Other Plays in Manhattan

Wonder Boy is a savage, undisciplined, hilarious comedy of the cinemindustry, presented in the breathless manner for which producer Jed Harris (Broadway, The Front Page) is famed. Peter Hinkle (William Challee), a youth without a brain in his head, wants to become a dentist, gets a part in a film to pay his way to New York. President Phil Mashkin (Gregory Ratoff) of the Paragon Pictures Corp., seeking a way to get rid of Star Mabel Fenton (Hazel Dawn), hits upon the idea of making Peter Hinkle a star. On his way to New York Peter is pounced upon, rushed into new clothes, given a new name ("Buddy" for democracy, "Windsor" for aristocracy), and a long, lucrative contract. A kind-hearted press-agent (Jeanne Greene) gets him through his first personal appearance, but his picture is a flop. After a great deal of to-do casting sinister reflections upon the ways of cinemagnates & their henchmen Peter Hinkle goes back to his study of oral surgery and the Paragon people find two new stars to glorify.

Though it is the fourth play to bombard the cinema, Wonder Boy manages to do it with new weapons. The story of the would-be dentist cajoled into brief stardom is Hollywood legend. So is Phil Mashkin's remark: "In two words, im-possible." Well acted, cleverly directed, Wonder Boy is a live & funny play.

The Sex Fable loses its exhilaration long before the conclusion of Act II when Antoine (Ronald Squire), the maitre d'hotel and god of Playwright Edouard Bourdet's machine, explains that he is going to walk home, not for the exercise but for a breath of fresh air. By that time the overlong tale of a canny matriarch has palled. Mme Leroy-Gomez (Helen Haye) raises her two elegant sons to prey on women, undergoes many a humorous travail keeping their shoulders to the wheel. One, married to a rich Argentine, almost loses his wife because of an infatuation for a penniless Slav. The other, orchidaceous young Derek Williams (Journey's End) finally agrees to wed a lusty, rich young U. S. divorcee, with the private reservation that he will leave her after three years, use his savings to marry a modiste.

Lumbering through one act of The Sex Fable is old Mrs. Patrick Campbell, whose appearance on the first night was the occasion for a Chatauquan ovation. Her part, a minor one, is that of an old dowager whose bed is still uppermost in her mind, as it is indeed in the minds of all The Sex Fable's characters.

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