family memory can carry; I have -seen them once appear armed for a fight with inflated -bladders, looking precisely like contemporary pictures -in Maurice Sand’s book about the <i>commedia dell’arte</i>, -and on another occasion have seen them so carried -away with the frenzy of their activity that they actually -improvised and proved their descent from this -ancient form. They do burlesque sketches—a barber -shop, a bull fight, a human elephant, a magician, or a -billiard game; the moment they stop the entire audience -roars for “la musique,” the most famous of their -acts, remarkable because it has a minimum of physical -violence.</p> - -<p><i>La Musique</i> is all a matter of construction and is -a wonderful example of the use of material. For at -bottom it consists of the efforts of two men to play a -serenade and the continual intrusion of a third. -Francesco and Paolo arrive, each carrying a guitar or -a mandoline, and place two chairs close together exactly -in the centre of the ring. They step on the -chairs and prepare to sit on the backs, but even this -simple process is difficult for them, as neither is willing -to sit down before the other, nor to remain seated -while the other is still erect, and they must be continually -rising and apologizing until one flings the -other down and keeps him there until he himself is -seated. Ready then, they blow out the electric lights -and strike the first notes; but the spotlight deserts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span> -them; they are left in the dark and puzzled; they -regard one another with dismay and suspicion. Suddenly -they see it across the ring and, descending with -great gravity, carry their chairs across. Again they -start, and again the spotlight goes; their irritation -mounts, but their dignity remains and they follow it. -It flits back to where they had come from. There is a -consultation and the two chairs are returned to their -original place in the centre of the ring. Then the -two musicians take off their coats, prowl around the -ring stalking the light, and fall upon it; then slowly -and with much labour they lift the light by its edges -and carefully carry it back to their chairs. And as -they begin to play the grotesque marches in behind -them, unconscious of them, intent only upon his vast -horn and the enormous musical score he carries. Unseeing -and unseen, he prepares himself, and at about -the tenth bar the great bray of his horn shatters the -melody of the strings. The two musicians are dismayed, -but as they cannot see the source of the disturbance, -they try again; again the horn intrudes. -This time there is expostulation and argument with -the grotesque, but, as he reasonably points out, music -was desired and he is doing his share. There is only -one issue for such a scene, and it takes place, in a riot.</p> - -<div id="i_300" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_300.png" width="2417" height="2653" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">The Fratellini.</span> By Fernand Leger</div></div> - -<p>The preparation of these riots is a work of real -delicacy, for the Fratellini know that two things are -equally true: violence is funny and violence ceases -to be funny. Like Chaplin, they infuse into their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span> -violence the sense of reason—they are violent only -when no other means will suffice. In the photographer -scene they call into action the “august” a stock -character of the European circus, played at the -Medrano with exceptional skill by M Lucien Godart. -The august is a man of great dignity whose office it -is to parley with clowns, be the butt of their jokes, -and in M Godart’s version, set off their grotesque -appearance by an excellent figure and the most correct -of evening clothes. (He is in addition a rather good -tumbler, and it is part of the Medrano tradition for -the audience to hiss him until he grows seemingly -furious and turns twenty difficult somersaults around -the ring.) The Fratellini, armed with a huge black -box and a cloth, ask him to sit for his photograph. -Francesco takes it upon himself to explain the apparatus, -Paolo standing close by with the three fence -posts which represent the tripod, and Alberto, the -grotesque waiting near by. Suddenly the tripod falls -on Alberto’s feet and he howls with pain; Paolo picks -the posts up again, and again they fall, and again he -howls. It is unbelievable that this should be funny, -yet it is funny beyond any capacity to describe it for -one reason which the spectator senses long before he -sees it. That is that the tripod is not intentionally -thrown on the feet of the grotesque. The fault is -Francesco’s, for he is explaining the machine and -making serious errors, and every time he makes a -mistake Paolo gets excited and forgets that he has the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span> -tripod in his hand, and simply lets it drop. One -senses his acute regret, and at the next moment one -realizes that his scientific zeal, his respect for his profession -of photographer, simply does not permit him -to let a misstatement pass; his gesture as he turns to -set the matter right is so eager, so agonized, that one -doesn’t see what has happened to the tripod until it -has fallen. And to point the moral of the matter, -when the grotesque Alberto after the fifth time picks -the tripod up and attempts to slay Paolo, Paolo is -again turning toward the others and the blow goes -wide.</p> - -<p>What the Fratellini are doing here is, to be sure, -what every great actor does—they are presenting -their effects indirectly. The difficulty for them is -that in the end they must give their effects with the -maximum of directness—they have to strike a man in -the face and make the sound tell. In the scene of the -photograph the august is “he who gets slapped” (the -phrase is a common one) and the scene is carefully -built up through his reluctance and stupidity in -posing. At first it is only an exaggeration of the customary -difficulties between a photographer and a -little child; but as the august becomes more and more -suspicious of the intentions of the photographer, the -clowns become more and more insistent that he, and -nobody but he, shall have his picture taken. Gradually -an atmosphere of hostility is built up; the august -tries to escape from the ring and is hauled back; then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span> -dragged, then forced to sit; the opposing wills grow -more and more violent; the audience senses the good -will of the clowns, the obstinacy of the august; not a -push or shove is given without reason and meaning. -And when they see that there is nothing else for it, -the three hurl themselves upon the clown in a frenzy -of destructiveness and he is rent limb from limb. (In -actual fact only his exquisite evening clothes were -rent, but the effect is the same.)</p> - -<p>In these scenes and almost all their others, the -Fratellini escape the reproach of being nothing but -violent, while they hold every good element which -violence in action can give them. To them are comparable -the best (and only the best) of Eddie Cantor’s -scenes—when he applied for the job of policeman -and when he was examined for the army—where -there is a play of motive and a hidden logic. In -their world everything must be sensible, and the most -sensible thing in the world is to hit out. Behind -them is a dual tradition—centuries of laughter and -centuries of refining the instruments by which simple -laughter can be produced. For it is opposed to their -sense of fitness (as it is to ours) that the clown should -create an effect of subtlety.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">26</a> The kind of laughter -they produce <i>must</i> involve the whole body, but not -the mind. They have to be active all the time, so -that you are dazzled and cannot think; and they must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span> -shake the solid ground under your feet, so that you -may shake with laughter. What the critical observer -discovers as method must reach the actual average -spectator only as effect. All of this the Fratellini -have accomplished—“these three brothers who constitute -one artist” are the complete and perfect exemplars -of their art. Seeing them sometimes twice a -week, and nearly two dozen times, I find their qualities -inexhaustible. Even in the descriptions of acts -noted above it can be seen that they have a definite -sense of pace; their changes from fast to slow in the -middle of an act, their variations from violence to -trickery, their complete mastery of climax, their fertility -of invention, are all elements of superiority. -But they are only elements in a composition based on -something fundamentally right—the knowledge that -we have almost forgotten how to laugh in the actual -world, and that to make us laugh again they must -create a world of their own.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_309" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="The_Great_God_Bogus"><i>The Great God Bogus</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE GREAT GOD BOGUS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">If</span> there were an Academy I should nail upon its -doors the following beliefs:</p> - -<div class="blockquot flush"> - -<p>That Al Jolson is more interesting to the intelligent -mind than John Barrymore and Fanny Brice -than Ethel;</p> - -<p>That Ring Lardner and Mr Dooley in their best -work are more entertaining and more important -than James B. Cabell and Joseph Hergesheimer in -their best;</p> - -<p>That the daily comic strip of George Herriman -(Krazy Kat) is easily the most amusing and fantastic -and satisfactory work of art produced in -America to-day;</p> - -<p>That Florenz Ziegfeld is a better producer than -David Belasco;</p> - -<p>That one film by Mack Sennett or Charlie Chaplin -is worth the entire <i>œuvre</i> of Cecil de Mille;</p> - -<p>That <i>Alexander’s Ragtime Band</i> and <i>I Love a -Piano</i> are musically and emotionally sounder pieces -of work than <i>Indian Love Lyrics</i> and <i>The -Rosary</i>;</p> - -<p>That the circus can be and often is more artistic than -the Metropolitan Opera House in New York;</p> - -<p>That Irene Castle is worth all the pseudo-classic -dancing ever seen on the American stage; and</p> - -<p>That the civic masque is not perceptibly superior to -the Elks’ Parade in Atlantic City.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span></p> - -<p>Only about half of these are heresies, and I am -quite ready to stand by them as I would stand by my -opinion of Dean Swift or Picasso or Henry James or -James Joyce or Johann Sebastian Bach. But I recognize -that they are expressions of personal preference, -and possibly valueless unless related to some general -principles. It appears that what I care for in the catalogue -above falls in the field of the lively arts; and -that the things to which I compare them (for emphasis, -not for measurement) are either second-rate -instances of the major arts or first-rate examples of -the peculiarly disagreeable thing for which I find no -other name than the bogus. I shall arrive presently -at the general principles of the lively arts and their -relation to the major. The bogus is a lion in the -path.</p> - -<p>Bogus is counterfeit and counterfeit is bad money -and bad money is better—or at least more effective—than -good money. This is not a private paradox, but -a plain statement of a law in economics (Gresham’s, -I think) that unless it is discovered, bad money will -drive out good. Another characteristic of counterfeit -is that, once we have accepted it, we try to pass it off -on some one else; banks and critics are the only institutions -which don’t—or ought not to—continue the -circulation. In the arts counterfeit is known as <i>faux -bon</i>—the apparently good, essentially bad, which is -the enemy of the good. The existence of the bogus -is not a serious threat against the great arts, for they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span> -have an obstinate vitality and in the end—but only -in the end—they prevail. It is the lively arts which -are continually jeopardized by the bogus, and it is -for their sake that I should like to see the bogus go -sullenly down into oblivion.</p> - -<p>Namely: vocal concerts, pseudo-classic dancing, -the serious intellectual drama, the civic masque, the -high-toned moving picture, and grand opera.</p> - -<p>The first thing about them is that a very small -percentage of those who make the bogus arts prosperous -really enjoy them. I recall my own complete -stultification after hearing my first concert; and the -casual way in which I made it evident to all my companions -that I had been to a concert is my only clue -to the mystery. For at bottom there is a vast snobbery -of the intellect which repays the deadly hours -of boredom we spend in the pursuit of art. We are -the inheritors of a tradition that what is worth while -must be dull; and as often as not we invert the maxim -and pretend that what is dull is higher in quality, -more serious, “greater art” in short than whatever is -light and easy and gay. We suffer fools gladly if -we can pretend they are mystics. And the fact that -audiences at concerts and opera, spectators at classic -dances and masques, are suffering, is the final damnation, -for it means that these arts are failures. I do -not found my belief on any theory that all the arts -ought to be appreciated by all the people. I do mean -that most of those who read <i>Ulysses</i> or <i>The Pickwick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span> -Papers</i> do so because they enjoy it, and they stop -the moment they are bored. There is no superiority -in having read a book. The lively anticipation of -delights which one senses in those going to the <i>Follies</i> -or to a circus is wholly absent in the lobby of the -Metropolitan or at a performance of <i>Jane Clegg</i>. -And the art which communicates no ecstasy but that -of snobbism is irretrievably bogus.</p> - -<p>There is something hopeless about opera as we -know it in the United States; and the fact that ten -or fifteen operas are among the permanent delights -of civilized existence does not alter the fact. (Three -of them: <i>Chovanstchina</i>, <i>The Marriage of Figaro</i>, and -<i>Don Giovanni</i>, are not in the repertoire of the Metropolitan; -nor are <i>Falstaff</i> and <i>Otello</i>; nor does the -ballet proceed beyond <i>Coq d’Or</i>; nor it seems would -the Metropolitan hold it within its dignity to produce -<i>The Mikado</i>, although Schumann-Heink was ready to -sing Katisha.) Here is an art-form hundreds of years -old, prospered by an enormous publicity, favoured by -extraordinary windfalls—the voice of Caruso, the -“personality” of Farrar—able to set into motion nearly -every appeal to the senses in colour, tone, movement—it -has song and action and dance—and what exactly -is the final accomplishment? The pale maunderings -of Puccini, the vulgarity of Massenet, and the -overpowering dulness of our domestic try-outs. Wagner? -A philosopher drunk with divine wisdom is -reported (by Goethe) to have cried out that he could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span> -discern shortcomings even in God; and the melancholy -truth is that the welding of three arts into one -succeeded only in Wagner’s brain, for on the boards -we lose Wagner as we attend to the stage, and regain -him as we return to the music. This is not true of -<i>Boris</i> or of <i>Figaro</i>—so much less pretentious, both; -and the director may arise who will know how to fuse -Wagner into one harmonious and beautiful object. -At the moment, one takes the Metropolitan with its -vast seating capacity, its endless sources of appeal -to the multitude, and one knows that it isn’t a success. -If it isn’t losing money it is paying its way -through social subventions. Eighty per cent of the -music heard there is trivial in comparison with either -good jazz or good symphonic music; ninety per cent -of the acting is preposterous; and the settings, costumes, -and properties are so far below popular musical -comedy standards that in the end Urban and Norman-Bel -Geddes have had to be called in to save -them, and haven’t been given scope or freedom -enough to succeed. The Metropolitan is, I am told, -the finest opera house in the world and loses money -because it is still several leaps ahead of its clientèle -which insists on more Puccini and no <i>Coq d’Or</i>. Also -I have had the supreme pleasure of hearing Chaliapin -there and I am not ungrateful. The Metropolitan -has difficulties happily unknown to us and is unquestionably -an eminent institution. It is opera as we -know it, that calls down the curse, opera which has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span> -to call itself “grand” to distinguish itself from the -popular, superior, kind. For it is pretentious and it -appeals not to our sensibilities but to our snobbery. -It neither excites nor exalts; it does not amuse. Over -it and under it and through it runs the element of -fake; it is a substitute for symphonic music and an -easy expiatory offering for ragtime. <i>Ecrasez l’infâme!</i></p> - -<p>Audiences at the opera have, however, been -thrilled by a voice. What is there to say for the uncommunicative, -uninspired, serious-minded intellectual -drama which without wit, or intensity, “presents -a problem” or drearily holds the mirror up to nature? -Those little scenes from domestic life, those second-hand -expositions of other people’s philosophies, those -unflinching grapplings with “the vital facts of existence” -which year by year are held to be great plays? -Let me be frank; let me face my vital facts. I have -never found my brain inadequate to grapple with -their grapplings, for it is almost in the nature of the -case that if a man has anything profound to express -he will flee from the theatre where everything is dependent -upon actors usually unintelligent and is reduced -to the lowest common factor of human intelligence. -Bernard Shaw writes his ideas into his -prefaces because they can’t be fully stated on the -stage; Henry James tried to be delicate and failed. -It remains for Ferencz Molnar and Augustus Thomas -to succeed—with borrowed and diminished ideas.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span> -Still speaking of modern serious plays (because the -<i>Medea</i> of Euripides and the tragedy of <i>Othello</i> are -not involved) what is bogus in them is their spurious -appeal to our sentimentality or our snobbery. It is -their pretence to be a great and serious art when they -are simply vulgarizations. I have no quarrel with -any man for the subject matter of his work of art, -and I should allow every freedom to the artist. The -whole trouble with our modern serious drama is that -it is usually such bad drama; the tedium of three -hours of <i>Jane Clegg</i> isn’t worthy sitting through -because of the desperate effort of the dramatist and -the producer to create the illusion of reality by reproducing -the rhythm of reality. The essential distortion, -caricature, or transposition which you find in a -serious work of art or in a vaudeville sketch, is missing -here. And the efforts to ram this sort of play -home by pretending that only morons do not like it -is exactly and precisely bunk. Most plays fail because -they are bad plays; and the greater part of the -intellectual drama following this divine <span class="allsmcap">LAW</span>, fails. -A good manipulator of the theatre like Molnar can -put over <i>Liliom</i>, which has no more of a great idea -than <i>Seven Keys to Baldpate</i> and is almost as good -drama, if he knows in what proportion to mingle his -approaches to our meaner and higher sensibilities. -For we are not altogether lost yet.</p> - -<p>If the civic masque and classic dancing continue -much longer we will be lost entirely. These arty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span> -conglomerations of middle-high seriousness and bourgeois -beauty are not so much a peril as a nuisance. -The former is the “artistic” counterpart of the Elks -Parade and since I cannot speak with decent calm -about its draperies and mummery, I recommend Mr -R. C. Benchley’s chapter on the same subject in <i>Of -All Things!