14 Mins.; Three. Strong play for melodramatic thrill. Miner escapes from prison where he was doing a life term for murder. He gets with Bud, a friend, who tells him to beat it to the Mexican border. Jim from Death Valley ays “No.” He wants a song, a smile from a woman’s lips and a moment’s dream of what a life might have been. Jim gets it and with it the sheriff’s hand shackles. But Jim puts one over and makes the officer captive. As he starts with him for the border, General Creighton, whose daughter loves Jim (none other than Harry Wayne who killed one Trenton, crazed with a drink, who threatened a woman’s life and reputation), says the Gov of California is an old friend of his and that Jim should write the General to get the boy a pardon. There’s a vaudeville thriller for you. Fine pickings for the novel reading kids.
9 Mins.; One. Two boys, one taller than the other, both dressed in black cutaway suits, wearing silk hats and black gloves. They try eccentric dancing, something after the style of many better-known dancers. The opening is different and odd but not well worked out. Position was against them.
11 Mins.; One. Imitations are best listed in Fred B. Hall’s inventory. Good whistler. He is in serio-comic makeup, with a decidedly German accent. A lot of fol de rol which foregin music hall “singles” revel in. For small time this monkeyshine making will hit, but Hall in trying to get higher and best continue his attention to a whistling-imitation single. Some of his imitations were off color and some very good.
15 Mins.; Two (Special Drop). Two views could be taken of the Four Rubes, a comedy quartet. It would depend where they were seen and in a way, exemplify the difference between big time and the smaller small time. The views might run like these:
Small Time. The four Rubes could be called the Rube Ministrels, and it is a minstrel idea, fashioned somehow after the Crane Brothers and Belmont turn. Each of the men is in eccentric rural dress and make-up, going in somewhat for rough comedy, having plenty of jokes, and singing during the turn, which concludes with one of the men yodeling that gets over very big, earning an easy encore. The comedy talk and the characters will please in certain of the smaller houses.
Big Time: The Four Rubes got an idea and then ranaway from it. It’s a rube quartet with “gags,” some of the oldest and the poorest that could be gotten for nothing. When the act thins down at any time and a laugh is needed, slapstick is indulged in by one of the farmerish men jumping at another’s throat. All are grotesquely made up, have little natural humor, sing badly in the barber – shop way, and the finish, a yodel, sounds like a weak imitation of a steam calliope. For big time the turn never had a chance. There is a big time act known as The Three Rubes.
15 Mins.; One. Norine Coffey is a single with appearance and a sweet, powerful voice which she uses to good advantage. Her present routine consists of four published numbers. A little song story is interwoven, and makes a good bit in the act. The first number, quiet, is followed by “Victrola” which Norine puts over with the necessary vim to get some very good returns. After that operatic selection is used which shows Miss Coffey’s voice off to good advantage and the ballad encore fits in nicely although it is not very new. The dress worn is a stunner and it is no wonder she clings to it during the entire act. As a single woman Miss Coffey was a mile ahead of the Broadway and should not have been “No. 2.”
20 Mins.; Full Stage. “The Lollard.” The theme of this new Edgar Allan Woolf sketch is that a man does not look as well in a night shirt with his hair distributed as he does all dolled up. That is why Miss Conelli as the newly wedded wife claims her husband to be a lollard. The scene is in the apartment of an old maid dressmaker. The wife rushes into the apartment of the maiden lady in her nightie and wakes her. The wife tells how she was fooled in her husband and that she is going to leave him then and there. The old maid agrees with her that all men are scoundrels. The wife objects to this, saying her husband is a fine man, but that her hair does not stay the way he plasters it. The old maid has a male boarder (to make both ends meet), and he appears at this moment, in the wee small hours. The newly wedded wife spies him, all primped up, and decides he is the man meant for her. They begin a love match right away, but he is hustled off to bed by the housekeeper. The husband comes thundering at the door and is admitted by the proprietor, who hides his wife in the other room (not with the boarder). The husband looks very ungainly in his bathrobe, wit his hair mussed and his feet in huge slippers. The old maid tells him to go up to his apartment and put on his uniform, in which he appeared when he won his wife, and she would see that he got her back all right. The man does so. He returns and the housekeeper yells fire. The boarder makes his appearance in a night skirt, and the woman, catching the drift, flops in her husband’s arms. The sketch is well played. Miss Conelli as the fickle young wife is very amusing. The old maid as played by Harriett Marlottee could not be better. The male members have little to do. It is a good amusing sketch.
