Season's Summary

Summarizing last week, Variety (amusement trade paper) estimated that the 1930-31 season had produced 154 new shows, 29 less than the previous one. Based on the length of run and financial success, there were 20 hits, 29 moderate successes, 105 failures, or about one paying venture out of five (standard for show business). During the 39-week period Manhattan's 65 theatres kept open 60% of the time, an average somewhat gloomier than that of previous years.

Most interesting feature of Variety's retrospection was its annual rating of metropolitan daily dramatic critics. For the second time in his two years, John Mason Brown of the evening Post was judged to have more correctly forecast the fates of the 154 shows than any of his nine competitor newspaper-critics. His percentage was 81.7%. He had seen 104 performances, prognosticating correctly 85 times, making 18 errors.

At the bottom of the critical list, surprisingly, came Gilbert Gabriel of the American. When he worked for the Sun, Critic Gabriel's name led all the rest in 1925-26 and 1926-27. Shrewdly surmising that the Hearstpaper's business department must have had a restraining hand on Critic Gabriel's column, observed Variety: "This year . . . Gabriel was obviously pitching from the dugout."

Winning Critic Brown was born in Louisville, Ky., 31 years ago, has almost lost his accent. Graduated from Harvard in 1923. he traveled abroad for a year, came back to head the dramatic department of the University of Montana Summer School. Then he worked for Theatre Arts Monthly, then for the Post. His criticisms are noteworthy for their intelligence as well as iconoclasm. Critic Brown is hard to please. A onetime student at famed Professor George Pierce Baker's 47 Workshop, Critic Brown has never written a play himself but has published critical works (Upstage, Modern Theatre in Revolt). This summer he will again teach at the University of Montana.

The other critics in order of guess ability were: J. Brooks Atkinson (Times), John Anderson (Journal), Percy Hammond (Herald Tribune), Walter Winchell (Mirror), Robert Garland (World-Telegram), Richard Lockridge (Sun), Gilbert Seldes (Graphic), Burns Mantle (News), Gilbert Gabriel (American).

Variety itself claimed to have beaten them all by a score of 92.4%.

Most movie critics are women. Best movie critic of the year--that is, the one who made the most successful forecasts about box office accomplishments of first run films--was not from New York City, but from Chicago. She was "Doris Arden" of the Chicago Times (a tabloid), who went to 262 movies, guessed right 183 times, wrong 73 times, made the winning percentage of 69.8%. Last year Miss Arden happened to be two women: Eleanor Keen and Muriel Vernon whom she succeeded in October. Miss Keen has a Ph.D. from Columbia, never saw more than three films a year before she got her job. Best record among her 16 Manhattan and Chicago colleagues, only five of whom are men, was made by William Boehnel of the New York World-Telegram with a score of 68.9%. Variety estimated that of the year's 306 pictures, 58 were hits, 137 were moderate successes, 111 were failures.

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