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There are six people and four lions,
besides a heavy setting, in the Marck
animal act. It came over here from
Europe and played one performance at
the Hippodrome when “The Big Show”
first opened there late last summer.
The act opens with a picture (film)
for the pantomimic story of “The Wild
Guardians,” of which the program has
a badly written synopsis. The picture
is called “The Animal Hunt” and is
supposed to take the audience into the
jungles of Africa, where the lions are
captured by an admirer of a countess,
who sends the lions to her as a present
and then goes back himself to find out
how they are getting along. It is at
this point the human part of the tale
starts. The countess has placed the
lions to one side of the villa, facing
the street, with a high wrought iron
fence in front of them. An organ
grinder who has a grudge against someone
climbs the fence, arranges to release
the lions, climbs back, pulls a
string, the doors of the cages open and
the lions come out. to the consternation
of a little dinner party on the
veranda of the house. Out from that
party leaps Marck, the man who caught
the lions in Africa, and he again subdues
them, forcing the animals back
into their cages after a series of crossleaps
and snarls by them.
For vaudeville, managers
must consider the setting, its
massiveness, the room occupied and
the time required to set. At the Royal,
which has a stage 42 feet deep, the
house crew of five men and Marck's
crew of three use 17 minutes to set.
Part of this time is covered up with the
picture.
The Hippodrome people at the
time said the act ran too slowly for
their performance. It sounds very true,
for it runs almost as slowly for vaudeville,
excepting the few final minutes
when Marck does a bit of excellent lion
handling with the quartet of massive
brutes.
The moving picture
runs too long and is employed only to
work up to a finale. Abroad that was
accepted as a novelty. Over here people
will wonder why Marck doesn't give
an animal act and get through with it,
for it looks as though he could give
one of the best.
Source:
Variety 46:4 (03/23/1917)