</i> The civic masque is fake mediævalism, -the sort of thing which, if ridicule could kill, should -have gone out after W. S. Gilbert’s couplets appeared -in <i>Patience</i>. Alas the instinct for trumpery -art persists and on it has been grafted the astounding -idea of communal artistic effort—a characteristic -thing, too, for the communal efforts of ancient Greece -were war and Bacchanalia, and of the middle ages, -the crusades; the municipal celebrations after which -the civic masque is patterned were created in cities -which were unself-conscious and were doing something -out of vanity and joy. I cannot imagine the -six million of New York or the six thousand of Vineland, -Arkansas, growing suddenly mad with joy over -the fact that they live in no mean city. I neither -like the civic consciousness nor believe deeply in its -honest existence. And when it takes to expressing -itself as the symbol of the corn and such-like idiocy -it isn’t as funny as the induction scene of the Ziegfeld -Follies (which the Forty-niners took off as “I -am the spirit of Public School Number 146”) and -it isn’t any more moving or intelligent. Certainly -it has never been so beautiful. Faced with the vast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span> -myths of the American pasts, our poets simply haven’t -found the medium for projecting them. The dime -novel and the Wild West film both failed for lack -of imaginative power, and that treasure remains undisturbed. -It is sealed and guarded and the civic -masque nibbles at it, dislodges a fragment, and comes -dancing awkwardly into the foreground waving the -shadow of an illusion like a scarf over its head.</p> - -<p>For obviously classic dancing is the natural form -of expression for this pseudo-civism. I have never -had the patience to discover the beginnings of the -fatuous craze for imitations of presumably ancient -dances. Certainly the first of the notable dancers -I saw was not before 1907—in the person of Isadora -Duncan. It would be absurd to recall those renditions -of the <i>Seventh Symphony</i> and what not at this -date. If Miss Duncan is a great artist and a great -personality now, so much the better, for her early -success had much to do with breaking down the gates -of our decent objection to fake and her imitators -swept over us like a flood. Bogus again, these things; -they interpret in dance things which had already -been all too clear in music or drama. They know, it -seems, the science of eurhythmics, which ought to -mean good rhythm, and they employ it to produce in -pantomime an obvious, brutally flat version of the -Fall of Troy. They haven’t as yet added one single -thing to our stock of interest and beauty—as the -Russian Ballet did, as the old five-position ballet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span> -dance did, as modern ballroom and stage dancing -does. The costuming is almost always silly; the -music chosen is almost always obvious; and the postures -assumed are lethally monotonous. The old -ballet, based on five definite positions, made each -slight variation count, and Pavlowa with her stricken -face and tenderness of movement knew it by heart, -or by instinct. The new dancers have no internal -discipline and no freedom; and only the accident -that the human body is at times not displeasing to -look upon makes them tolerable. One could forgive -them much if the pretensions were not so unutterably -lofty and the swank so ignorant and the results so -ugly. Fat women leaping with chaplets in their -hair, in garments of grey gauze, are not the poetry -of motion, and Irene Castle in a black evening dress -dancing Irving Berlin’s music is—just as surely as -Nijinsky was. What is more, these two dancers, -whom I choose at the extremes of the dance, both -have reference to our contemporary life; and the -classic dancing of Helen Moeller and Marion Morgan -and Mr Chalif and the rest have absolutely nothing -to say to us. We’ve lost that “simplicity,” thank -God, or haven’t found it yet. We are an alert and -lively people—and our dance must actually express -that spirit as no fake can do.</p> - -<p>Our existence is hard, precise, high spirited. There -is no nourishment for us in the milk-and-water diet -of the bogus arts, and all they accomplish is a genteel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span> -corruption, a further thinning out of the blood, a -little extra refinement. They are, intellectually, the -exact equivalent of a high-toned lady, an elegant -dinner or a refined collation served in the saloon, -and the contemporary form of the vapours. Everything -about them is supposed to be “good taste,” -including the kiss on the brow which miraculously -“ruins” a perfect virgin—and they are in the physical -sense of the word utterly tasteless. The great arts -and the lively arts have their sources in strength or -in gaiety—and the difference between them is not -the degree of intensity, but the degree of intellect. -But the bogus arts spring from longing and weakness -and depression.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">27</a> A happy people creates folk songs -or whistles rag; it does not commit the vast atrocity -of a “community sing-song”; it goes to Olympic -games or to a race track, to <i>Iphigenia</i> or to Charlie -Chaplin—not to hear a “vocal concert.”</p> - -<p>The bogus arts are corrupting the lively ones—because -an essential defect of the bogus is that they -pretend to be better than the popular arts, yet they -want desperately to be popular. They borrow and -spoil what is good; they persuade people by appealing -to their snobbery that they are the real thing. -And as the audience watches these arts in action the -comforting illusion creeps over them that at last they -have achieved art. But they are really watching the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span> -manifestations of the Great God Bogus—and what -annoys me most is that they might at that very moment -be hailing Apollo or Dionysos, or be themselves -participating in some of the minor rites of the -Great God Pan.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_323" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi" id="An_Open_Letter_to_the"><i>An Open Letter to the<br /> -Movie Magnates</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="AN_OPEN_LETTER_TO_THE_MOVIE">AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MOVIE -MAGNATES</h2> -</div> - -<p class="in0"> -<span class="smcap">Ignorant and Unhappy People</span>: -</p> - -<p>The Lord has brought you into a narrow place—what -you would call a tight corner—and you are beginning -to feel the pressure. A voice is heard in the -land saying that your day is over. The name of the -voice is Radio, broadcasting nightly to announce that -the unequal struggle between the tired washerwoman -and the captions written by or for Mr Griffith is -ended. It is easier to listen than to read. And it is -long since you have given us anything significant to -see.</p> - -<p>You may say that radio will ruin the movies -no more than the movies ruined the theatre. The -difference is that your foundation is insecure: you -are monstrously over-capitalized and monstrously undereducated; -the one thing you cannot stand is a series -of lean years. You have to keep on going because -you have from the beginning considered the -pictures as a business, not as an entertainment. Perhaps -in your desperate straits you will for the first -time try to think about the movie, to see it steadily -and see it whole.</p> - -<p>My suggestion to you is that you engage a number -of men and women: an archæologist to unearth the -history of the moving picture; a mechanical genius -to explain the camera and the projector to you; a -typical movie fan, if you can find one; and above all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span> -a man of no practical capacity whatever: a theorist. -Let these people get to work for you; do what they -tell you to do. You will hardly lose more money -than in any other case.</p> - -<p>If the historian tells you that the pictures you -produced in 1910 were better than those you now -lose money on, he is worthless to you. But if he -fails to tell you that the pictures of 1910 pointed -the way to the real right thing and that you have -since departed from that way, discharge him as a -fool. For that is exactly what has occurred. In -your beginnings you were on the right track; I believe -that in those days you still looked at the screen. -Ten years later you were too busy looking at, or -after, your bank account. Remember that ten years -ago there wasn’t a great name in the movies. And -then, thinking of your present plight, recall that you -deliberately introduced great names and chose Sir Gilbert -Parker, Rupert Hughes, and Mrs Elinor Glyn. -If I may quote an author you haven’t filmed, it shall -not be forgiven you.</p> - -<p>Your historian ought to tell you that the moving -picture came into being as the result of a series of -mechanical developments; your technician will add -the details about the camera and projector. From -both you will learn that you are dealing with <i>movement -governed by light</i>. It will be news to you. -You seem not to realize the simplest thing about your -business. Further, you will learn that everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span> -you need to do <i>must</i> be by these two agencies: movement -and light. (Counting in movement everything -of pace and in light everything which light can make -visible to the eye, even if it be an emotion: do you -recall the unnatural splash of white in a street scene -in <i>Caligari</i>?) It will occur to you that the cut-back, -the alternating exposition of two concurrent actions, -the vision, the dream, are all good; and that the -close-up, dearest of all your finds, usually dissociates -a face or an object from its moving background and is -the most dangerous of expedients. You will learn -much from the camera and from what was done with -it in the early days.</p> - -<p>I warn you again they were not great pictures -except for <i>The Avenging Conscience</i> and—one you -didn’t make—<i>Cabiria</i>. To each of these a poet contributed. -(Peace, Mr Griffith; the poet in your case -was E. A. Poe; and the warrior poet of Fiume contributed -the scenario for the second.) Mr Griffith -contrived in his picture to project both beauty and -terror by combining <i>Annabel Lee</i> with <i>The Telltale -Heart</i>. A sure instinct led him to disengage the -vast emotion of longing and of lost love through an -<i>action</i> of mystery and terror. (I think he made a -happy ending somehow—by having the central portion -of his story appear as a dream. How little it -mattered since the <i>real</i> emotion came through the -story.) The picture was projected in a palpable atmosphere; -it was <i>felt</i>. After ten years I recall dark<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span> -masses and ghostly rays of light. And if I may anticipate -the end, let me compare it with a picture of -1922, a picturization as you call it, of Annabel Lee. -It was all scenery and captions; it presented a detestable -little boy and a pretty little girl doing æsthetic -dancing along cliffs by the sea; one almost saw the -Ocean View Hotel in the background. Mercilessly -the stanzas appeared on the screen; but nothing was -allowed to <i>happen</i> except a vulgar representation -of calf love. I cannot bear to describe the disagreeable -picture of grief at the end; I do not dare to -think what you may now be preparing with a really -great poem. The lesson is not merely one of taste; -it is a question of knowing the camera, of realizing -that you <i>must</i> project emotion by movement and by -picture combined.</p> - -<p>I am trying to trace for you the development of -the serious moving picture as a <i>bogus</i> art, and I can’t -do better than assure you that it was best before -it was an “art” at all. (Or I can indicate that slap-stick -comedy, which you despise, is not bogus, is a -real, and valuable, and delightful entertainment.) I -believe that you went out West because the perpetual -sun of southern California made taking easy; -there you discovered the lost romance of America, -its Wild West and its pioneer days, its gold rush and -its Indians. You had it in your hands, then, to make -that past of ours alive; a small written literature and -a remnant of oral tradition remained for you to work<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span> -on. On the whole you did make a good beginning. -You missed fine things, but you caught the simple -ones; you presented the material directly, with appropriate -sentiment. You relied on melodrama, -which was the rightest thing you ever did. Combat -and pursuit, the last-minute rescue, were the three -items of your best pictures; and your cutting department, -carefully alternating the fight between white -men and red with the slow-starting, distant, approaching, -arriving, victorious troops from the garrison appealed -properly to our soundest instincts. You went -into the bad-man period; you began to make an individual -soldier, Indian, bandit, pioneer, renegade, -the focus of your interest: still good because you related -him to an active, living background. Dear -Heaven! before you had filmed Bret Harte you had -created legendary heroes of your own.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mr Griffith, apparently insatiable, was -developing small <i>genre</i> scenes of slum life while -he thought of filming the tragic history of the South -after the war. Other directors sought other fields—notably -that of the serial adventure film. Since they -made money for all concerned, you will not be surprised -to hear these serials praised: <i>The Exploits of -Elaine</i>, the whole Pearl White adventure, the thirty -minutes of action closing on an impossible and unresolved -climax were, of course, infinitely better pictures -than your version of Mr Joseph Conrad’s -<i>Victory</i>, your <i>Humoreske</i>, your <i>Should a Wife Forgive</i>?<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">28</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span> -They were extremely silly; they worked too -closely on a scheme: getting out of last week’s predicament -and into next week’s can hardly be called a -“form.” But within their limitations they used the -camera for all it was worth. It didn’t matter a bit -that the perils were preposterous, that the flights and -pursuits were all fakes composed by the speed of the -projector. You were back in the days of Nick Carter -and the Liberty Boys; you hadn’t heard of psychology, -and drama, and art; you were developing the -camera. You bored us when your effects didn’t come -off and I’m afraid amused us a little even when they -did. But you were on the right road.</p> - -<p>There was very little <i>acting</i> in these films and -in the Wild West exhibitions. There was a great -deal of <i>action</i>. I can’t recall Pearl White <i>registering</i> -a single time; I recall only movement, which was excellent. -It was later that your acting developed; -up to this time you were working with people who -hadn’t succeeded in or were wholly ignorant of the -technique of the stage; they moved before the camera -gropingly at first, but gradually developing a technique -suited to the camera and to nothing else. I am -referring to days so far back that the old Biograph -films used to be branded with the mark AB in a circle, -and this mark occurred in the photographed sets to -prevent stealing. In those days your actors and actresses<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span> -were exceptionally naïve and creative. You -were on the point of discovering mass and line in the -handling of crowds, in the defile of a troop, in the -movement of individuals. Mr Griffith had already -discovered that four men running in opposite directions -along the design of a figure 8 gave the effect -of sixteen men—a discovery lightly comparable to -that of Velasquez in the crossed spears of the Surrender -of Breda. You would have done well to continue -your experiments with nameless individuals and chaotic -masses; but you couldn’t. You developed what -you called personalities—and after that, actresses.</p> - -<p>Before <i>The Birth of a Nation</i> was begun Mary -Pickford had already left Griffith. I have heard that -he vowed to make Mae Marsh a greater actress—as -if she weren’t one from the start, as if acting mattered, -as if Mary Pickford ever could or needed to -act. Remember that in <i>The Avenging Conscience</i> -at least four people: Spottiswood Aiken, Henry Walthall, -Blanche Sweet, and another I cannot identify—the -second villain—<i>played</i> superbly without acting. -Conceive your own stupidity in not knowing what -Vachel Lindsay discovered: that “our Mary” was literally -“the Queen of my People,” a radiant, lovely, -childlike girl, a beautiful figurehead, a symbol of all -our sentimentality. Why did you allow her to become -an actress? Why is everything associated with -her later work so alien to beauty? You did not see -her legend forming; you began to advertise her salary;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span> -you have, I believe unconsciously, tried to restore -her now by giving her the palest rôle in all literature, -that of Marguerite in <i>Faust</i>. You are ten -years too late. In the same ten years Blanche Sweet -has almost disappeared and Mae Marsh has not arrived; -Gishes and Talmadges and Swansons and other -fatalities have triumphed. You have taken over -the stage and the opera; you have filmed Caruso and -Al Jolson, too, for all I know. You now have acting -and no playing.</p> - -<p>This is a matter of capital importance and I am -willing to come closer to a definition. Acting is the -way of impersonating, of rendering character, of presenting -action which is suitable to the stage; it has, -in the first place, a specific relation to the size of the -stage and to that of the auditorium; it has also a -second important relation to the lines spoken. Good -actors—they are few—will always suit the gesture -to the utterance in the sense that their gesture will be -on the beat of the words; failure to know this ruined -several of John Barrymore’s soliloquies in <i>Hamlet</i>. -Neither of these two primary and determinant circumstances -affect the moving picture. It should -be obvious that if good acting is adapted to the stage, -nothing less than a miracle could make it also suitable -to the cinema. The same thing is true of opera, -which is in a desperate state because it failed to develop -a type of representation adapted to musical -instead of spoken expression. Opera and the pictures<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span> -both needed “playing”—by which I cover <i>other forms</i> -of representation, of impersonation, characterization, -without identifying them. It is unlikely that opera -and pictures require the same kind of playing; but -neither of them can bear acting. Chaplin, by the way, -is a player, not an actor—although we all think of -him as an actor because the distinction is tardily -made. I should say that Mae Marsh, too, was a -player in <i>The Birth</i>. So was H. B. Warner in a war -play called <i>Shell 49</i> (I am not sure of the figure); -and there have been others. I have never seen Conrad -Veidt or Werner Kraus on the stage; in <i>Caligari</i> -they were players, not actors. Possibly since Kraus -is considered the greatest of German actors, he acted -so well that he seemed to be playing. But that requires -genius and the Gishes have no genius.