Note of a Great Event

GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

Description by an Eye-witness of a Memorable Artistic Evening in a Cinema Theatre

THE new Paramount Theatre, dedicated to the great art of the moving pictures and lately bestowed upon the aesthetes of New York City by those twin Lorenzo de Medicis of the twentieth century, the MM. Zukor and Lasky, surpasses all expectations. Nothing so magnificent has been beheld by American eyes since an unsung Chicago Leonardo da Vinci dazzled the vision of ninteenth century Casanovas with the Milanese wonders of the Everleigh Club, nor since awe first spread through the land over the celebrated Silver Dollar Café. It was, of course, reasonably to be expected that the MM. Zukor and Lasky would not stint themselves in giving to their fellow countrymen (who, according to the latest statistics, number 3,210,000 out of New York's population of 6,000,000) such a movie emporium as would cause them to rub their eyes in astonishment, but not even the most optimistic could have hoped for a dispensation such as this.

Up to the moment the Paramount Theatre was thrown open to the public, the amount of gilt paint used in the embellishment of a motion picture theatre, even the most palatial, was never, at the greatest, more than a measly fifty or sixty thousand barrels. The skimping on the part of the entrepreneurs was evident, and the movie public's displeasure and even indignation were more or less intelligible. That public, however, can find no fault with its latest gift. The MM. Zukor and Lasky have unbelted themselves handsomely. There is enough gilt paint in their Paramount Theatre to paint all the pianos this side of the Straits of Magellan, to say nothing of the stools. The only thing in the theatre, indeed, that isn't gilt is the gentlemen's lavatory, and that is a rich silver studded with rhinestones. Do I exaggerate? Well, perhaps I do, for the MM. Zukor and Lasky have not been nasty about red paint either. Wherever there is a spot that the gilt boys missed, the MM. Zukor and Lasky have galloped forth to the cause of beauty with a pail of scarlet. There may be some of us so vulgar and untutored that, upon gazing at the resulting interior, we are reminded of a goldtoothed coloured gentleman with his mouth wide open, but who are we, as Shaw once remarked, against so many? The fact remains that the MM. Zukor and Lasky have done themselves proud, like the man who stole the Mona Lisa. They have given to New York a playhouse that has not been surpassed in the way of chromatic art and chiaroscuro since the sophomore class of 1891 at Oberlin College did up their campus chapel with posters of Marie Jansen.

That the public to which such a theatre as this caters will be impervious to its unmistakable splendours one cannot for a moment believe. Such a belief, for those of us who realize that the moving pictures must finally supplant the drama if great statesmen like Coolidge are to continue safely at the helm of the Republic, would be too dreadful to contemplate. Yet I feel that we need not be unduly alarmed. So humbled were the attendants on the notable opening night that they actually removed their hats upon entering the outer lobby! One, if deplorably cynical, might have thought it was a funeral, when obviously it was rather but another gratifying triumph of the movie over intelligent dramatic art.

The lobby to which I have alluded, together with the adjoining gilt and red marble corridor that makes a Cecil B. De Mille orgasm look like the old oyster-bar at the Union Square Hotel, presented on the occasion of the premiere a sight to be related a hundred—aye, two hundred—years hence to posterity. Wonder upon wonder was there to ravish the vision and enchant the psyche. As one entered, one was received by a major domo, flanked by three minor domos, in the costumes of Nubian princes.

THESE salaamed low at one's approach, murmuring texts from theKoran and theTalmud as they handed one photographs of Mr. Zukor. Once past these guardians of the outer portal, one came upon no less a figure than Mr. Lasky himself, in the costume of George Washington. After a recitation of the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Lasky presented one with a photograph of himself, and then bowed one over to a handsome figure accoutred as Amerigo Vespucci. This latter turned out, it appeared, to be none other than the great Mr. Will Hays who, crossing himself, dispensed brochures illuminated with the visages of both Mr. Zukor and Mr. Lasky, and then bowed one over in turn to Mr. Walter Wanger, of the Famous Players Company, figged out as the Duke of Wellington.

Mr. Wanger kneeled before one and, reciting the Lord's prayer, pointed. Following, with meet awe, the Wanger finger, one's breath suddenly left one. For there, resplendent in its niche of gilt, was—surprise of surprises for the connoisseurs and the worshippers of the great of the earth!—a bust of Mr. Zukor. Two menials, garbed as Crusaders and chanting the Doxology, appeared, even as the Wanger finger was raised, to escort one to closer proximity with the treasured sculpture, that doubters might see for themselves that it was actually Mr. Zukor and not merely Hannibal, Napoleon, Dante, Shakespeare, Molière or some other such low-life.

WHEN one's eyes were sufficiently feasted, four black slaves, nude to the loins and wielding great fans of palm, led one through the magnificent corridor to a booth where, if one desired, one might purchase photographs of the Messrs. Zukor and Lasky at the age of five, and thence to another booth where, if one's hunger for beauty was still not appeased, one might buy as keep-sakes photographs of the Messrs. Zukor's and Lasky's country homes with themselves sitting on the front porches. This over, a gentleman in the costume of Louise XV approached and bade of one one's seat check. The Louis XV gentleman, one learned upon subsequent inquiry, was the eminent Mr. Sam Katz, who operates theatres in which the MM. Zukor's and Lasky's unmatched art works are displayed. Mr. Katz, than whom Louis XV himself was no more louie, upon receiving one's check beckoned two ushers done up in the regalia of Roman legionaries and carrying Chinese lanterns. One of these graciously lifted one's suriout from one's shoulders and, preceded by the other (who placed in one's hands tinted photographs of Mr. Zukor and Mr. Lasky in golf clothes), led one to one's chair.

