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See Naples and Die. Elmer Rice, who wrote the Pulitzer Prizewinning Street Scene, has forsaken the rubber plants of Manhattan's slums for the bougainvillaea blooms on the Bay of Naples. Simultaneously he has turned from tragedy to a species of comedy bloated with wisecracks. There are so many of them in this fantasy that the senses reel and rebel.
A U. S. debutante weds a decadent Russian prince to prevent him from selling her sister's love letters to the newspapers. This noxious noble makes no intimate demands—in fact he promises to release her as soon as a substantial share of her fortune is transferred to his name. But once married, he conceives a fine Slavic lust for his wife, and when she flees to the coast he follows and plans to kidnap her. At the hotel are a group of those international freaks for whom the Mediterranean shores provide so ample a platform. A bad English painter announces that he does not like running water fixtures because "You can't stand up in the basin." A pudgy, bromidic U. S. matron, played to perfection by Beatrice Herford, declares that "When Mr. Evans and I first settled in Columbus, I cried my heart out for Akron." Two chess players silently cudgel their brains throughout the play. When one of them happens to make a move, a tart debutante says "Is that allowed." And her lover from the U. S. replies, "I think they're only amateurs." It is of course this providential fellow who is largely instrumental in saving her from her husband's stratagems. That oily gentleman is accidentally shot by one of the chess players, who prove to be appointed assassins of a Rumanian general.
Through the maze of plot and verbiage, Claudette Colbert treads smartly on her renowned legs. Pedro De Cordoba makes an admirable Russ. And Roger Pryor, whose boyish wit is so perpetual, is none other than the son of famed Bandsman Arthur Pryor. But Playwright Rice's comedy would, paradoxically, be funnier if his characters were less amusing.
The Big Shot (formerly Nigger Rich). The heroism of Mike Kelly (Eric Dressler) did not survive the War. Arrogant, selfish, he lived idly on a pension in a humble club for ex-service men. Happening to win a great sum at the racetracks, he quickly snubbed his cronies and his naïve lady friend (Elvia Enders) and hired a pea-green suite at the Ritz. When he bundled with a courtesan (Helen Flint), her jealous Wall Street man sent him penniless into the streets with a piece of financial misinformation. Kelly returned to the club, found a letter telling of further fortunes acquired from a deceased aunt. Again he abandoned his fellow warriors. It subsequently developed that one of them had faked the letter to expose his character.
Playwright John McGowan's pretentious playboy is conceived with sympathy. His humdrum amour is distressingly real. But long portions of the play are static, leaden.
The Love Expert is a tedious account of a puzzled maiden who sought advice from a newspaper sob-sister. When that oracle paid a call, she brought with her a reporter who solved all the girl's perplexities. Only good line: "Women don't really change their minds. Their minds simply get tired resting on one side, and turn over."