</p> - -<p>The emergence of Mary Pickford and the production -of <i>The Birth of a Nation</i> make the years -1911–14 the critical time of the movies. Nearly all -your absurdities began about this time, including -your protest against the word movies as no longer -suited to the dignity of your art. From the success -of <i>The Birth</i> sprang the spectacle film which was intrinsically -all right and only corrupted Griffith and -the pictures because it was unintelligently handled -thereafter. From the success of Mary Pickford came -the whole tradition of the movie as a genteel intellectual -entertainment. The better side is the spectacle -and the fact that in 1922 the whole mastery of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span> -the spectacular film has passed out of your hands -ought to be sufficient proof that you bungled somewhere. -Or, to drive it home, what can you make of -the circumstance that one of the very greatest successes, -in America and abroad, was <i>Nanook of the -North</i>, a spectacle film to which the producer and the -artistic director contributed nothing—for it was a -picture of actualities, made, according to rumour, in -the interests of a fur-trading company? You will -reply that my assertions are pure theory. It is true -that I have never filmed a scenario in my life. But -as a spectator I am the one who is hard headed and -you the theorists. What I and several million others -know is that something wrong crept into the spectacle -film. We know absolutely that the overblown idea -of <i>Intolerance</i> was foisted on the simple tale of <i>The -Mother and the Law</i>, and that while single episodes -of this stupendous picture were excellent, the whole -failed of effect. In <i>The Birth</i> Mr Griffith had two -stories with no perceptible internal relation, but with -sufficient personal interest to carry; even here not -one person in ten thousand saw the significance of -the highfalutin title. But after the time of <i>Intolerance</i> -Mr Griffith receded swiftly, and his latest pictures -are merely lavish. It is of no significance that -Mr Griffith treats Thomas Burke as though the latter -were a great writer instead of a good scenario writer; -the prettifying of <i>Broken Blossoms</i> was so consistent, -and the fake acting such good fake, that the picture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span> -almost succeeded. Everywhere Mr Griffith now gives -us excesses—everything is big: the crowds, the effects, -the rainstorms, the ice floes, and everything is -informed with an overwhelming dignity. He has -long ago ceased to create beauty—only beautiful effects, -like set pieces in fireworks. And he was the -man destined by his curiosity, his honesty, his intelligence, -to reach the heights of the moving picture.</p> - -<p>It is a hard thing to say, but it is literally true -that something in Mr Griffith has been corrupted -and died—his imagination. <i>Broken Blossoms</i> was a -last expiring flicker. Since then he has constructed -well; I understand that his success has been great; -I am not denying that Mr Griffith is the man to do -<i>Ben-Hur</i>. But he has imagined nothing on a grand -scale, nor has he created anything delicate or fine. -People talk of <i>The Birth</i> as if the battle scenes were -important; they were very good and a credit to Griffith, -who directed, and to George Bitzer, who photographed -them; the direction of the ride of the Klansmen -was better, it had some imagination. And far -better still was a moment earlier in the piece, when -Walthall returned to the shattered Confederate home -and Mae Marsh met him at the door, wearing raw -cotton smudged to resemble ermine—brother and sister -both pretending that they had forgotten their -dead, that they didn’t care what happened. And -then—for the honours of the scene went to Griffith, -not even to the exquisite Mae Marsh—then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span> -there appeared from within the doorway the arm of -their mother and with a gesture of unutterable loveliness -it enlaced the boy’s shoulders and drew him -tenderly into the house. To have omitted the tears, -to have shown nothing but the arm in that single -curve of beauty, required, in those days, high imagination. -It was the emotional climax of the film; -one felt from that moment that the rape and death of -the little girl was already understood in the vast suffering -sympathy of the mother. So much Mr Griffith -never again accomplished; it was the one moment -when he stood beside Chaplin as a creative artist—and -it was ten years ago.</p> - -<p>Of course if Griffith hasn’t come through there -is hardly anything to hope for from the others. Mr -Ince always beat him in advertized expenditure; Fox -was always cheaper and easier and had Annette -Kellerman and did <i>The Village Blacksmith</i>. The -logical outcome of Griffithism is in the pictures he -didn’t make: in <i>When Knighthood Was in Flower</i> -and in <i>Robin Hood</i>, neither of which I could sit -through. The lavishness of these films is appalling; -the camera runs mad in everything but action, which -dies a hundred deaths in as many minutes. Of what -use are sets by Urban if the action which occurs in -them is invisible to the naked eye? The old trick -of using a crowd as a background and holding the -interest in the individual has been lost; the trick of -using the crowd as an individual hasn’t been found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span> -because we must have our love story. The spectacle -film is slowly settling down to the level of the stereopticon -slide.</p> - -<p>Comparison with German films is inevitable. -They are as much on the wrong track as we are; and -the exception, <i>Caligari</i>, is defective because in a -proper attempt to relieve the camera from the burden -of recording actuality, the producers gave it the -job of recording modern paintings for background. -The acting was, however, playing; and the destruction -of realism, even if it was accomplished by a -questionable expedient, will have much to do with the -future of the film. Yet even in the spectacle film the -Germans managed to do something. <i>Passion</i> and <i>Deception</i> -and the Pharaoh film and the film made out -of <i>Sumurun</i> were not lavish. And in the manipulation -of material (not of the instrument, where we -know much more than they) there came occasionally -flashes of the real thing. In <i>Deception</i> there was a -scene where the courtyard had to be cleared of an -angry mob. Every American producer has handled -the parallel scene and every one in the same way, -centring in the mêlée between civilians and police. -What Lubitsch did was to form a single line of pike -staffs and to show a solid mass of crowd—the feeling -of hostility was projected in the opposition of -line and mass. And slowly the <i>space behind</i> the pike -staffs opened. The bright calm sunlight fell on a -wider and widening strip of the courtyard. One was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span> -hardly aware of struggle; all one saw was that gradually -broadening patch of open, uncontested <i>space in -the light</i>. And suddenly one knew that the courtyard -was cleared, one seemed to hear the faint murmur -of the crowd outside, and then silence. I am -lost in admiration of this simplicity which involves -<i>every correct principle of the æsthetics of the moving -picture</i>. The whole thing was done with movement -and light—the movement massed and the light on the -open space. That is the true, the imaginative camera -technique, which we failed to develop.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">29</a></p> - -<p>The object of that technique is <i>the indirect communication -of emotion</i>—indirect because that is the -surest way, in all the arts, of multiplying the degree -of intensity. The American spectacle film still communicates -a thrill in the direct way of a highwayman -with a blackjack. But the American serious -film drama communicates not even this: it is at -this moment entirely dead, or in other words, wholly -bogus. I may be wrong in thinking that our present -position develops out of the creation of Mary Pickford -as a star. The result is the same.</p> - -<p>For as soon as the movie became “the silent -drama” it took upon itself responsibilities. It had -to be dignified and artistic; it had to have literature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span> -and actors and ideals. The simple movie plots no -longer sufficed, and stage and novel were called upon -to contribute their small share to the success of an -art which seriously believed itself to be the consummation -of all the arts. The obligation remained to -choose only those examples which were suitable to -the screen. It was, however, not adaptability which -guided the choice, but the great name. Eventually -everything was filmed because what couldn’t be -adapted could be spoiled. The degree of vandalism -passes words; and what completed the ruin was that -good novels were spoiled not to make good films, but -to make bad ones. <i>Victory</i> was a vile film in addition -to being a vulgar betrayal of Conrad; even the -good Molnar with his exciting second-rate play, <i>The -Devil</i>, found himself so foully, so disgustingly -changed on the screen that the whole idea, not a -great one, was lost and nothing remained but a sentimental -vulgarity which had no meaning of its own, -quite apart from any meaning of his. In each of -these the elements are the same: a psychological development -through an action. By corrupting the -action the producers changed the idea; bad enough -in itself, they failed to understand what they were -doing and supplied nothing to take the place of what -they had destroyed. The actual movies so produced -refused to project any consecutive significant action -whatsoever.</p> - -<p>It would be futile to multiply examples—as futile<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span> -as to note that there have been well-filmed novels -and plays. The essential thing is that nearly -every picture made recently has borrowed something, -usually in the interest of dignity, gentility, refinement—and -the picture side, the part depending upon -action before the camera, has gone steadily down. -Long subtitles explain everything except the lack of -action. Carefully built scenes are settings in which -nothing takes place. The climax arrives in the masterpieces -of the de Mille school. They are “art.” -They are genteel. They offend nothing—except the -intelligence. High life in the de Mille manner is not -recognizable as decent human society, but it is refined, -and the picture with it is refined out of existence. -Ten years earlier there was another type -of drama: the vamp, in short, and Theda Bara was -its divinity. I have little to say in its defense because -it was unalterably stupid (I don’t say I didn’t -like it). But it wasn’t half so pretentious as the de -Mille social drama, and not half so vulgar. What -it had to say, false or banal or ridiculous, it said entirely -with the camera. It appealed to low passions -and it truckled to imitative morality; there was in -it a sort of corruption. Yet one could resist that -frank ugliness as one can’t resist the polite falsehood -of the new culture of the movies.</p> - -<p>It would be easy to exaggerate your failures. -Your greatest mistake was a natural one—in taking -over the realistic theatre. You knew that a photograph<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span> -can reproduce actuality without significantly -transposing it, and you assumed that that was the -duty of the film. But you forgot that the rhythm of -the film was creating something, and that this creation -adapted itself entirely to the projection of emotion -by means <i>not realistic</i>; that in the end the camera -was as legitimately an instrument of distortion -as of reproduction. You gave us, in short, the pleasure -of <i>verification</i> in every detail; the Germans who -are largely in the same tradition—they should have -known better because their theatre knew better—improved -the method at times and counted on significant -detail. But neither of you gave us the pleasure -of <i>recognition</i>. Neither you nor they have taken the -first step (except in <i>Caligari</i>) toward giving us the -highest degree of pleasure, that of escaping actuality -and entering into a created world, built on its -own inherent logic, keeping time in its own rhythm—where -we feel ourselves at once strangers and at -home. That has been done elsewhere—not in the -serious film.</p> - -<p>I would be glad to temper all of this with praise: -for Anita Loos’ captions and John Emerson’s occasionally -excellent direction; for George Loane -Tucker, for Monte Katterjohn’s flashes of insight -into what makes a scenario. I have liked many more -films than I have mentioned here. But you are familiar -with praise and there remains to say what you -have missed. The moving picture when it became<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span> -pretentious, when it went upstage and said, “dear -God, make me artistic” at the end of its prayers, -killed its imagination and foreswore its popularity. -At your present rate of progress you will in ten -years—if you survive—be no more a popular art -than grand opera is. You had in your hands an incalculable -instrument to set free the imagination of -mankind—and the atrophy of our imaginative lives -has only been hastened by you. You had also an -instrument of fantasy—and you gave us Marguerite -Clark in films no better than the “whimsy-me” school -of stage plays. Above all, you had something fresh -and clean and new; it was a toy and should have remained -a toy—something for our delight. You gave -us problem plays. Beauty you neither understood -nor cared for; and although you talked much about -art you never for a moment tried to fathom the secret -sources, nor to understand the secret obligations, -of art.</p> - -<p>Can you do anything now? I don’t know and I -am indifferent to your future—because there is a future -for the moving picture with which you will have -nothing to do. I do not know if the movie of the -future will be popular—and to me it is the essence -of the movie that it should be popular. Perhaps -there will be a period of semi-popularity—it will be -at this time that you will desert—and then the new -picture will arrive without your assistance. For -when you and your capitalizations and your publicity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span> -go down together, the field will be left free for -others. The first cheap film will startle you; but the -film will grow less and less expensive. Presently -it will be within the reach of artists. With players -instead of actors and actresses, with fresh ideas -(among which the idea of making a lot of money may -be absent) these artists will give back to the screen -the thing you have debauched—imagination. They -will create with the camera, and not record, and will -follow its pulsations instead of attempting to capture -the rhythm of actuality. It isn’t impossible to recreate -exactly the atmosphere of Anderson’s <i>I’m a -Fool</i>; it isn’t impossible (although it may not be desirable) -to do studies in psychology; it is possible and -desirable to create great epics of American industry -and let the machine operate as a character in the -play—just as the land of the West itself, as the corn -must play its part. The grandiose conceptions of -Frank Norris are not beyond the reach of the camera. -There are painters willing to work in the medium of -the camera and architects and photographers. And -novelists, too, I fancy, would find much of interest -in the scenario as a new way of expression.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> There -is no end to what we can accomplish.</p> - -<p>The vulgar prettiness, the absurdities, the ignorances -of your films haven’t saved you. And although -the first steps after you take away your guiding -hand may be feeble, although bogus artists and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span> -culture-hounds may capture the movie for a time—in -the end all will be well. For the movie is the -imagination of mankind in action—and you haven’t -destroyed it yet.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_345" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">345</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="Before_a_Picture_by_Picasso"><i>Before a Picture by Picasso</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">BEFORE A PICTURE BY PICASSO</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot narrow"> - -<p>For there are many arts, not among those we conventionally -call “fine,” which seem to me fundamental for living.</p> - -<p class="sigright"> -<span class="smcap">Havelock Ellis.</span> -</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">It</span> was my great fortune just as I was finishing -this book to be taken by a friend to the studio of -Pablo Picasso. We had been talking on our way -of the lively arts; my companion denied none of their -qualities, and agreed violently with my feeling about -the bogus, what we called <i>le côté Puccini</i>. But he -held that nothing is more necessary at the moment -than the exercise of discrimination, that we must be -on our guard lest we forget the major arts, forget -even how to appreciate them, if we devote ourselves -passionately, as I do, to the lively ones. Had he -planned it deliberately he could not have driven his -point home more deeply, for in Picasso’s studio we -found ourselves, with no more warning than our -great admiration, in the presence of a masterpiece. -We were not prepared to have an unframed canvas -suddenly turned from the wall and to recognize immediately -that one more had been added to the small -number of the world’s greatest works of art.</p> - -<p>I shall make no effort to describe that painting. -It isn’t even important to know that I am right in my -judgement. The significant and overwhelming thing -to me was that I held the work a masterpiece and -knew it to be contemporary. It is a pleasure to -come upon an accredited masterpiece which preserves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">346</span> -its authority, to mount the stairs and see the Winged -Victory and <i>know</i> that it is good. But to have the -same conviction about something finished a month -ago, contemporaneous in every aspect, yet associated -with the great tradition of painting, with the indescribable -thing we think of as the high seriousness of -art and with a relevance not only to our life, but to -life itself—that is a different thing entirely. For -of course the first effect—after one had gone away -and begun to be aware of effects—was to make one -wonder whether it is worth thinking or writing or feeling -about anything else. Whether, since the great -arts are so capable of being practised to-day, it isn’t -sheer perversity to be satisfied with less. Whether -praise of the minor arts isn’t, at bottom, treachery -to the great. I had always believed that there exists -no such hostility between the two divisions of -the arts which are honest—that the real opposition -is between them, allied, and the polished fake. To -that position I returned a few days later: it was a -fortunate week altogether, for I heard the <i>Sacre du -Printemps</i> of Strawinsky the next day, and this tremendous -shaking of the forgotten roots of being gave -me reassurance.</p> - -<div id="i_346" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;"> - <img src="images/i_346.jpg" width="1243" height="1628" alt="" /> - <div class="captionr"><span class="smcap">A Painting.</span> By Pablo Picasso</div> -</div> - -<p>More than that, I am convinced that if one is -going to live fully and not shut oneself away from -half of civilized existence, one must care for both. -It is possible to do well enough with either, and much -depends on how one derives pleasure from them. For -no one imagines that a pedant or a half-wit, enjoying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">347</span> -a classic or a piece of ragtime, is actually getting -all that the subject affords. For an intelligent human -being knows that one difference between himself -and the animals is that he can “live in the mind”; -to him there need be present no conflict between the -great arts and the minor; he will see, in the end, -that they minister to each other.