At the hour of nine, and alas long before one could recover one's composure over the splendours that had preceded, the strains of the national anthem rang out upon the opulent air, whereupon, as with one voice, those present stood upon their feet and sang the accompanying words of Eli, Eli. By way of heightening the patriotic aspect, the electricians back stage, during the vocal exercises, threw alternate pink and green lights around the auditorium. This over, a hush fell upon the house, presaging even more important events to come. Apparently of the belief that the playing of the national anthem but once was too puny a tribute to so august an occasion, the orchestra leader now lifted his baton for a repetition of it and once again, led by Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz, the gathering rent the air with that patriotic zeal that only old-time Americans are true virtuosi of.

AGAIN, a hush. And again the orchestra leader, overpowered by the historical importance of the evening, lifted his baton for still a third star-spangled time. The unfortunate fainting of the fifteen bass-drummers at this juncture alone prevented this portion of the program from continuing, and Mr. Lee J. Eastman, president of the Broadway Association, was dragged away from his feasting upon the bust of Mr. Zukor and rushed up to the stage to make an address. After a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, Mr. Eastman said: "There are buildings costing many millions of dollars on Broadway, but we are proudest of all over this building which cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, seventeen millions—think of that!"

After Mr. Eastman had thus literally floored the assemblage, Mr. Will Hays came out and, after a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, said: "There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of motion picture theatres costing many millions of dollars in the United States"—at this point the orchestra was restrained from playing the national anthem again only by the frantic signalings of Mr. Katz who did not wish Mr. Hays' epoch-making remarks about the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz to be drowned out—, "but we of the motion picture industry are proudest of all over this theatre which cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, seventeen millions—think of that!—and all, all in the cause of Service!"

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The next speaker was none other than the affable and engaging James J. Walker, mayor of New York City. After a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, and for voting for him, Mr. Walker said: "In coming here tonight to this wonderful theatre I know just how Mohammed felt when he had to go to the mountain. We have a lot of theatres in New York that cost millions of dollars, but this one cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, and also Republicans, seventeen millions—think of that!"

By this time, everyone in the audience with the exception of Otto Kahn, who has only sixteen millions, felt perfectly at home and, after the national anthem, at a signal from Mr. Zukor, was played again, the art portion of the evening's program was allowed to proceed. The curtains on the stage of the seventeen million dollar theatre now divided and the orchestra went into a jazz tune. And on the stage one beheld a show-girl got up in spangles and described as "the goddess of the cinema." The show-girl walked imperially down a flight of steps, tripping only once, and then paraded back and forth across the platform while six chorus girls danced about her. Following this, two cabaret dancers came on and did three turns, accompanied by a small orchestra whose outstanding musical instrument was an accordion.

The theatre's organist followed the cabaret duo and played on the million dollar organ a composition by a Mr. Walter Donaldson called: Aren't You Sorry You Made Me Cry? Then followed a soft-shoe dance, an illuminated drop with the outline of the seventeen million dollar Paramount Theatre on it, done in silver sequins, a dance by a double-jointed young man, and—by way of showing the tremendous development of the motion picture art, eight barbershop vocalists who posed, within a frame, as a daguerreotype of the early nineteenth century.

And then—a hush more vibrant than any of the hushes that had gone before. For now the great climax to the evening was to come, the master stroke of the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz, the raison d'être for the erection of a seventeen million dollar theatre with a French Renaissance lobby, an Elizabethan grand corridor, an old Greek interior, a Ming lounge, a Venetian promenoir, a Byzantine music-room, a Gothic ladies'-room, an Assyrian ventilation system, Sarouk rugs that play Meyerbeer when you step upon them and a wealth of further embellishments including Chalchihuitlicue commodes, Johanneum porcelains, Marduk-idin-achi perfume-squirting machines and Khuzistan draperies. Small wonder that one could not only hear a pin drop, but even echo. In the grand tier of boxes, brilliant with gilt, the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz were plainly to be seen from the floor below, smiling confidently and fingering their white neckties like so many Liszts fingering the prefatory measures of the Sonata in B minor. In the auditorium the assembled art lovers, already stupefied by the seventeen million dollars worth of gilt, sat on the edges of their six thousand dollar chairs as expectant as so many mama rabbits.

In the street outside, four hundred policemen used four hundred clubs to keep ten thousand people hungry for so much as a peek at the seventeen million dollars worth of luxury inside, to say nothing of a look at the MM. Zukor, Lasky and Katz, from breaking through the protecting cordon. And now again the orchestra leader lifted his baton. And now again the national anthem thundered out upon the scene, with the MM. Zukor, Lasky and Katz on their feet at salute. At the last crash of bass drums and cymbals, forty ushers, costumed as the Pilgrim Fathers, hurried up and down the aisles to pass out lapel buttons engraved with the images of the MM. Zukor, Lasky and Katz entwined with American flags.

Another dead hush. And then the ninety thousand dollar curtains parted on the million dollar stage of the seventeen million dollar temple of art and showed a movie in which a siren vamped a young man away from a cutie!