William Grew and Co.

Comic dialogue.

"Pork and Beans."

Here is a comedy due for big time bookings. All it appears to need is a slight speeding. It is a playlet, but thee plot doesn't much matter. The bright lines do. There are quite a collection of them, every one good for a laugh. The scene is the office of a father who has grown "dirty" with dough through the making of a brand of "pork and." Son just out of college is enamored of father's little redheaded stenographer whom he forgot to tell about a college widow who has it on the youth because of his many love letters to her and his offer of marriage. Son refuses a job in the office "licking stamps," but he becomes very much subdued when a stock which he bought on his father's credit goes blooey and he has to tell pop he's stuck for fifty thousand bucks. Father does a lot of raving, but softens when the steno says she is going to quit and let the boy have a chance. The first real laugh then comes when pop says "everytime I think of my son I see red," the typist's bowed head making the line quite funny. Pop, however, storms, at son when he happens in with the Wall Street flop saying, "you started out to be a bull, but you turned out to be an ass." The college widow strolls in and mixes things nicer. She, too, has some of the bright lines and that is one feature of the act that is commendable, since not all the "gravy" falls to one role (father, played by Mr. Grew). One of her exit lines to the boy about being "a dirty bum" isn't elegant, but it comes as a surprise and therefore brings masculine laughter. The widow lady returns and there are laughs from her repartee with pop who buys her off for twice the sum necessary for her to throw son into the river. The boy and the red-headed girl fall into each other's arms at the finish and father's child decides to buckle down to real work. Father is alone at the curtain, lamping a picture which the college lady had left, showing that she and the youth were quite loving when he was a student. Pop looks the picture over and remarks, "that old gal has a damned good shape at that."

Variety, 54:9 (04/25/1919)