</p> - -<p>Most of the great works of art have reference to -our time only indirectly—as they and we are related -to eternity. And we require arts which specifically -refer to our moment, which create the image of our -lives. There are some twenty workers in literature, -music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and the -dance who are doing this for us now—and doing it -in such a manner as to associate our modern existence -with that extraordinary march of mankind which -we like to call the progress of humanity. It is not -enough. In addition to them—in addition, not in -place of them—we must have arts which, we feel, are -for ourselves alone, which no one before us could have -cared for so much, which no one after us will wholly -understand. The picture by Picasso could have been -admired by an unprejudiced critic a thousand years -ago, and will be a thousand years hence. We require, -for nourishment, something fresh and transient. -It is this which makes jazz so much the characteristic -art of our time and Jolson a more typical -figure than Chaplin, who also is outside of time.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">348</span> -There must be ephemera. Let us see to it that they -are good.</p> - -<p>The characteristic of the great arts is high seriousness—it -occurs in Mozart and Aristophanes and -Rabelais and Molière as surely as in Æschylus and -Racine. And the essence of the minor arts is high -levity which existed in the <i>commedia dell’arte</i> and -exists in Chaplin, which you find in the music of -Berlin and Kern (not “funny” in any case). It is a -question of exaltation, of carrying a given theme to -the “high” point. The reference in a great work of -art is to something more profound; and no trivial -theme has ever required, or had, or been able to bear, -a high seriousness in treatment. Avoiding the question -of creative genius, what impresses us in a work -of art is the intensity or the pressure with which the -theme, emotion, sentiment, even “idea” is rendered. -Assuming that a blow from the butt of a revolver is -not exactly artistic presentation, that “effectiveness” -is not the only criterion, we have the beginning of a -criticism of æsthetics. We know that the method -does count, the creativeness, the construction, the -form. We know also that while the part of humanity -which is fully civilized will always care for high -seriousness, it will be quick to appreciate the high -levity of the minor arts. There is no conflict. The -battle is only against solemnity which is not high, -against ill-rendered profundity, against the shoddy -and the dull.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">349</span></p> - -<p>I have allowed myself to catalogue my preferences; -it is possible to set the basis of them down in -impersonal terms, in propositions:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>That there is no opposition between the great and the lively -arts.</p> - -<p>That both are opposed in the spirit to the middle or bogus -arts.</p> - -<p>That the bogus arts are easier to appreciate, appeal to low -and mixed emotions, and jeopardize the purity of both the great -and the minor arts.</p> - -<p>That except in a period when the major arts flourish with -exceptional vigour, the lively arts are likely to be the most -intelligent phenomena of their day.</p> - -<p>That the lively arts as they exist in America to-day are -entertaining, interesting, and important.</p> - -<p>That with a few exceptions these same arts are more interesting -to the adult cultivated intelligence than most of the things -which pass for art in cultured society.</p> - -<p>That there exists a “genteel tradition” about the arts which -has prevented any just appreciation of the popular arts, and that -these have therefore missed the corrective criticism given to the -serious arts, receiving instead only abuse.</p> - -<p>That therefore the pretentious intellectual is as much responsible -as any one for what is actually absurd and vulgar in the -lively arts.</p> - -<p>That the simple practitioners and simple admirers of the -lively arts being uncorrupted by the bogus preserve a sure -instinct for what is artistic in America.</p> -</div> - -<p>And now a detour around two of the most disagreeable -words in the language: high- and low-brow. -Pretense about these words and what they signify<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">350</span> -makes all understanding of the lively arts impossible. -The discomfort and envy which make these -words vague, ambiguous, and contemptuous need -not concern us; for they represent a real distinction, -two separate ways of apprehending the world, as if -it were palpable to one and visible to the other. In -connexion with the lively arts the distinction is -clear and involves the third division, for the lively -arts are created and admired chiefly by the class -known as lowbrows, are patronized and, to an extent -enjoyed, by the highbrows; and are treated as -impostors and as contemptible vulgarisms by the middle -class, those who invariably are ill at ease in the -presence of great art until it has been approved by -authority, those whom Dante rejected from heaven -and hell alike, who blow neither hot nor cold, the -Laodiceans.</p> - -<p>Be damned to these last and all their tribe! There -exists a small number of people who care intensely -for the major and the minor arts and they are always -being accused of “not caring really” for the lively -ones, of pretending to care, or of running away from -“the ancient wisdom and austere control” of Greek -architecture or from the intense passion of Dante, -the purity of Bach, the great totality of what humankind -has created in art. It is claimed, and here the -professional lowbrow agrees, that these others <i>cannot</i> -care for the lively arts, unless they romanticize -them and find things in them which aren’t there—at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">351</span> -least not for the “real” patrons of those arts—those -who observe them without thinking about them.</p> - -<p>Aren’t they there, these secondary qualities? I -take for example a sport instead of an art. Nothing -about baseball interests me except the newspaper -reports of the games, so I speak without prejudice. -In the days of Babe Ruth I took the sun in the bleachers -once and saw that heavy hitter do exactly what -he had to do on his first appearance for the day—a -straight, businesslike home run, much appreciated by -the crowd, as any expert well-timed job is appreciated -by Americans. The game that day went against -the Yankees; they were two runs behind in the ninth, -and with two men on base Ruth came up again. -Again he hit a home run. And the crowd roaring its -joy in victory exhaled two sighs, for the dramatic -quality of the blow and for the lovely spiralling of -the ball in its flight over the fence. “A beauty—a -beauty”—you heard the expression a thousand times—and -“He knows <i>when</i> to hit them.” They would -have roared, too, if he had hit a single, which, -muffed, would have brought in the winning run. But -they would not have said, “a beauty”—and as far as -I am concerned that is proof enough that the appreciation -of æsthetic qualities is universal. It isn’t, thank -Heaven, always put into words.</p> - -<p>Take as another instance the fame of the Rath -Brothers. They are acrobats who do difficult things, -but there are others doing much the same sort of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">352</span> -thing without approaching the <i>réclame</i> of these two. -Their appearance of ease is a delight; there is no -strain, no swelling muscles, no visible exploitation of -strength. The Hellenic philosopher who held that -the arrow shot from the bow is never in motion, but -at rest from second to second at the succeeding points -of its trajectory, might have seen some ancient forerunners -of these athletes, for each of their movements -seems at once a sculptured rest and a passage into -another pose. And that is precisely the quality which -vaudeville and revue audiences care for, and in a -groping way recognize as distinctive and fine. They -may think that Greeks have been candy-vendors since -the beginning of time and that Marathon was a racecourse; -but they <i>know</i> what they like.</p> - -<p>I do not see, therefore, that recognition of these -aspects of the gay arts can in any way detract from -actual enjoyment—on the contrary it adds. You see -Charlie about to throw a mop; the boss enters; without -breaking the line of his movement Charlie swoops -to the floor and begins to scrub. The first, the essential -thing, is the fun in the dramatic turn; but what -makes it funny is that there is no jerk, no break in the -line—the two things are so interwoven that you cannot -separate them. And if anyone were actually entirely -unconscious of the line, the fun would be lost; -it would be Ham and Bud, not Charlie, for such a -spectator. The question is only to what degree one -can be conscious of it—for I have known intellectuals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">353</span> -who so reduced Charlie to angles that the angles no -longer made them laugh. They have done the same -with Massine and Nijinsky; they have followed the -score so closely that they haven’t heard the music -and they correspond exactly to the man who bets on -the game and doesn’t see the play.</p> - -<p>The life of the mind is supposed to be a terrible -burden, ruining all the pleasures of the senses. This -idea is carefully supported by “mental workers” (as -they call themselves) and by the brainless. The -truth is, of course, that when the mind isn’t afflicted -by a desire to be superior, it does nothing but multiply -all the pleasures, and the intelligent spectator, -in all conscience, feels and experiences more than -the dull one. To such a spectator the lively arts have -a validity of their own. He cares for them for themselves, -and their relation to the other arts does not -matter. It is only because the place of the common -arts in decent society is always being called into -question that the answer needs to be given. I do not -suppose that my answer is final; but I feel sure that -it must be given, as mine is, from the outside.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">31</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">354</span></p> - -<p>It happens that what we call folk music, folk -dance, and the folk arts in general have only a precarious -existence among us; the “reasons” are fairly -obvious. And the popular substitutes for these arts -are so much under our eyes and in our ears that we -fail to recognize them as decent contributions to the -richness and intensity of our lives. The result, -strange as it may appear to devotees of culture, is that -our major arts suffer. The poets, painters, composers -who withdraw equally from the main stream of European -tradition and from the untraditional natural expressions -of America, have no sources of strength, no -material to work with, no background against which -they can see their shadows; they feel themselves disinherited -of the future as well as the past.</p> - -<p>At the same time the contempt we have for the -lively arts hurts them as much as it hurts us. We -have all heard of the “great artist of the speaking -stage” who will not lower himself by appearing on -the screen; as familiar is the vaudevillian who will -call himself an artist and has hankerings for the -legit; we have seen good dancers become bad actors, -good black-face comedians develop alarming tendencies -toward singing sentimental ballads in whisky-tenor -voices, good comic-strip artists beginning to do -bad book illustrations. The “step upward” is never -in the direction of superior work, but toward a more -rarefied acclaim. They are like a notable novelist -who has for years tried unsuccessfully to write a failure,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">355</span> -because he has only one standard of artistic success: -popularity—but in reverse.</p> - -<p>As these artists suffer under opprobrium and try -to avoid it by touching the field of the <i>faux bon</i>, -their work becomes more and more refined and genteel. -The broadness, rough play, vitality, diminish -gradually until a sort of Drama League seriousness -and church-sociable good form are both satisfied. -And all the more’s the pity, for the thinning out of -our lives goes on from day to day and these lively -arts are the only things which can keep us hard and -robust and gay. In America, where there is no recognized -upper class to please, no official academic -requirements to meet, the one tradition of gentility -is as lethal as all the conventions of European society, -and unlike those of Europe our tradition provides -no nourishment for the artist. It is negative all the -way through.</p> - -<p>In spite of gentility the lively arts have held to -something a little richer and gayer than the polite -ones. They haven’t dared to be frank, for a spurious -sense of decency is backed by the police, and this limitation -has hurt them; but it has made them sharp -and clever by forcing their wit into deeper channels. -There still exists a broadness in slap-stick comedy -and in burlesque, and once in a while vast figures -of Rabelaisian comedy occur. For the most part the -lively arts are inhibited by the necessity to provide -“nice clean fun for the whole family”—a regrettable,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">356</span> -but inevitable penalty for their universal appeal. For -myself, I should like to see a touch more of grossness -and of license in these arts; it would be a sign -that the blood hadn’t gone altogether pale, and that -we can still roar cheerfully at dirty jokes, when they -are funny.</p> - -<p>What Europeans feel about American art is exactly -the opposite of what they feel about American -life. Our life is energetic, varied, constantly changing; -our art is imitative, anæmic (exceptions in both -cases being assumed). The explanation is that few -Europeans see our lively arts, which are almost secret -to us, like the mysteries of a cult. Here the energy -of America does break out and finds artistic expression -for itself. Here a wholly unrealistic, imaginative -presentation of the way we think and feel is accomplished. -No single artist has yet been great -enough to do the whole thing—but together the minor -artists of America have created the American art. -And if we could for a moment stop wanting our -artistic expression to be <i>necessarily</i> in the great arts—it -will be that in time—we should gain infinitely.</p> - -<p>Because, in the first place, the lively arts have -never had criticism. The box-office is gross; it detects -no errors, nor does it sufficiently encourage improvement. -Nor does abuse help. There is good -professional criticism in journals like <i>Variety</i>, <i>The -Billboard</i>, and the moving-picture magazines—some -of them. But the lively arts can bear the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">357</span> -continuous criticism which we give to the major, -and if the criticism itself isn’t bogus there is no reason -why these arts should become self-conscious in -any pejorative sense. In the second place the lively -arts which require little intellectual effort will more -rapidly destroy the bogus than the major arts ever -can. The close intimacy between high seriousness -and high levity, the thing that brings together the -extremes touching at the points of honesty and simplicity -and intensity—will act like the convergence -of two armies to squeeze out the bogus. And the -moment we recognize in the lively arts our actual -form of expression, we will derive from them the -same satisfaction which people have always derived -from an art which was relevant to their existence. -The nature of that satisfaction is not easily described. -One thing we know of it—that it is pure. And in -the extraordinarily confused and chaotic world we -live in we are becoming accustomed to demand one -thing, if nothing else—that the elements presented -to us however they are later confounded with others, -shall be of the highest degree in their kind, of an impeccable -purity.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_361" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">361</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="Appendices"><i>Appendices</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX_TO_I_AM_HERE_TO-DAY">APPENDIX TO “I AM HERE TO-DAY”</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">“The</span> egregious merit of Chaplin,” says T. S. -Eliot, “is that he has escaped in his own way from -the realism of the cinema and invented a <i>rhythm</i>. -Of course the unexplored opportunities of the cinema -for eluding realism must be very great.”</p> - -<p>It amused me once, after seeing <i>The Pawnshop</i>, -to write down exactly what had happened. Later -I checked up the list, and I print it here. I believe -that Chaplin is so great on the screen, his effect so -complete, that few people are aware, afterward, of -how much he has done. Nor can they be aware of -how much of Chaplin’s work is “in his own way”—even -when he does something which another could -have done he adds to it a touch of his own. I do not -pretend that the following analysis is funny; it may -be useful:</p> - -<p>Charlot enters the pawnshop; it is evident that -he is late. He compares his watch with the calendar -pad hanging on the wall, and hastily begins to make -up for lost time by entering the back room and going -busily to work. He takes a duster out of a valise -and meticulously dusts his walking-stick. Then -proceeding to other objects, he fills the room with -clouds of dust, and when he begins to dust the electric -fan, looking at something else, the feathers are -blown all over the room. He turns and sees the -plucked butt of the duster—and carefully puts it -away for to-morrow.</p> - -<p>With the other assistant he takes a ladder and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">362</span> -bucket of water and goes out to polish the three balls -and the shop sign. After some horseplay he rises to -the top of the ladder and reaches over to polish the -sign; the ladder sways, teeters, with Charlot on top -of it. A policeman down the street looks aghast, and -sways sympathetically with the ladder. Yet struggling -to keep his balance, Charlot is intent on his -work, and every time the ladder brings him near the -sign he dabs frantically at it until he falls.</p> - -<p>A quarrel with his fellow-worker follows. The -man is caught between the rungs of the ladder, his -arms imprisoned. Charlot calls a boy over to hold -the other end of the ladder and begins a boxing -match. Although his adversary is incapable of moving -his arms, Charlot sidesteps, feints, and guards, -leaping nimbly away from imaginary blows. The -policeman interferes and both assistants run into the -shop. By a toss of a coin Charlot is compelled to -go back to fetch the bucket. He tiptoes behind the -policeman, snatches the bucket, and with a wide -swing and a swirling motion evades the policeman -and returns. He is then caught by the boss in another -fight and is discharged.</p> - -<p>He makes a tragic appeal to be reinstated. He -says he has eleven children, so high, and so high, and -so high—until the fourth one is about a foot taller -than himself. The boss relents only as Charlot’s -stricken figure is at the door. As he is pardoned, -Charlot leaps upon the old boss, twining his legs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">363</span> -around his abdomen; he is thrown off and surreptitiously -kisses the old man’s hand. He goes into -the kitchen to help the daughter and passes dishes -through the clothes wringer to dry them—passes a -cup twice, as it seems not to be dry the first time. -Then his hands. The jealous assistant provokes a -fight; Charlot has a handful of dough and is about -to throw it when the boss appears. With the same -motion Charlot flings the dough into the wringer, -passes it through as a pie crust, seizes a pie plate, -trims the crust over it, and goes out to work.