Curtain Call

Broadway put on a good show in the 1944-45 season just ended. There were no overwhelming moments or historic scenes, but there were pretty ones and witty ones, charming and disarming ones, and a few that were vivid and exciting. At the box office, despite slightly higher prices and curfews, 24 out of 85 shows made good--a well-above-average showing.

The general tone in the theater was gay: still screening rather than mirroring the war, Broadway clicked with only one world-minded play, A Bell for Adano. One possible reason was the silence of the better serious dramatists--Robert E. Sherwood, Lillian Hellman, Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Clifford Odets, Elmer Rice. There was no good melodrama, either.

But if the theater was not yet ready for tragedy, it was no longer battening on trash. Where a stray School for Brides ground out a living from the sidewalk trade, a dozen other smutlings, including Chicago's record-breaking Good Night Ladies, starved in short order. Most of the smash hits were mere entertainment, but entertainment with some freshness and taste. There were no electrifying experiments during the season, but a good many successes -- the Pulitzer-Prizewinning Harvey, the Critics' Circle Prize-winning Glass Menagerie, I Remember Mama, Anna Lucasta, Dark of the Moon -- had more than a touch of novelty.

Sitting pretty on Broadway was Play wright John van Druten, with two smash hits (The Voice of the Turtle, I Remember Mama}. Sitting prettier were Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, with two smash musicals (Oklahoma!, Carousel)--and the producers' haul from Mama. On a seesaw were Broadway's two gaudiest impresarios: Mike Todd aground, his pockets heavy from Up in Central Park] Billy Rose aloft, his pockets light from The Seven Lively Arts. Still spry, Life With Father beat the record of Abie's Irish Rose (2,327 performances), had only Tobacco Road (3,182 performances) to overtake in the Methuselah Sweepstakes.

Credit Lines. Best performance by an actor: Frank Fay, as the gentle, rabbit-fancying tosspot in Harvey.

P: Best performance by an actress: Laurette Taylor, as the nagging, down-at-the.-heel mother in The Glass Menagerie.

P: Best cutup: Beatrice Lillie, as Beatrice Lillie in The Seven Lively Arts.

P: Biggest moneymaker: Central Park.

P: Biggest, purse-denter: the floperetta Rhapsody (estimated $250,000 in the red).

P: Worst disappointment: Sadie Thompson, the musical version of Rain.

P: Pleasantest surprise: the fresh and super-lively musical, On the Town.

Hollywood went haywire, spending a known $3,740,000 (as against last season's impressive $2,500,000) on some of the highest-priced merchandise in its history: Life With Father and The Voice of the Turtle fetched $500,000 each, plus extras; Dear Ruth, $450.000; Junior Miss, $400,000. Hollywood was even paying $100,000 and $150,000 for Broadway flops.

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