Maugham Creates a Portrait

Comes a Week of Torment By Jay Carmody. There foas bad blood and many an acrimonious word when the New York Critics’ Circle held its equivalent of Town Meeting to select a prize play last spring. Ballot after ballot was cast without at least result, without the desired result of selecting a drama worthy of the critics’ award. The voters grew restive, petulant, and eventually personal. Finally, however, the tardy, reluctant and compromise conclusion was reached that “The Patriots,” by Sid- ney Kingsley, deserved the accolade, or plaque, which the critics confer annually. The meeting was over then, but its effects were not. With a fine contempt for the unwritten law that critics shall not be held accountable for their individual or collective action, perfect strangers began to pummel them mercilessly. Their best friends joined in and eventually the riotous spirit so infected the victims that they began to pummel each other. When emotional stability was reasonably restored—it is never perfectly achieved among professional theatergoers of any class— the circle was a mere segment of its former self. Resignation fol- lowed resignation, each accompanied by the bitter implication that the organization had been reduced to an absurdity by the attitude and conduct of such and such a so-and-so. Among those who had things to say were George Jean Nathan, Woolcott Gibbs and Burton Rascoe. Mr. Rascoe, a quantitative critic, had more things to say than any one else but the others were more pointed. Mr. Gibbs Gave Bright Fillip Iq Brushing Feud Aside. In its loose way, the whole thing added up to one of the season’s better comedies, the high light of which was Mr. Gibbs’ the- hell-with-it column, in which he admitted that he might have palmed off a lemon on some one when he, in great weariness, voted for “The Patriots.” As a commentary on the whole business of group judging of dramatic merit, it was one of the year's most coi»- structive pieces of literature. It did not, however, have the ultimately good effect of elimi- nating the annual practice of bringing the critics together for another go at naming the season’s best play. As in the past, they will gather again on Tuesday of this week and it is regarded as quite possible that the drama of the meeting will be better than any that the group will be called upon to judge. An even stronger possibility, of course, is that even with the disgruntled ones back in the fold there will be no critics’ award * this year. The rules have been changed—in the interest of amity—to provide that a simple majority shall be decisive this time. More- over, there shall be but one ballot. In the past the balloting has gone on until a decision in favor of one play was reached. That, of course, necessitated one or more changes in an original con- viction which inspired Mr. Nathan at one time to point out, with faultless logic, that second-choice plays ended up by getting first- place votes from weak and vacillating characters among the critics. Less refined and scholarly men carried the thought to the more brutal conclusion that a growing lust for dinner, or a drink, eventually inspired some berserkly compromise voting. ■y-m: ,4 If First Ballot Is Futile FRAN^CRAVEN^^ —Wide World Photo. The Day's Work Is Ended. This churlish reasoning was a factor inspiring the decision to JENNIFER JONES. —Wide World Photo. Shave and Dab of Powder His limit this year’s voting to a single ballot. If nothing comes of it Make-up in the way of a majority fqr one play, nothing comes of it. The By Frances Lone. critics and out of Acted in "Bernadette” just get up get there, as amicably as possible, NEW YORK. stage is a complete bore”—he waved stage brought him back to New York Jennifer Merely and no playwright gets a plaque. That may be disappointing to Make-up paraphernalia is con- his pipe to emphasize his words. for the first time since * February, By Rosalind Shaffer. possibly several playwrights, but it promises well for the dignity of spicuously absent from Frank Slightly built, but erect in stature, 1942, when he appeared in “The HOLLYWOOD. also trying to get a foothold as an character. Where others might have the profession of criticism. Craven’s dressing table; a powder Craven hasn’t devoted his entire life Flowers of Virtue.” Don’t let that of two a kit saintly portrayal actor. made motherhood and limited funds The most promising possibility of a decision on the one ballot box, pink puffs, shaving to acting. Liking “variety, but still “We couldn’t have been arrested