</p> - -<p>At the pawnshop counter pass a variety of human -beings. Charlot is taken in by a sob story about -a wedding ring; he tries to test the genuineness of -goldfish by dropping acid on them. Sent to the back -room, he takes his lunch out of the safe, gets into -another fight, in which he is almost beating his rival -to death when the girl enters. Charlot falls whimpering -to the floor and is made much of. He returns to -the counter and the episode of the clock begins.</p> - -<p>A sinister figure enters, offering a clock in pawn. -Charlot looks at it; then takes an auscultator and -listens to its heart-beat; then taps it over crossed fingers -for its pulmonary action; then taps it with a -little hammer to see the quality, as with porcelain; -then snaps his thumb on the bell. He takes an augur -and bores a hole in it; then a can-opener, and when -he has pried the lid off he smells the contents and -with a disparaging gesture makes the owner smell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">364</span> -them, too. He then does dentistry on it, with forceps; -then plumbing. Finally he screws a jeweler’s -magnifying glass into his eye and hammers what is -left in the clock, shakes out the contents, measures -the mainspring from the tip of his nose to arm’s -length, like cloth, squirts oil on the debris to keep it -quiet, and, lifting the man’s hat from his head, -sweeps the whole mess into it and returns it with a -sad shake of the head.</p> - -<p>A pearl-buyer has meanwhile come in and Charlot -retraces his steps to the back room (carefully stepping -over the buyer’s hat) and begins to sweep. His -broom becomes entangled with a piece of tape, which -fights back and gets longer and longer. Suddenly -Charlot begins to tight-rope upon it, balancing with -the broom, and making a quick turn, coming forward -for applause. A final quarrel with the other assistant -ensues. As they are swarming round the legs of the -kitchen table, the boss comes in and Charlot flees, -leaps into a trunk, and is hidden. As the others enter -the room, the pearl-buyer, who has stolen all the -valuables, holds them up with a revolver. Charlot -leaps from the trunk, fells the robber, and embraces -the lovely maiden for a fade-out.</p> - -<p>All of this takes about thirty minutes. I have -put down nearly everything, for Chaplin is on the -scene virtually all of the time. I am fairly certain -that ninety per cent. of this film could not have been -made, even badly, by anyone else. Analysis of <i>A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">365</span> -Dog’s Life</i> would give the same result: the arrival -at the climax being a little more certain and the -drama of the climax (the curtain scene—compared -with the clock scene above) being more involved in -the course of action.</p> - -<p>Here follows a complete list of all of the pictures -in which Charlie Chaplin has appeared—all of those -officially recognized by him:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>Keystone</i>—1914: Making a Living, Mabel’s -Strange Predicament, The Kid Auto Racers, His Favorite -Pastime, The Film Johnny, The Cruel Cruel -Love, The Dogcatcher, Mabel at the Wheel, The -Star Boarder, Twenty Minutes of Love, Caught in -the Rain, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, The Rounders, -The Knockout, Caught in the Cabaret, A Gentleman -of Nerve, Mabel’s Busy Day, Mabel’s Married -Life, Dough & Dynamite, His Trysting Place, -Laughing Gas, His Prehistoric Past, Half Reel—Scenic -Yosemite Valley.</p> - -<p><i>Essanay Film Company</i>—1915–16: His New Job, -A Night Out, The Champion, The Tramp, The Jitney -Elopement, In the Park, By the Sea, The Woman, -The Bank, Work, A Night in the Show, Shanghaied, -Carmen, Police.</p> - -<p><i>Mutual Film Company</i>—1916–17: The Floorwalker, -The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A. M.,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">366</span> -The Count, Behind the Screen, The Rink, The Pawnshop, -Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, The -Adventurer.</p> - -<p><i>First National</i>—1918–23: Shoulder Arms, Sunnyside, -The Idle Class, Pay Day, A Dog’s Life, The -Kid, A Day’s Pleasure, The Pilgrim.</p> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_367" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">367</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BANANAS_AND_OTHER_SONGS">“BANANAS” AND OTHER SONGS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">It</span> was not my happiness to have heard <i>Yes; We -Have No Bananas</i> first in America: and to understand -phenomena one must know them in their -natural setting. The phrase itself was created, or -brought to notice, by Tad; as I have said in my -wholly inadequate reference to his work, he is a master -of slang and a creator of it; some acknowledgment -to him might well appear on the cover of the song. -His use of it was immeasurably more delicate and -more amusing than the song, because he used it as -a contradiction of all the blah and high-hat nonsense -in the world; it is in his hands fantastic, funny, and -impertinently pertinent. In the song I can’t see it; -nor am I exceptionally taken with the music, which is -largely synthetic.</p> - -<p>However, if I cannot understand the success of -the song (or misunderstand it, for it seems to me to -be “merely” popular) there are those who understand -better. I do not think that my quite secondary -powers of analysis would have risen to the following, -by J. W. T. Mason, correspondent of the London -<i>Daily Express</i>, in New York:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>New York slang usually changes monthly. Of late there has -been a falling off in inspiration, and picturesque argot culled -from the city’s polyglot interminglings has fallen sadly behind -New York’s quick-witted reputation. At last, however, after -months of waiting a creative effort has been made, and one of -the most effective phrases descriptive of life in New York has -resulted.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">368</span></p> - -<p>One hears it on the stage, in the drawing-room, in the kitchen, -on the streets, everywhere: “Yes; we have no bananas.” A song -has been written about it, and is the musical rage of the moment.</p> - -<p>Cardboard imitations of bunches of bananas are making their -appearance bearing the legend, “Yes; we have no bananas.” -Business men hang these ornaments in their offices, as a reminder -that, after all, there must be a way out of every difficulty. The -phrase originated in the fruit shops kept in New York by Greeks, -Italians, and Jews, whose knowledge of the English language is -limited in verbiage, but not in volubility, nor in willingness -to try.</p> - -<p>These ancient races come to the New World for profit, and -never like to turn a customer away. So they have evolved a -curious positive and negative for the same sentence. Why the -slangmakers hit on bananas has not been discovered. It might -as well have been any other commodity. But the phrase means -that one having asked for bananas in a fruit shop where there -are none, the anxious proprietor, seeking to be ingratiating and -not desiring to displease, answers: ‘Yes; we have no bananas.’ -Thereupon he may seek to sell a cabbage or a bunch of beets -instead, since most fruit shops in New York are vegetable establishments -as well.</p> - -<p>The phrase is a tribute to the optimism of the newly arrived -immigrant; to his earnest fight to master the language of his -temporary country, and so, somehow, is supposed to take on the -American characteristic of “getting there,” even though by way -of an affirmative in a negative sentence.</p> -</div> - -<p>It is, I believe, a generation at least since the -English began to say “Yes I don’t think.” And they -talk about the cable having brought the two countries -closer together. O God! O Montreal!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">369</span></p> - -<p class="p1 center"><span class="smcap">An Incomplete List of the Songs Written by -Irving Berlin</span></p> - -<p class="in0 in2"> -When I Lost You<br /> -When I Leave the World Behind<br /> -Alexander’s Ragtime Band<br /> -Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning<br /> -<span class="in1">(From <i>Yip-Yip-Yap-hank</i>)</span><br /> -Everybody’s Doing It<br /> -I Want to Go Back to Michigan<br /> -Ragtime Violin<br /> -When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam’<br /> -Mysterious Rag<br /> -Yiddle, On Your Fiddle<br /> -My Wife’s Gone to the Country<br /> -That Mesmerizing Mendelssohn Tune<br /> -Kiss Me<br /> -Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon<br /> -Grizzly Bear<br /> -I Want to Be in Dixie<br /> -Keep Away from the Fellow Who Owns an Automobile<br /> -International Rag<br /> -In My Harem<br /> -Snooky-Ookums<br /> -Somebody’s Coming to My House<br /> -You’ve Got Your Mother’s Big Blue Eyes<br /> -Araby<br /> -My Bird of Paradise<br /> -This Is the Life<br /> -They’re on Their Way to Mexico<br /> -He’s a Devil in His Own Home Town<br /> -He’s a Rag-picker<br /> -Along Came Ruth<br /> -Sadie Salome, Go Home<br /> -Wild Cherry<br /> -Next to Your Mother Who Do You Love<br /> -Sweet Italian Love<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">370</span><br /> -Piano Man<br /> -When I’m Alone I’m Lonesome<br /> -Ragtime Soldier Boy<br /> -Goody - Goody - Goody - Goody - Good<br /> -Pullman Porters on Parade<br /> -At the Devil’s Ball<br /> -Old Maids’ Ball<br /> -San Francisco Bound<br /> -If You Don’t Want Me, Why Do You Hang Around<br /> -Down in Chattanooga<br /> -When It’s Night Time Down in Dixieland<br /> -If That’s Your Idea of a Wonderful Time, Take Me Home<br /> -{ The Hula-Hula<br /> -{ Girl on the Magazine Cover<br /> -{ I Love a Piano<br /> -{ The Ragtime Melodrama<br /> -{ When I Get Back to the U. S. A.<br /> -<span class="in1">(From Stop! Look! and Listen!)</span><br /> -I’m Gonna Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind<br /> -Settle Down in a One-Horse Town<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(From Watch Your Step)</span><br /> -Mandy<br /> -<span class="in1">(From Ziegfeld Follies)</span><br /> -A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody<br /> -<span class="in1">(From Ziegfeld Follies</span>)<br /> -Some One Else May Be There While I’m Gone<br /> -My Sweetie<br /> -Good-bye, France<br /> -The Hand That Rocked My Cradle Rules My Heart<br /> -I’ve Got My Captain Working for Me Now<br /> -You’d Be Surprised<br /> -If I’d Have My Way (I’d Be a Farmer)<br /> -Nobody Knows and Nobody Seems to Care<br /> -I Never Knew<br /> -Homesick<br /> -All by Myself<br /> -Some Sunny Day<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">371</span><br /> -When You Walked Out<br /> -<span class="smcap">Music Box Revue</span>, 1922:<br /> -<span class="in1">Say It With Music</span><br /> -<span class="in1">Everybody Step</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Music Box Revue</span>, 1923:<br /> -<span class="in1">Lady of the Evening</span><br /> -<span class="in1">Crinoline Days</span><br /> -<span class="in1">Pack Up Your Sins</span> -</p> - -<p class="p2 center vspace"><span class="smcap">Good-Bye to Dear Old Alaska</span><br /> -By John Murray Anderson and Irving Cæsar</p> - -<div class="poetry-container p0"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The scene it is Alaska and beneath the setting sun</div> - <div class="verse indent2">We see a brave young miner toiling there.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’s thinking of the home folks and when his day’s work is done,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To a humble little shack he doth repair.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He’s dreaming of the happy days</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When he was but a boy,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The places he frequented long ago;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On memories’ wings he flies again to his dear mother’s knee.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Tis then we hear him whisper soft and low.</div> - </div> - <div class="center">REFRAIN</div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">Good-bye to dear old Alaska.</div> - <div class="verse indent12">I’m going across the sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">Back to the dear old home land,</div> - <div class="verse indent12">My country, the land of the free.</div> - <div class="verse indent10">I can picture a love nest at twilight</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Where the old folks for me sit and pine,</div> - <div class="verse indent10">So good-bye, Alaska, for I’m going home</div> - <div class="verse indent12">To that old-fashioned mother of mine.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Once again the scene is changed, he’s on a special train</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And lands down at the Battery safe and sound.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He wends his way on Broadway and on every side again</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The old familiar faces can be found.</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">372</span></p> </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">He lingers but a moment as he passes City Hall,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And there he hears the national anthem sung,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And just to prove he’s Yankee, aye, Yankee through and through,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He sings the chorus in his native tongue.</div> - </div> - <div> - <p class="attrib">—Sung by Jack Hazzard in “The Greenwich Village<br /> - Follies,” with dissolving views by Walter Hoban.</p> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="p2 center"><span class="smcap">Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl</span></p> - -<p class="center">Words by Edgar Smith. Music by A. Baldwin Sloane. Copyright,<br /> -1909, by Charles K. Harris. British copyright secured.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container p0"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A village maid was leaving home, with tears her eyes were wet.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Her mother dear was standing near the spot;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She says to her: “Neuralgia dear, I hope you won’t forget</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That I’m the only mother you have got.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The city is a wicked place, as any one can see,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And cruel dangers ’round your path may hurl;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So ev’ry week you’d better send your wages back to me,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For Heaven will protect a working girl.</div> - </div> - <div class="center">CHORUS</div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">“You are going far away, but remember what I say,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">When you are in the city’s giddy whirl,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From temptations, crimes, and follies, villains, taxicabs and trolleys,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Oh! Heaven will protect the working girl.”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Her dear old mother’s words proved true, for soon the poor girl met</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A man who on her ruin was intent;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He treated her respectful as those villains always do,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And she supposed he was a perfect gent.</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">373</span></p> </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But she found different when one night she went with him to dine</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Into a table d’hôte so blithe and gay.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he says to her: “After this we’ll have a demi-tasse!”</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Then to him these brave words the girl did say:</div> - </div> - <div class="center">CHORUS</div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">“Stand back, villain; go your way! here I will no longer stay,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Although you were a marquis or an earl;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You may tempt the upper classes with your villainous demi-tasses,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">But Heaven will protect the working girl.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_374" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">374</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX_TO_THESE_TOO">APPENDIX TO “THESE, TOO ...”</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">I cannot</span> write about Eva Tanguay—not in the -way of Aleister Crowley, at any rate. Here are fragments -from his appreciation:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Eva Tanguay! It is the name which echoed in the Universe -when the Sons of the Morning sang together and shouted for -joy, and the stars cried aloud in their courses! I have no words -to hymn her glory, nay, not if I were Shelley and Swinburne and -myself in one—I must write of her in cold prose, for any art of -mine would be but a challenge; I rather make myself passive -and still, that her divine radiance may be free to illumine the -theme. Voco! per nomen nefandum voco. Te voco! Eva veni!</p> - -<p>Eva Tanguay is the soul of America as its most desperate -eagle-flight. Her spirit is tense and quivering, like the violin -of Paganini in its agony, or like an arrow of Artemis—it is my -soul that she hath pierced!</p> - -<p>The American Genius is unlike all others. The “cultured” -artist, in this country, is always a mediocrity. Longfellow, -Bryant, Emerson, Washington Irving, Hawthorne, a thousand -others, all prove that thesis....</p> - -<p>Eva Tanguay is the perfect American artist. She is alone. -She is the Unknown Goddess. She is ineffably, infinitely sublime; -she is starry chaste in her colossal corruption. In Europe -men obtain excitement through Venus, and prevent Venus from -freezing by invoking Bacchus and Ceres, as the poet bids. But -in America sex-excitement has been analyzed; we recognize it -to be merely a particular case of a general proposition, and we -proceed to find our pleasure in the wreck of the nervous system -as a whole, instead of a mere section of it. The daily rush of -New York resembles the effect of Cocaine; it is a universal -stimulation, resulting in a premature general collapse; and Eva -Tanguay is the perfect artistic expression of this. She is Manhattan, -most loved, most hated, of all cities, whose soul is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">375</span> -Delirium beyond Time and Space. Wine? Brandy? Absinthe? -Bah! such mother-milk is for the babes of effete -Europe; we know better. Drunkenness is a silly partial exaltation, -feeble device of most empirical psychology; it cannot compare -with the adult, the transcendental delights of pure -madness.... Why titillate one poor nerve? why not excite -all together? Leave sentiment to Teutons, passion and romance -to Latins, spirituality to Slavs; for us is cloudless, definite, -physiological pleasure!</p> - -<p>Eva Tanguay is—exactly and scientifically—this Soul of -America. She steps upon the stage, and I come into formal consciousness -of myself in accurate detail as the world vanishes. -She absorbs me, not romantically, like a vampire, but definitely, -like an anæsthetic, soul, mind, body, with her first gesture. She -is not dressed voluptuously, as others dress; she is like the hashish -dream of a hermit who is possessed of the devil. She cannot -sing, as others sing; or dance, as others dance. She simply -keeps on vibrating, both limbs and vocal chords without rhythm, -tone, melody, or purpose. She has the quality of Eternity; she -is metaphysical motion. She eliminates repose. She has my -nerves, sympathetically irritated, on a razor-edge which is -neither pleasure nor pain, but sublime and immedicable stimulation. -I feel as if I were poisoned by strychnine, so far as my -body goes; I jerk, I writhe, I twist, I find no ease; and I know -absolutely that no ease is possible. For my mind, I am like one -who has taken an overdose of morphine and, having absorbed -the drug in a wakeful mood, cannot sleep, although utterly tired -out. And for my soul? Oh! Oh!