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Type:
Comic dialogue.
"Mind Your Business."
Simon & Hirsch are partners in a mercantile business. Simon is middle aged and Hirsch (Hugh Herbert) elderly. Hirsch is a golf bug, neglects business, patronizes all outdoor sports, and tries the patience of his partner until the latter connects a scheme to turn Simon's mind once again toward his business. The playlet passes with lapses of time in the same day, these marked through a drop descending with a clock in the centre of it, the hands passing to the current hour. Early in the morning Simon arrives, talks with a flip stenographer of his partner's inattention to business and goes out, leaving a note, asking the girl to see that Hirsch receives it. At 11 a.m., Hirsch drops in, talks about golf and his wife, picks up a letter (not the one left by his partner Monday night) and reads Simon has defaulted - the firm is ruined. All Hirsch has left is $1500. A stranger enters, a hellish looking fellow who modernized Mephisto for makeup. He announces himself as the leader of the Mystic Five, an artistic band of murderers. He knows Hirsch's position and condition also that Hirsch has $50,000 life insurance. The only way is for Hirsch to die and leave the insurance to his wife. The gang leader exhibits a volume containing data on the latest fashions in up-to-date suicides or sudden deaths. To be hit on the bean in a dark alley is advised but it is not always certain death. Hirsch assents to that plan however and pays $1500 for the job. The signal is to be "Oh, Boy, where do we go from here?" As the stranger mentions it Hirsch is to find a dark alley. But then things commence to happen. A bad account calls up and wants to know how much Simon & Hirsch will settle for in cash. Hirsch goes out to be hit on the bean and does the firm's record business. He returns at one o'clock and wants to call off the murdering arrangement. His partner returns. It was a frame. Hirsch reforms and takes Simon home for noodle soup. As the elderly Hebrew, Mr. Herbert is doing his best character in this new playlet, author unannounced. He makes the laughs and there are any number of lines besides that can not miss as Mr. Herbert delivers them. It's a very enjoyable sketch, extravagant in the murder bit, that would be just as funny if more subdued, and the finish needs building. When running in about 20 minutes it should be the prize Hebrew comedy playlet of the big time. Something in effect is being tied in the setting, the office section curtained off and spotlights thrown on from the wings.
Source:
Variety, 53:13 (02/21/1919)