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Co-author of this fantasy, set at some undetermined date in the nation's future, is one of Manhattan's most publicized preachers. Dr. Holmes has been stumping for terrestrial goodwill for more than a generation, is a moving spirit in such assorted sodalities as the National Association for Advancement of Colored People, All World Gandhi Fellowship War Resisters League. In 1919 he broke with the Unitarians, established his own independent Community Church. While giving Dr. Holmes full marks for nobility of purpose, pragmatic spectators got a strong whiff of the parsonage in If This Be Treason's incorrigible unreality. Show folk credited the play with about as much dramatic savoir-faire as a Sunday School cantata. Even his most devoted parishioners could not find much novelty in Dr. Holmes's and Collaborator Lawrence's dialog. Retorts President Gordon (McKay Morns, the drama's best-looking bald man) to his Secretary of State, who has just called him a fool: "A fool? Perhaps. Perhaps the world needs more fools. The wise men do not seem to have done us much good."
A Touch of Brimstone (by Leonora Kaghan & Anita Philips; John Golden producer) is a genuine three-dimensional portrait of a complete, ruthless egotist. Mark Faber (Roland Young) got into show business simply to make a fortune. To him the theatre is just one more racket he can beat. In the course of beating it he reduces his office staff to hysteria, seduces his virginal leading lady, cuckolds his deserving brother-in-law, demoralizes his amiable wife (Mary Philips). Faber manages to commit all this emotional mayhem with unbounded arrogance, callousness and a certain amount of charm which is conveyed by witty sayings and an engaging incompetence when wrestling with a trick duffel bag. The audience is likely to take Faber's victims at just about Faber's low and careless appraisal, an effect which Authors Kaghan & Philips probably do not intend.
Notable for being the first play to take advantage of New York State's new law permitting legitimate performances on Sunday, A Touch of Brimstone seems somehow irrelevant and dated, a clever theatrical pastiche which may very well be transformed into an acceptable cineman bun.
Remember the Day (by Philo Higley & Philip Dunning; Philip Dunning, producer) is a fragile, Tarkingtonian tale of the pangs of childhood, in which are to be seen the growing or just-grown offspring of some notable stage folk. The cast includes the late William Hodge's daughter Martha, Ed Wynn's son Keenan, Author-Producer Dunning's daughter Virginia, Moffat Johnston's son Peter and John Drew Devereaux (grandson). Mr. Dunning has had a sign placed over the stage door: "Through These Portals Pass the Most Unspoiled Children in the World."