—Oh! “Satan prends -pitié de ma longue misère!” Other women conform to the -general curve of Nature, to the law of stimulation followed by -exhaustion; and by recuperation after rest. Not so she, the -supreme abomination of Ecstasy! She is perpetual irritation -without possibility of satisfaction, an Avatar of sex-insomnia. -Solitude of the Soul, the Worm that dieth not; ah, me! She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">376</span> -is the Vulture of Prometheus, and she is the Music of Mitylene. -She is the one perfect Artist in this way of Ineffable Grace which -is Damnation. Marie Lloyd in England, Yvette Guilbert in -France, are her sisters in art: but they both promise Rest in the -end. The rest of Marie Lloyd is sleep, and that of Yvette -Guilbert death; but the lovers of Eva Tanguay may neither -sleep nor die. I could kill myself at this moment for the wild -love of her....</p> -</div> - -<p>And so on—until French intervenes.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_377" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">377</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KRAZY_KAT_BALLET">THE KRAZY KAT BALLET</h2> -</div> - -<p>Mr John Alden Carpenter has been good enough -to permit me to reprint the programme note attached -to his ballet of Krazy Kat, performed Friday, January -20, 1922, at the Town Hall, in New York, and -several times thereafter. The piano transcription of -the score, decorated with many attractive designs by -Herriman, is published. The note is:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>To all lovers of Mr Herriman’s ingenious and delightful -cartoons it must have seemed inevitable that sooner or later -Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse would be dragged by some composer -into music. I have tried to drag them not only into music -but on to the stage as well, by means of what I have called, for -obvious reasons, a Jazz Pantomime.</p> - -<p>To those who have not mastered Mr Herriman’s psychology -it may be explained that Krazy Kat is the world’s greatest -optimist—Don Quixote and Parsifal rolled into one. It is therefore -possible for him to maintain constantly at white heat a -passionate affair with Ignatz Mouse, in which the gender of each -remains ever a delightful mystery. Ignatz, on the other hand, -condenses in his sexless self all the cardinal vices. If Krazy -blows beautiful bubbles, Ignatz shatters them; if he builds -castles in Spain, Ignatz is there with a brick. In short, he is -meaner than anything, and his complex is cats.</p> - -<p>After a few introductory bars the curtain is raised and -Krazy is discovered asleep under a tree. Officer Pup passes, -swinging his club. All is well. Then comes Bill Poster, a canine -relative of Officer Pup, with his bucket and brush, and pastes -upon the wall an announcement of the grand ball which will -shortly be given for all the animals. The job finished, Bill -departs.</p> - -<p>Krazy wakes up; he rubs his eyes and reads the exciting -poster. He is moved to try his steps; he finds his feet heavy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">378</span> -and numerous. Of a sudden he spies on a clothes line which -the moving scenery has brought into view, a <i>ballet skirt</i>. Undoubtedly -it is his costume for the ball. He approaches the -clothes line, first with restraint, then with eagerness. He -snatches the skirt from the line, claps it on, and comes bounding -forward in high abandon.</p> - -<p>He is interrupted by the appearance of Old Joe Stork, -drilling by with his bundle on his back. He passes on, but he -has carelessly dropped his pack. Krazy sniffs at it, filled with -curiosity. He picks it up and carries it triumphantly to his tree -in the corner. He opens the bundle, and finds that it contains -not what you thought it would, but a vanity case, mirror, rouge, -powder-puff, lip-stick and all, complete, including a beautiful -pair of white cotton gloves.</p> - -<p>He abandons himself to the absorbing task of make-up for -the ball. Meanwhile the moving scenery has brought into view -the house of Ignatz Mouse. The door opens, and Ignatz’ head -appears. Opportunity has knocked. The Mouse steals forward -and is about to seize an inviting brick when Officer Pup (thank -heaven!) arrives in the very nick of time and drives him from -the scene. The unsuspecting Kat, in the meantime, has completed -his make-up. He now arises, draws on his white cotton -gloves, and then by way of further preparatory exercise, he -indulges in a bit of a Spanish dance.</p> - -<p>At its conclusion Krazy is suddenly confronted by the <i>Mysterious -Stranger</i>. The sophisticated audience will observe that -it is none other than Ignatz disguised as a catnip merchant. -Very formidable indeed! The Stranger steps briskly forward -and holds out to the ever-receptive Kat a bouquet—an enormous -bouquet of catnip. Krazy plunges his nose into the insidious -vegetable, inhales deeply to the very bottom of his lungs, and -then goes off at once into what Mr Herriman calls a <i>Class A fit</i>. -It is a fit progressive, a fit <i>de luxe</i>, the Katnip Blues, in which -the wily Ignatz joins as additional incitement. When the frenzy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">379</span> -has achieved its climax, the Mouse throws off his disguise, seizes -his brick, dashes it full in the face of the Kat, and escapes. -Krazy staggers back, stunned and exhausted, but yet undaunted. -There is the moment of ecstatic recognition—Ignatz Dahlink—as -he totters and reels back to his little tree. He sinks down -wearily under its protecting boughs. The moon comes out. -Krazy sleeps. Krazy dreams. Indominatable Kat!</p> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_380" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">380</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="FURTHER_NOTE_ON_THE_FRATELLINI">FURTHER NOTE ON THE FRATELLINI</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">The</span> Fratellini are so ingenious and so full of surprises -that it is useless to try to keep up with them. -I have seen them a dozen times since first writing -about them, sometimes three times in a week with a -still growing delight. Some of the stunts demand to -be mentioned. There is one as good as the photographer—it -is based on the idea that a saxophone -player who cannot play the saxophone, is engaged -because he has a starving family; another, concealed -in a box, does the actual playing in the test before -the manager of the house. The complications can -easily be guessed; but it is impossible to guess the -combination of delicacy and uproariousness with -which they are rendered. At the end of this act Alberto, -the grotesque with the square painted windows -over his eyes, hides in a sack and you have one of the -everlasting sources of children’s humour carried to its -supreme conclusion. Still another stunt is a dancing -act, first as a burlesque of ballet, and then as a -straight tango, with Francesco as a rather wicked old -dowager in a green dress, and Alberto with complete -facial make-up, but otherwise extremely chic, dancing -exquisitely. Finally, I mention another entrance, -superior to the one described in the text. Francesco, -very much the English gentleman, arrives on the -scene, followed by his two servants, Paulo and Alberto, -the former with a ludicrous exaggeration of the -Englishman’s travelling rug, the latter with a wicker -hamper of unimaginable proportions. As these two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">381</span> -stagger after their master he tries to get out, as if he -had come into the wrong place. Finally he addresses -himself to an attendant, at the same time ordering -his servants to drop their impedimenta. Before these -two have time to light cigarettes, Francesco is off -again, they must lift the huge burdens and follow -him; again he orders them to discharge and enters -into conversation; and this goes on until it works -itself into a fury, the master always walking in one -direction while the servants are so far behind him that -they are walking in the opposite one. The human -basis of the event, the skill with which it is done, and -the intensity of it, are combined to make a miracle. -At the end Alberto is so exhausted that he sees visions -and begins to fight a duel with his own shadow; he -leaps back, guards, and finally falls upon it and beats -it to death.</p> - -<p>It may not be inappropriate to mention here the -name of another clown also appearing, although not -regularly, at the Medrano. He is one of the three -Oréas, the other two being quite exceptional acrobats -on the trapeze. The clown Oréas does not create as -the Fratellini do; he parodies acrobatics and uses an -amazingly physical adaptability for immense fun. To -be sure he falls off and on the bars; but he is also -capable of mounting a ladder in a series of march -steps, and of missing the support, as he swings from -the bar, sliding round it with his arm on the upright, -and slipping down on his bottom, in a movement of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">382</span> -great grace. His little trick of taking a glass full of -beer out of his pocket at the end of each tumble is -not new, but he does it extremely well, and he has -the sense of gait as well as the sense of costume and -impression.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_383" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">383</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_CINEMA_NOVEL">THE CINEMA NOVEL</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">It</span> begins to look as if we will have to find a new -explanation for the French. Since that would be -difficult, I suggest that we hold fast to the old one, -with variations. Let us continue to say that they -are moribund and explain any outburst of activity as -a death struggle. The last gasp. History provides -plenty of precedent, and we who find pleasant things -in their art and letters will rank ourselves with those -cultivated persons who cannot begin to care for Latin -until it becomes a highly corrupt language.</p> - -<p>I do not know whether seeing new opportunities -and developing them quickly are the best signs of -degeneracy, for I seem to remember reading about -these things in the advertisements, where nothing as -irrevocable as degeneracy is permitted. The adaptability -of the moving picture scenario to something besides -moving pictures was a thing easy to guess; -the thing has been done in both America and -England in burlesque of the films—an adaptation -requiring and receiving very little intelligence.</p> - -<p>It may be slightly beside the point, but it is interesting -to note that the cinema influence in literature -in France is almost exactly opposite to what it is -here. There it seems to make for brevity, hardness, -clarity, brilliance. You will find it in the extraordinary -stories of Paul Morand and Louis Aragon; and -you will find in neither of these those characteristic -sloppinesses which American authors are beginning to -blame on the movies. If they would take the trouble<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">384</span> -of studying the pictures, instead of trying to make -money out of them, and discover the elements in the -cinema technique which are capable of making their -own work fruitful, we might have better novels, and -we certainly would have a few less bad pictures.</p> - -<p>Two Frenchmen have, at the same time, used the -scenario as a method of fiction, and each of them has -written a highly ironic piece which is capable of being -transferred to the film, but which reads sufficiently -well to be considered as an end in itself.</p> - -<p>Blaise Cendrars, poet, responsible for the <i>Anthologie -Nègre</i>, is the author of <i>La Fin du Monde</i> and of -<i>La Perle Fièvreuse</i>; the second of these is running as -a serial in a Belgian magazine, <i>Signaux</i>. Both are -called Novels; the third instalment of <i>The Pearl</i> -adding the word cinematographic. <i>The End of the -World</i> is a cosmic cinema-novel in fifty-five swift, -concisely told scenes.</p> - -<p>It deals with a sort of deity, resident on a planet -accessible to all the mechanical comforts of this earth, -who is induced to travel to Mars as a propagandist -for his own religion. Like many propagandists he -errs in his psychology and, in a Billy Sunday frenzy -of the imagination, shows the Martians all the cruelties -his religion is capable of. Too late he learns that -“the Martians are disillusioned and confirmed pacifists, -iodophages living on the peptonic vapours of -human blood, but incapable of bearing the sight of -the least cruelty.” The mission failing, he decides to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">385</span> -make good on certain prophecies uttered in his name. -The following scenes are left a little in the air; continuity -is lacking. One begins again with the sculptured -angel on Notre Dame blowing a blast on her -trumpet and the whole world rushing towards Paris -and crumbling into dust. Thereafter, with the aid of -retarded and accelerated projection, we see the world -slowly dissolving into its elements, through those -stages so graphically presented to us by H. G. Wells. -There is chaos, and then annihilation.</p> - -<p>And then, by an accident in the projection room, -the film begins to reverse and so, naturally, one -gropes upward out of the slime and returns to the first -scene—to which is added the single phrase “It’s bankruptcy.” -It opens with the deity “at his American -(roll-top) desk. He hastily signs innumerable letters. -He is in his shirt sleeves with a green eye-shade -on his forehead. He rises, lights a big cigar, looks -at his watch, strides nervously up and down the room.... -He makes notes on his pad and blows away -the ash which falls from his cigar between the leaves. -Suddenly he snatches the telephone and begins to -’phone furiously....”</p> - -<p>That is American movie technique which M Cendrars -has evidently learned all too well, because he -uses it, in all its tedious detail, in <i>La Perle Fièvreuse</i>, -for which he is publishing not a scenario but a -director’s script, with the cutbacks and visions and -close-ups all numbered and marked. It is in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">386</span> -manner of the old Biograph movies with what may -turn out to be not such innocent fun at the expense -of the detective film. Among its characters are Max -Trick, director of Trick’s Criminal Courier, the great -daily which specializes in criminal news. He is -marked “Type: le President Taft” and is first shown -in his office with twenty-five telephones in front of -him; among his collaborators are Nick Carter and -Arsène Lupin, Conan Doyle and Maurice Leblanc.</p> - -<p>What Jules Romains has accomplished is much -more remarkable, for he has pushed the method of -the cinema forward a long and significant step, and, -while using everything it can give, he has produced -a first class work of fiction. The plot of <i>Donogoo-Tonka</i> -you will see at once, is entirely suitable to -filming; it is not perhaps suitable to commercial success, -but that can be, if it isn’t, another matter.</p> - -<p>It begins in Paris with the unfortunate Lamendin, -who is about to commit suicide. A friend gives him -a card with the legend: “Before committing suicide -... don’t fail to read the other side,” and on the -reverse is the advertisement of Professor Miguel -Rufisque, director of the Institute of Biometric Psychotherapy, -who guarantees to give you, within seven -days, a violent love of life. Lamendin goes to the -consulting room and after a fantastic examination is -given certain instructions which eventually land him -in the library of Prof. Yves Trouhadec, a geographer. -Trouhadec would be certain of election to the Geographic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">387</span> -Institute if he hadn’t, many years before, -placed on a map of South America the wholly imaginary -town of Donogoo-Tonka, in the gold-mining -area. Lamendin now proposes to float a company, -start an expedition, and insure the Professor’s election -by actually creating the place.</p> - -<p>In the second reel Donogoo-Tonka is launched; in -the third we have adventurers in all parts of the -world preparing to rush the gold fields, while Lamendin -tarries at home making fake moving pictures of -the place. At the end of the reel the adventurers -have penetrated into the heart of the South American -desert and, too wearied to go forward, aware of the -deception practised upon them, encamp where they -are. Derisively they call the place Donogoo-Tonka.</p> - -<p>Later, a second group of adventurers comes. -They are disappointed in the look of the place. But -they are interested to hear that gold is being found; -and while Lamendin at last sets sail, the Donogoo-Tonka -Central Bar and the London & Donogoo-Tonka’s -Splendid Hotel are going up; it is obviously -the intention of the earlier arrivals to mulct the later.</p> - -<p>And then, of course, gold really is found in the -river bed and the price of all provisions goes up fifty -per cent.</p> - -<p>Regrettably, <i>en voyage</i>, Lamendin tells his -pioneers that Donogoo does not exist. On his arrival -at Rio de Janeiro he receives a cable from the Professor, -demanding immediate results; and as he turns<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">388</span> -in despair he reads the announcement by Agence -Meyer-Kohn, of the next caravan to the gold fields -of Donogoo-Tonka. He arrives; he takes possession; -he founds an empire, in which the religion of Scientific -Error is established. Trouhadec, still living, is -deified; he becomes Trouhadec, Father of his Country. -The utility of geography is one of the prescribed subjects -for public lectures.</p> - -<p>That is a slightly more intelligent plot than most -of the adventure things one sees in the movies. It -is in the detail and in the presentation of an <i>idea</i>, the -idea of scientific error, that M Romains has pressed -beyond the professional technique of the moving picture -without once exceeding its natural limitations. -For instance in the waiting room where Lamendin sits -with the other would-be suicides:</p> - -<p>“Absurdity, given off by so many brains, becomes -palpable. One begins to distinguish a sort of very -subtle exhalation which disengages itself from the -human bodies and little by little charges the atmosphere.” -The settings in this scene are very much -in the manner of <i>Caligari</i>. Or there is the debate in -the soul of Professor Trouhadec who knows that he -will profit by a fraud. From the beginning the spectator -must realize that the debate is only on the surface; -that in his heart Trouhadec is going to accept; -the spectator is to see him thinking of truth with a -capital T and, much deeper down, of himself as a -member of the Institute. Just as in the exploitation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">389</span> -of Donogoo-Tonka we see a man coming up the steps -of a subway station with the words Donogoo-Tonka -written on every step; until, as he emerges, his skull -ceases to be opaque, and we see the twelve little letters -dancing in his brain. M Romains has even carried -the thing over into Keystone farce, so sure is he -of his medium. During one of the lectures “his eloquence -is so persuasive, his thought opens such -penetrating channels into human nature that, little -by little, little by little, a soft down begins to sprout -on the bald head” of a man in the audience. <i>Ça c’est -du Cinema</i>, as M Cendrars says.