The Man from Blankley's (Warner). By the same mental process which makes even the feeblest joke sound funny when whispered in church, the sight of a tragedian and screen romanticist as eminent as John Barrymore trying, at a dinner party, to cut a rubber squab which squirts out gravy and squeaks, is more hilarious than the same scene would be if a recognized clowner were playing it. But there are other reasons why The Man from Blankley's is unusual comedy. Its plot concerns an inebriated lord who, due to his condition and the heavy fog, arrives at the wrong house for dinner and is mistaken for a hired guest whom the hostess has ordered from an agency. The dialog is witty, and Barrymore, hiccupping slightly, plays through one lunatic scene after another with a charmingly satirical manner. He used to play in things like this long ago, at the beginning of a career which up to that time had made it seem more likely that he would turn out a public charge than one of the famed Hamlets of his time. His manipulation of seltzer bottles and irresponsible lines has the gusto of reviving memories—a salute to Youth. Best shot: Barrymore describing the habits of the Scarab.
Maurice Barrymore paid his son John's tuition at the Art Student's League, Manhattan, because John showed no talent for the family profession of acting, wanted instead to" be an artist. He went to the Art Student's League only once and worried about what his father would say when he heard about it. Maurice Barrymore said: "I can't understand how you happened to go once." When he made his first stage appearance as Max in a Chicago performance of Magda he was mentioned by one reviewer who said: "Barrymore walked about the stage as if he had been all dressed up and then forgotten." Considering himself a histrionic failure, he became a newspaper artist. Editor Arthur Brisbane fired him from the New York Evening Journal. Whenever he was out of a job he sent telegrams to his sister Ethel asking for money. Another source of income in bad times was his friendship with Frank Butler, a newspaper reporter who had a detachable gold tooth that could be pawned for 70¢. Barrymore and Butler often drank up the 70¢.