14 Mins.; One. George Moore and Francis Yates are offering a real comedy noveltiy in “one” in the dual female impersonation act. At the opening one fears it is just going to be of the ordinary type of two-acts; the none guesses as to whether one of the team is a female impersonator, and having settled that point, again settles back, prepared for the worst. Suddenly there comes an age and the act has you applauding. At least this was the case with the majority of the audience at the Colonial Monday night. At the opening the larger of the two men essays the female impersonation, carrying it through straight until the finish of the second number. The smaller is the meanwhile seems to be trying for comedy at the finish of the second number the impersonator cuts loose a note in a male voice that wins the house. The smaller then offers a single number that gives his partner an opportunity to change to male attire the order of things is reversed and the smaller changes to draperies and offers a burlesque impersonation that is a scream. The act will be a welcome comedy addition to any big time bill in any sport, even next to closing.
15 Mins.; Full Stage (Special Setting and Effects). Here’s a foreign dog act that is taking three or four curtains every night at the Alhambra. And it is not only giving unbounded satisfaction as a display of usual canine sagacity and intelligence, but is opening the second part and more than holding up its position. At the Alhambra Tuesday night the act elicited hearty laughter and at the close the house burst forth into unrestrained applause. Lipinski has gone a little further than the other trainers. More attention has been given to the strange setting of a miniature town and the electrical effects showing and passing of day into night are worked to an advantage. The program says there are 40 dogs. At any rate there are enough to “Act” as school “kids,” teacher, minister, police, townspeople, etc. The clock strikes twelve (noon), school is out and the “kids” dance to hand-organ airs. There’s the crowded bus, ambulance, cycling dogs, auto smoking and chased by policemen, and the fire at the close with the auto truck and automatic ladder. The feature of the act is the work of a “drunk,” this dog showing wonderful training. The act is an instantaneous hit. Worth while anywhere. First appearance on the side.
14 Mins.; One and Full Stage. Bob Fitzsimmons comes on for a monolog of the flowery type, telling of his early life, and some of the high lights in his history. Talk delivered with clenched fists. Telling how a football player smashed him in the nose early in life, and how, after that, he took a blacksmith apron and made gloves with which he learned to fight. He then hikes to the wings. At McVicer’s, Baron Richter, on the program, steeped out to announce a three round boxing bout between Bob and his son. Curtain goes up, Richter takes his place as timekeeper and out comes Young Fitzsimmons, pink and big and a fine figure of a man in the palest of blue tights. On comes Bob in lavender and they go to it for three rounds, with some vigor, landing on each other with right good will. Bob is always a drawing card, and curiosity to see his son, who is booked as the one who is going to come forward later and stop Jack Johnson, should make the act magnet. On the closing spot at the first show Monday night, it packed the house.
: “Piano Songuluslerese.” 12 Mins.; One. Helen Trix put over the surprise of the evening Monday night at Hammerstein’s. She did a clean-cut single that carries with it more legitimate versatility than has been witnessed in a similar turn in ever so long. The result was that Miss Trix scored one of the biggest hits on the program, and left the regulars around the back rail, wondering why she hasn’t been playing in the New York big time houses before this. Opening in a modish wrap and hat, Miss Trix sang “I Don’t Care What becomes of Me” (rather light), and then sat herself before a concert grand, having removed the wrap and coat, revealing her self as a handsome girl in full evening dress. At the piano Miss Trix used “The Land of Coocooco,” not a bad rag, and followed this by a quick change off stage to a very agreeable boy, returning to the stage singing a pretty melody, and closed this part, still at the piano with “I’ve Joined the Squirrel Family,” a comedy number that got right over. After that Miss Trix accompanied herself while whistling pleasantly, and for a final encore sang “Ragpicker,” the only published number in her repertoire. When it may be said that Miss Trix looked as nice as a girl as she did as a boy, and vice versa, besides putting over everything of the many things she did in a first-class workmanlike shape. Helen Trix turned out a turn that can go on any bill, and she made her record Monday night, notwithstanding a poor position, “No. 9,” following much singing, including another singing woman single, but a couple of turns ahead of her. Miss Trix is proving herself a perfect little artiste this week, and compared with the many others, she is entitled to that word, clever.