</p> - -<p>M Romains has also a complete understanding -of projection. He protests, in a preface, against the -monotonous speeding-up of pictures and urges that -this one be taken and shown in the rhythm of ordinary -life, with a shading toward slow, especially in -the scenes “where the only events which pass before -us are the thoughts of the characters” (required reading -for Mr Griffith and Mr de Mille for one year is -in those words). In the scenes which exploit the -shares in Donogoo-Tonka we enter into the minds of -individuals, of groups, of crowds; at the end the very -framework of a building succumbs to the madness of -the idea. And then, with a technical mastery not yet -put into practise, M Romains directs that the various -scenes just projected be shown again, side by side, -with a gradually accelerated rhythm. In the scenes -of the adventurers we get glimpses at Marseilles,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">390</span> -London, Naples, Porto, Singapore, San Francisco; -then we see the groups starting out; the lines of their -voyage converge. These scenes are projected first in -succession and then <i>simultaneously</i>. Each time we -see them we recognize some of the individuals we -have seen before. “And when by chance the faces -are turned towards us, we have a feeling that they, -too, recognize us.” The cinema has not yet accomplished -that; chiefly, I fancy, because it never has -been asked to.</p> - -<p>M Romains is the prophet of <i>unanisme</i>, and it -would be remarkable if he did not use the moving -picture to push his point. The end of Donogoo-Tonka -is pure poetry.</p> - -<p>The horizon has receded before the Palace and -the chief figures look out into a light which has its -own laws. Paris appears deep in the background. -“But so close, perhaps, that we are troubled to see it -and would like to fall back a step.</p> - -<p>“As if, yielding to friendly pressure, the world -has renounced for one evening its concept of space -and all its habits.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<div id="toclink_391" class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">391</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="firstword">I owe</span> so much to others in connexion with this -book that if I were to set down the names and the -reasons it would appear, quite properly, that I have -done little except collect and theorize about material -presented to me; it might also appear that I wish to -make others responsible. Virtually everyone I know -has contributed something—and in many cases they -did so before I had thought of writing this book. I -can therefore make only specific acknowledgments. -Above all to two managing editors, John Peale -Bishop and Edmund Wilson, Jr., of <i>Vanity Fair</i> -and to their editor, Frank Crowninshield; they published -several essays which later served as the raw -material for chapters here, published portions of -other chapters written expressly for this book, and -otherwise encouraged and prospered me—to such an -extent that I owe to them and to my fellow-editors -of the <i>Dial</i> the holiday which made it possible for -me to write at all. Except as otherwise acknowledged, -the illustrations are reproduced with the permission -of the artists; in addition, I have to thank the -editors of the two journals mentioned for joining -their permission in the case of work they originally -reproduced, the firm of Albert and Charles Boni for the -liberal use of Frueh’s Stage Folk, and H. T. Parker of -the Boston <i>Transcript</i> for letting me reprint <i>A Conversation -in Old Athens</i>. For technical information and -exceptionally painstaking criticism I am indebted to -Sara and Gerald Murphy, Martin Brown, Alexander<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">392</span> -Steinert, Deems Taylor, Lewis Galantière, H. K. Moderwell, -and Dorothy Butler; for the material in the -appendix to Charles Chaplin, Irving Berlin, Bushnell -Dimond, Walter Hoban, and Sophie Wittenberg. My -indebtedness to those whom I do not know—those I -have written about—is too apparent to need emphasis, -and too great to be adequately acknowledged.</p> - -</div><!--end main--> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="footnotes"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> Except that supplied by the professional journals—often excellent.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> But there is more to say; a little of it occurs on <a href="#Page_41">page 41</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> Scenario by the adroit Anita Loos.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="fnanchor">4</a> Seven years ago, when this imaginary conversation was published, -I wanted to be fair to Mr Eaton and to persuade Mr Griffith to do -Helen of Troy. I succeeded in neither, and the document has only -historical interest. I do not know Mr Eaton’s present stand on the -movies, and I apologize to him for retaining his name here. What I -do know is Mr Griffith’s position. It will be entertaining to compare -it with the imaginary future outlined for him above. See <a href="#Page_323">page 323</a>.</p> - -<p class="sigright">G. S.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> See <a href="#APPENDIX_TO_I_AM_HERE_TO-DAY">Appendix</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> It appeared in <i>The New Republic</i> and will probably be found in -<i>The Flower in Drama</i> (Scribners).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> See <a href="#Page_92">page 92</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> My indebtedness, and, I suppose, the indebtedness of everyone who -cares at all for negro music, is apparent—to Afro-American Folksongs, -by Henry Edward Krehbiel (Schirmer).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="fnanchor">9</a> It has been clairvoyantly pointed out to me by another composer -that Berlin’s preëminence in ragtime and jazz may be traced to his -solitary devotion to melody and rhythm; in the jazz sense there remains -something always pure in his work. This supports the suggestion made -in the next paragraph.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="fnanchor">10</a> Internal, off-beat rhyme occurred as long ago as <i>Waiting for the -Robert E. Lee</i>. Bud de Sylva has used it intelligently, but not expertly -enough in <i>Where is the Man of My Dreams?</i> and Brian Hooker and -William Le Baron make it a great factor in their highly sophisticated -lyrics. So also Cole Porter.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="fnanchor">11</a> In “The Spice of Variety,” which he conducts for <i>Saucy Stories</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> Since writing this I am informed that the Winter Garden has -changed, at least structurally. But even if the type of show at that -house also changes, <i>The Passing Show</i> as a type will be seen elsewhere, -so I leave what I have written. In 1913 or 1914 Mr H. K. Moderwell -wrote of the worst show in years, “They call it <i>The Passing Show</i>. Let -it pass.” Apparently they did.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> This review appeared in <i>Vanity Fair</i> sometime in the summer of -1922. I allow it to stand with nothing more than verbal corrections in -spite of my dislike of books which collect articles expressly written for -magazine publication, because I feel that the negro show is extraordinarily -transient and that a transient criticism of it is adequate. The -permanent qualities are touched on elsewhere; especially in the essay -entitled “Toujours Jazz.” Since this was written there have been other -negro shows, and I have heard that one was better than <i>Shuffle Along</i>. -What has interested me more is the report that there is a “nigger show -by white men” which is standing them up every night. This verifies a -prediction made below—that the negro show would have an effect on the -white man’s. I am not at all sure that there will not continue to be negro -shows for a long time—why in Heaven’s name shouldn’t there be? They -have their qualities and their great virtues. It is only in relation to the -sophisticated Broadway piece that I find them lacking; and have perhaps -not been fair enough to them.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="fnanchor">14</a> For da Ponte’s share in the work, cf. Edgar Istel: Das Libretto, -which analyzes the changes made in Beaumarchais’ play.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="fnanchor">15</a> All this was written before Bert Savoy died. I haven’t changed -the verbs to the past tense. “How well could we have spared for -him....”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="fnanchor">16</a> R. C. Benchley has written a just and sympathetic account of -Jackson. It appeared in a magazine and is not, so far as I know, available -in book form.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="fnanchor">17</a> A number of comic-strip artists, on achieving fame, stop drawing, -leaving that work to copyists of exceptional skill. I do not know -whether this is the case in the <i>Happy Hooligan</i> strip.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="fnanchor">18</a> I must hasten to correct an erroneous impression which may have -caused pain to many of Krazy’s admirers. The three children, Milton, -Marshall, and Irving, are of Ignatz, not, as Mr Stark Young says, of -Krazy. Krazy is not an unmarried mother. For the sake of the -record I may as well note here the names of the other principals: Offisa -Bull Pupp; Mrs Ignatz Mice; Kristofer Kamel; Joe Bark the moon -hater; Don Kiyoti, that inconsequential heterodox; Joe Stork, alias -Jose Cigueno; Mock Duck; Kolin Kelly the brick merchant; Walter -Cephus Austridge; and the Kat Klan: Aunt Tabby, Uncle Tom, Krazy -Katbird, Osker Wildcat, Alec Kat, and the Krazy Katfish.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="fnanchor">19</a> See <a href="#THE_KRAZY_KAT_BALLET">Appendix</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> Heywood Broun has discovered that everybody in vaudeville is an -“artist” except the trained seal.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="fnanchor">21</a> I do not know enough of Carl Hyson and Dorothy Dickson or of -the Astaires to judge their place.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="fnanchor">22</a> For example: “Ours is a sincere doubt as to whether the question -‘And what did <i>you</i> do during the Great War?’ might not embarrass, -among others, God.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="fnanchor">23</a> He said of Firpo that when he came up after the sixth or seventh -knock-down, his face looked like a slateful of wrong answers.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="fnanchor">24</a> A footnote to a footnote is preposterous. Perhaps the very excess -of its obscurity will give it prominence and render faint justice to the -old New York <i>Hippodrome</i>. It is a fine example of handling of material, -and of adjustment, spoiled occasionally by too much very loud singing -and a bit of art. It is part of New York’s small-townness; but it is so -vast in its proportions that it can never acquire the personal following -of a small one-ring circus like the Medrano in Paris. I adore the -<i>Hippodrome</i> when it is a succession of acts: the trained crow and Ferry -who plays music on a fence and the amazing mechanical and electrical -effects. Joe Jackson, one of the greatest of clowns, played there, too, -and had ample scope. I like also the complete annihilation of personality -in the chorus. When you see three hundred girls doing the same thing -it becomes a problem in mass—I recall one instance when it was a mass -of white backs with black lines indicating the probable existence of -clothes—the whole thing was quite unhuman. And one great scene in -which, I believe, the whole of the personnel participated: there were, it -seemed, hundreds of tumblers and scores of clowns, and a whole toy -shop in excited action. Oddly enough, one finds that the weakness of -the <i>Hip</i> is in its humour; there is plenty of it, but it is not concentrated, -and there is no specific <i>Hippodrome</i> “style.” What it will become under -the new Keith régime remains to be seen.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="fnanchor">25</a> I have seen them since in another entrance, the most brilliant of all. -See <a href="#FURTHER_NOTE_ON_THE_FRATELLINI">Appendix</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="fnanchor">26</a> They nevertheless played exquisitely, I am told, in the Cocteau-Milhaud -<i>Bœuf sur le Toit</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="fnanchor">27</a> <i>Quanto più, un’ arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanto più è vile!</i> -Pater, who quotes this of Leonardo, calls it “princely.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="fnanchor">28</a> It is not too late for you to film Mr D. Taylor’s <i>Should a Brother-in-Law -Give a Damn?</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="fnanchor">29</a> I haven’t seen <i>The Covered Wagon</i>. Its theme returns to the -legendary history of America. There is no reason why it should not -have been highly imaginative. But I wonder whether the thousands of -prairie schooners one hears about are the film or the image. In the -latter case there is no objection.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> They have done so. See “<a href="#THE_CINEMA_NOVEL">The Cinema Novel</a>.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="fnanchor">31</a> I wrote once, and was properly rapped over the knuckles for writing, -that it wasn’t to escape Bach, but to escape Puccini, that one played -Berlin. Mr Haviland, whom I have quoted frequently, replied that -those who really cared for jazz cared for it, not as an escape from any -other art. I had not intended to write an apology; only, since I was -replying to the usual attack on the jazz arts, I wanted to indicate that -in addition to their primary virtues they have this great secondary one, -that when we are too fed up with bad drawing, bad music, bad acting, -and second-rate sentiment, we can be sure of consolation in the lively arts.</p> - -</div> -</div></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak semi1" id="Index_of_Principal_Names"><i>Index of Principal Names</i></h2> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">395</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak">INDEX OF PRINCIPAL NAMES</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center p0">(<i>Bold-face numerals indicate the chief references</i>)</p> - -<ul class="index"> -<li class="ifrst">Adams, F. P., <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_279"><b>279–282</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ade, George, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Aiken, Spottiswood, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alder, Else, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, John Murray, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_143"><b>143–145</b></a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, Sherwood, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Arbuckle, Fatty, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Astaires, The, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> f</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Bach, Johann Sebastian, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Baer, Arthur “Bugs,” <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_285"><b>285–287</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Baker, Belle, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Balieff, Nikita, <a href="#Page_260"><b>260–262</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bara, Theda, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barnes, Helen, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barton, Jimmy, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barrymore, John, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bayes, Nora, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Beggar’s Opera, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bell, Clive, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Benchley, R. C., <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin, Irving, <a href="#Page_57"><b>57–66</b></a>, <a href="#Page_69"><b>69–80</b></a>, <a href="#Page_83"><b>83–108</b></a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141–143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_186"><b>186–188</b></a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_369"><b>369–371</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bernard, Sam, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bernie, Barney, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bierce, Ambrose, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bitzer, George, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, Sissle and, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_149"><b>149–158</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bolton, Guy, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Braham, Philip, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brian, Donald, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Briants, The Two, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brice, Fanny, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_191"><b>191–200</b></a>, <a href="#Page_208"><b>208</b></a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Briggs, Clare, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218"><b>218–220</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brisbane, Arthur, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brooks, Shelton, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brooks, Van Wyck, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Broun, Heywood, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a> f, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_284"><b>284–285</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brown Brothers, The Six, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brown, Jessica, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Busch, Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cæsar, Irving, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cantor, Eddie, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_178"><b>178–180</b></a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carpenter, John Alden, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240"><b>240–242</b></a>, <a href="#Page_377">377–379</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carter, Frank, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carter, Nick, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Caryll, Ivan, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Castle, Irene, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Castle, Vernon and Irene, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_273"><b>273–274</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cendrars, Blaise, <a href="#Page_384"><b>384–386</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chaliapin, Feodor, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chalif, Louis H., <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chaplin, Charlie, <a href="#Page_3"><b>3–24</b></a>, <a href="#Page_41"><b>41–54</b></a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_361"><b>361–366</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cimarosa, Domenico, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Claire, Ina, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clark, Bobby, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cocteau, Jean, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cohan, George M., <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_137"><b>137–139</b></a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Collier, Willie, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Confrey, Zez, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conklin, Chester, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conrad, Joseph, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cook, Clyde, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cook, Joe, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_258"><b>258–260</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coogan, Jackie, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crawford, Clifton, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Creamer