Bernadette by Jennifer Jones fool and an old worn all. to the he an excuse for giving up on a career, this year lies in the universal affection of the critics for “Okla- pipe—that’s sticking >original subject,” for blocking traffic in that one; it She isn’t like Phyllis was pretty, but shy, and you. that at all. Jennifer with on “A quick shave, a dash of powder, has written many plays, produced stayed it, kept homa}” To vote for it, even a year after it on flopped in three days,” he laughs. She is a very about fed up with to opened Broadway, a on the I am pretty, lively girl, trying wangle either with work or with drag pipe, and ready many others, and directed movies in was bom lessons, would leave the in an Its Craven in 1880 in Boston, no matter what the photographers a film career. group unchallengeable position. phe- for the curtain," he says. She felt that the during her years in New York. She Hollywood. Mass. His father an£ mother were did to produce that aura and was nomenal box-office success, unlike that of many another popular Craven never has believed in saintly stage her metier, that she believes letting down is bad. Now- He says of his plays, “I never say inr the theater, and he what the dramatic never professionals director did in toning should to New York and when a efferiiig, has obscured the fact that the Theater "gunk," as he terms it, in all the I them. I like to write go try her adays, not on film, she works a/n writing made his first professional appear* down her bubbling personality. fcere. It Guild’s folk musical is one of the artistic years he has been on the and ’em in own sweet time and then wings eventuated that she out daily with a trainer; she gives great accomplishments stage my ance at the traditional age of 3. It's natural that her introduction never a screen. “It makes me uncom- got stage break, but came funny imitations of the little man of a whole generation. Moreover, it is the perfect piece of say, ‘There it is.’n He calls himself an “oldie” of the to the public in such an back films. he important to. My visit with her in prancing about and she following Americana at a time when the*most articulate of Americans is fortable,* says. He Likes theater and feels that the old role would Hollywood. good color people's conception her Bel Air home the other his contortions, as do His new play, “Mrs. January and day they amazing honestly unable to encompass the national spirit within an intel- His Hollywood career he describes days have gone. of her. But Jennifer herself resents was our first sinte that to music. Mr. Ex” (he is “Mr. Ex”), is early things definition. pleas- as, “making movies and rupees.” He “Theater now is strictly business,” comments by critics that she will be ligible urable to Frank Craven for other meeting. Jennifer says the prancing, kick- prefers to live in the movie capital he says, then adds with a chuckle, hard to cast, that she is a peasant, Jennifer has a reasons than the poise that Phyllis ing, foot wiggling and stuff keeps Other of Season’s Offerings. make-up aspect. because “my home and family are “but ‘Mrs. January and Mr. Ex.’ is 6low-paced type. She thinks they lacked; she’s more sure His sole as an Pres- of herse'f. her from becoming blue, a potent Plague the Judicial Mind. ex-Republican there” but his desire to act on the delightful employment.” ought to know better. They will, And Jennifer has two beautiful lit- hint that she isn’t exactly enjoying ident, retired to the country in an shortly, for she plays a high school tle boys. Bobbie and Michael, who the prospect of her divorce from However, if this critic were eligible to vote he is not positive advisory capacity, is a particular with crush in girl her next film. peeked in at us as the painter, Bob Walker, the price of dual screen at this minutf that he would choose “Oklahoma" By Tuesday delight, for he is a stanch Re- I met Jennifer several Creates a Portrait years ago. Charles San Portas, showed us how careers. he perhaps would have come to the conclusion that there was publican. Maugham She was Phyllis Isley then, playing he is with a Are Music. progressing portrait Likes Amusing People. no other choice. Speeches By Lawrence Perry. a lead now and then in a western, of their mother. Some of his and answers Yet there’s plenty of fun in Jen- In the meantime he would have contemplated “Jacobowsky speeches and married to young Bob Walker, Ambition is part of Jennifer Jones’ to Billie Burke, as the well-to-do NEW YORK.

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