On Stage:
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley Two Melodramas And a Photo Show WINTER weather is theater weather; the Broadway season has been warming up. Dramatic enough to win mention here, even though in...
...In a corner of the stage, we see the police precinct house, with the officers (on one of whom the leader of the jail-breakers has sworn vengeance) tensely directing the search...
...Karl Maiden, Nancy Coleman, and Patricia Peardon make the Hilliards' reactions seem genuine...
...Paul Newman, George Grizzard and George Mathews are differentiated and gruesomely effective as the escaped convicts...
...The play reaches blow-torch intensity as Dan Hilliard fights through every moment of his yielding to the convicts, as the long wait works upon the latter's nerves, as phone calls and visits almost bring death exploding upon the family...
...1 The Southwest Corner...
...and, if there is bustle instead of drama in the auction of the household goods and a theatrical device in the final turn that saves the old lady, there is much more that is sensitive in the play...
...At the Holiday Theater...
...how would you rise to such a test...
...This unaccountable singling-out, amid otherwise typical, representative scenes, mars the deep sense of fellowship that pervades the showing...
...By Joseph Hayes...
...Prevented by Howard Erekine and Joseph Hayes...
...Presented by John Huntingtou...
...She is cast as Marcia Elder, a Vermont lady of taste and backbone, who at the age of 83 decides she should have someone to live with her...
...Bea Cannon makes a good impression when she responds to the advertisement, but Marcia soon discovers that she has opened her bosom to a viper...
...James Gregory and others are tense officers of the law...
...At the Burrymore Theater...
...Dramatic enough to win mention here, even though in another art, is The Family of Man, the photography exhibition prepared by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art, where photographs from 68 countries give an awesome sense of the oneness of mankind...
...there is no let-down in the excitement as integrity summons courage to come through at the end...
...Three convicts on a jail-break have invaded the home of an innocent family, whose house they are using as a hideaway while the police hunt them through the state...
...She advertises for a companion, to whom she will leave her house and farm in exchange for the help...
...The viper cannot help its nature...
...Directed by Robert Montgomery...
...Against an effective and harmonious setting by Ralph Alswang, the two main characters are vivid studies, with Eva LeGallienne quietly superb and Enid Markey in noisy contrast, while the old Vermonter of Parker Fennelly is racy and gaunt...
...Under her relentless and unfeeling pressure, Marcia shrivels...
...Hilliard and his 20-year-old daughter, the red-headed Cindy, are allowed to go to work—they even go for the money the convicts are awaiting—for if there is any betrayal or slip, the first to die will be Mrs...
...The year's first smash-hit melodrama rivets the audience to their seats in The Desperate Hours.2 After the first five minutes, you couldn't have pried us out with a crowbar...
...The spectacle carries us with power and beauty from birth through multifarious activities to death...
...There is genuine intensity in Marcia's losing battle to sustain her integrity...
...This play should draw all those who enjoy intelligent theater...
...Yet, at the crucial moment even little Ralph finds a foolish bravery...
...In the theater, The Southwest Corner1 gives Eva LeGallienne another opportunity for her intense and intelligent service to the stage...
...Hilliard and their son, Ralphie...
...Howard Bay's setting, shifting from the precinct desk to the two stories, four rooms and hall, of the Hilliard home, makes the movements of the family and the convicts natural and plain...
...On each photograph is marked the country of its origin...
...It seems unfair, however, in an exhibit that is to be circulated in book form and probably displayed around the world, that the only photograph (#402) of human punishment should be that of a Negro chained to a tree, with the label "U.S.A...
...Directed by George Schaefer...
...This might happen to anyone...
...In these, there is a minor but interesting conflict: Desire to "get" the bloody jail-breakers struggles against the duty of the police to bring them back alive, while intertwined is the human hope not to hurt the family with whom the criminals stay...
...All of these tensions mount to make The Desperate Hours hang over the audience like the closing hand of doom, adding new chills to the winter season...
...By John Cecil Holm...
...Hilliard knows that, even if the convicts go away uncaught, they will take the two women along as hostages...
...2 The Demperate Hours...
...From the novel by Mildred Walker...
...on the rest of the stage, we watch the convicts and their hostages...
...Bea is innocent, even well-meaning, but she is a vulgar and tasteless woman, without love or understanding...
Vol. 38 • March 1955 • No. 10