and Layton, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_149"><b>149–158</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crowley, Aleister, <a href="#Page_374"><b>374–376</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">D’Annunzio, Gabriele, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> - -<li class="indx">DeBeck, Billy, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">De Mille, Cecil, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Deslys, Gaby, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_209"><b>209–210</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dickson, Dorothy, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> f</li> - -<li class="indx">Dillingham, Charles B., <a href="#Page_145">145–146</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dimond, Bushnell, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dixon, Harland, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Donahue, Jack, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Donaldson, Walter, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Doner, Kitty, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dooley, Johnny, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dooley, Mr (Martin), <a href="#Page_111"><b>111–126</b></a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dooley, Ray, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Doyle and Dixon, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_273"><b>273</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Drew, Sidney, Mr & Mrs, <a href="#Page_19">19–20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dryden, Helen, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">396</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Duffy and Sweeney, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Duncan, Isadora, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Eaton, Walter Pritchard, <a href="#Page_27"><b>27–38</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eliot, T. S., <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ellis, Havelock, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Emerson, John, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Errol, Leon, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_206"><b>206</b></a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Europe, Jim, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_156"><b>156–158</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Fairbanks, Douglas, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fall, Leo, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fazenda, Louise, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ferry, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fisher, Bud, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fisher, Fred, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fortunello and Cirillino, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Forty-niners, <a href="#Page_260"><b>260–261</b></a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fox, Fontaine, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fox, Harry, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fox, William, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> - -<li class="indx">France, Anatole, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fratellini, The Three, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_297"><b>297–305</b></a>, <a href="#Page_380"><b>380–382</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Friml, Rudolf, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frisco, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frueh, Alfred, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_227"><b>227–228</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Geddes, Norman-Bel, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">George, Yvonne, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gershwin, George, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92"><b>92–93</b></a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gibbs, A. Harrington, <a href="#Page_94"><b>94–95</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gilbert and Sullivan, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Glass, Montague, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Glyn, Elinor, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Goldberg, Rube, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gourmont, Remy de, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Granville, Bernard, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greenwich Village Follies, <a href="#Page_143"><b>143–145</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greenwood, Charlotte, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grey, Gilda, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Griffith, D. W., <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27"><b>27–38</b></a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_331"><b>331–335</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grock, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Guilbert, Yvette, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ham & Bud, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hammond, Percy, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Handy, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Harris, Charles K., <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Haviland, Walter, <a href="#Page_100">100–102</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hazzard, John, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Held, Anna, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> - -<li class="indx">held, j., <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herbert, Victor, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_171"><b>171–172</b></a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herriman, George, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231"><b>231–245</b></a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hershfield, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_224"><b>224–225</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hirsch, Louis, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89–90</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hitchcock, Raymond, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hoban, Walter, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_225"><b>225</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hooker, Brian, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Houdini, Harry, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Howard, Eugene and Willie, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hughes, Rupert, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hyson, Carl, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> f</li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ince, Thomas H., <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Irwin, Wallace, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Jackson, Joe, <a href="#Page_208"><b>208–209</b></a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> f</li> - -<li class="indx">James, Henry, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Janis, Elsie, <a href="#Page_185"><b>185–186</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Johnston, Justine, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jolson, Al, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_191"><b>191–200</b></a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Joyce, James, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Kalman, Emmerich, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Katterjohn, Monte, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Keaton, Buster, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Keith, B. F., Vaudeville, <a href="#Page_249"><b>249–263</b></a>, <a href="#Page_294"><b>294</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kelly, Harry, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kern, Jerome, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72–73</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_165"><b>165–170</b></a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ketten, M., <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Keystone Comedy, <a href="#Page_3"><b>3–24</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Knight, Percival, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kraus, Werner, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Krehbiel, H. E., <a href="#Page_86">86–88</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kreisler, Fritz, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Lardner, Ring, <a href="#Page_111"><b>111–126</b></a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Layton, Creamer and, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_149"><b>149–158</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">LeBaron, William, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lehar, Franz, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Leonard, Baird, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_282"><b>282</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Leonardo da Vinci, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Levey, Ethel, <a href="#Page_254"><b>254–255</b></a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lewis, Ada, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">397</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Lloyd, Harold, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Loos, Anita, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> f, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lopez, Vincent, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102"><b>102–103</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lorraine, Lillian, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lubitsch, E., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">MacNamara, Tom, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">McIntyre and Heath, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">McQuinn, Robert, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mann, Hank, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mansfield, Richard, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marceline, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marquis, Don, <a href="#Page_282"><b>282–283</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marsh, Mae, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marx Brothers, The Four, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maurice, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_273"><b>273</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mencken, H. L., <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Merrill, Blanche, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Milhaud, Darius, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a> f</li> - -<li class="indx">Mills, Florence, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_154"><b>154–155</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Milton, Robert, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mistinguett, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moderwell, H. K., <a href="#Page_131">131</a> f</li> - -<li class="indx">Moeller, Helen, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Molnar, Ferencz, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monckton, L., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monroe, George, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moore, Florence, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moran, Polly, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moret, Neil, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Morgan, Marion, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Morley, Christopher, <a href="#Page_283"><b>283</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moss and Frye, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mozart, W. A., <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Muck, Karl, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Music Box Revue, <a href="#Page_141"><b>141–143</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Nathan, George Jean, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Nijinsky, Waslaw, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Normand, Mabel, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Norris, Frank, <a href="#Page_331"><b>331</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Parker, Sir Gilbert, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pater, Walter, <a href="#tp">Title page</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pennington, Ann, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Phillips, H. I., <a href="#Page_277"><b>277–278</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Picasso, Pablo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_345"><b>345–347</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pilcer, Harry, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Piquer, Conchita, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Porter, Cole, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_92"><b>92–94</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Powers, T. E., <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Preston, Keith, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Puccini, Giacomo, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Purviance, Edna, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Randall, Carl, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rath Brothers, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351–352</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ray, Charles, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ring, Blanche, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Riq, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rogers, Will, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Romains, Jules, <a href="#Page_386"><b>386–390</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rubens, Paul, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ruth, George H. (Babe), <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Sale, Chic, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sanderson, Julia, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Santayana, George, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Savoy, Bert, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_205"><b>205–206</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Savoy Operetta, <a href="#Page_161"><b>161–173</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schaeffer, Sylvester, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Semon, Larry, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sennett, Mack, <a href="#Page_4"><b>4–24</b></a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, Bernard, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sissle and Blake, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_149"><b>149–158</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sloane, A. Baldwin, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Edgar, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Syd, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. John, Al, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stone, Fred, <a href="#Page_182"><b>182–183</b></a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stearns, Harold E., <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Straus, Oscar, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strauss, Johann, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strawinsky, Igor, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sullivan, C. Gardner, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Swain, Mack, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sweet, Blanche, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Swinnerton, Jimmy, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Symons, Arthur, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Tad, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_220"><b>220</b></a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tanguay, Eva, <a href="#Page_374"><b>374–376</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Bert Leston, <a href="#Page_278"><b>278–279</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Deems, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a> f</li> - -<li class="indx">Tempest, Marie, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tempest and Sunshine, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thomas, Augustus, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tiller Girls, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tinney, Frank, <a href="#Page_180"><b>180–182</b></a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">398</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Turpin, Ben, <a href="#Page_11">11–12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16–17</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44–45</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Twain, Mark, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Urban, Joseph, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Van Hoven, Frank, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Van and Schenck, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Veidt, Conrad, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Viennese Operetta, <a href="#Page_161"><b>161–173</b></a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Wagner, Richard, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walthall, Henry, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ward, Artemas, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Warner, H. B., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Watson, Harry, Jr., <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wayburn, Ned, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Weaver, J. V. A., <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Webster, H. T., <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> - -<li class="indx">White, Pearl, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Whiteman, Paul, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_103"><b>103–104</b></a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, Bert, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, Herbert and Wolfus, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Williams and Walker, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wilson, Edmund, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Winninger, Charles, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Winter Garden, <a href="#Page_139"><b>139–141</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Withers, Charles, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wodehouse, P. G., <a href="#Page_165"><b>165–169</b></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Woollcott, Alexander, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wynn, Ed, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183"><b>183–185</b></a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Young, Stark, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a> f, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ziegfeld, Florenz, <a href="#Page_129"><b>129–146</b></a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> -</ul> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> - -<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made -consistent when a predominant preference was found -in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p> - -<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced -quotation marks were remedied when the change was -obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p> - -<p>Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned -between paragraphs and outside quotations. 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