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A drama in three acts adapted by Arther Hornblow, Jr., from
La Prisonnière by Edouard Bourdet. Opened at the
Empire
Theatre, New York City, September 29, 1926, and ran for 160 performances.
Produced by the Charles Frohman Company. Staged by Gilbert Miller.
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Cast of Characters
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Gisele de Montcel |
Ann Trevor |
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Mlle. Marchand |
Winifred Fraser |
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Josephine |
Minna Phillips |
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De Montcel |
Norman Trevor |
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Irene de Montcel |
Helen Menken |
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Jacques Virieu |
Basil Rathbone |
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Georges |
Arthur Lewis |
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Françoise Meillant |
Ann Andrews |
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D'Aiguines |
Arthur Wontner |
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| Act I — Irene De Montcel's Room Act II —
The Study in Jacques Virieu's Apartment
Act III — The Study in Jacques
Virieu's Apartment The Captive is an adaptation of a French play titled
La Prisonnière by Edouard Bourdet.
It is famous for being the first stage play in the United States about a lesbian relationship—a
daring subject for a play in the 1920s! According to Basil Rathbone, Gilbert
Miller suggested that the story was based on an experience in Bourdet's own
life (In and Out of Character, p. 98). While serving in the military
during World War I, Bourdet met a fellow officer who told him of his unhappy
marriage to a lesbian. His story gave Bourdet the idea for the play. But the play isn't
only about a forbidden love; it is also about
unrequited love.
Françoise Meillant loves Jacques.
Jacques doesn't love
Françoise because he is in love with
Irene. Irene doesn't love Jacques because she loves someone else—a woman. And Irene
cannot be with the woman she loves because, in the early twentieth century,
such a relationship was considered abnormal and perverted. None of this is
made clear until the second act of the play. And for the audiences of that
era, it was the shocking twist in the love story that they never imagined.
The public loved the play, however, and it was a huge success.
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Empire Theatre playbill |
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Helen Menken, Ann Trevor, and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm
Jacques greets Irene and her little sister Gisele. |
Helen Menken, Ann Trevor, and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm |
Irene and her little sister Gisele live in Paris with their father. He has
accepted a post as ambassador to Rome and plans to take his two daughters with him. But Irene refuses to move
to Rome. At first she says she wants to stay in Paris to continue her art
classes, her painting. But her father doesn't accept that excuse because Rome is
"the very cradle of art." she could easily continue her painting in Rome. He
suspects her refusal has something to do with her friends, the
D'Aiguines. Then Irene confesses that she wants to stay in Paris to be
near her friend Jacques, whom she feels is on the verge of proposing to her. M.
De Montcel reluctantly agrees that Irene can stay in Paris if she is engaged to
Jacques.
Irene then arranges a meeting with Jacques and tells him that she lied to her
father. She begs him to enter into a pretend engagement with her so that she may
remain in Paris. He suspects she wants to stay to be near another man, but
because Jacques loves Irene and would do anything for her, he agrees to the
deception.
Helen Menken and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm
Irene discusses a pretend engagement with Jacques. |
Helen Menken, Norman Trevor and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm
Jacques must declare his intentions. |
Act II begins one month later. Both Gisele and Irene have been allowed to
stay in Paris. Irene has continued with her "art classes" (code for meetings
with her lover, Madame
D'Aiguines). Jacques is surprised one day by a visit from Gisele, who
reports that Irene is terribly unhappy. She hopes that Jacques can do
something about it. He believes that Irene was having an affair with a man,
who broke her heart. He sends a message to M.
D'Aiguines, asking to meet him.
Meanwhile, Jacques receives a visit from Madame
Françoise Meillant, a married woman
with whom he has been having an affair. Things don't go well; she senses
that he's not interested in her anymore. They break up, and she says a
tearful goodbye.
M.
D'Aiguines meets Jacques at his apartment. Jacques confronts him about his
relationship with Irene. At first D'Aiguines says he's never been more than
an acquaintance to Irene, and he denies knowing who her lover is. When he
realizes that Jacques loves Irene, D'Aiguines warns him to forget about her:
"Leave her alone! Don't meddle in this, believe me! And don't ask me
anything more!" Jacques persists and finally D'Aiguines admits that Irene's
lover is a woman. He explains, "If she had a [male] lover I'd say to you:
Patience, my boy, patience and courage. Your cause isn't lost. No man lasts
forever in a woman's life. You love her and she'll come back to you if you
know how to wait. But in this case I say: Don't wait! There's no use. She'll
never return." He pleads with Jacques to not make the mistake that he did.
The woman Irene loves is, in fact D'Aiguines's wife, and he is miserable in
his marriage.
That same afternoon Irene drops by Jacques' apartment. She begs him to
help her: "I need someone to watch me, to hold me back. Some one who has
understood or guessed certain things—that
I can't talk about, that I can never tell!" She says that because he loves
her, he is the only one who can save her from her wretchedness. She is
struggling to stay away from the woman who captivates her. She tells Jacques
that if he will let her stay, she will give him everything a man can expect
from the woman he loves. She even believes that she will learn to love him.
"Take me in your arms. I am yours, Jacques, all of me ..." she declared.
Basil Rathbone and Ann Trevor
photo by Vandamm
Gisele: "For Irene to cry means that something is really wrong." |
Basil Rathbone and Ann Andrews
photo by Vandamm
Françoise : "And you still love her,
is that it?" |
Arthur Wontner and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm
Jacques: "You're lying so as not to betray the secret of someone who is
probably your friend." |
Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken
photo by Vandamm
Irene: "It's like a prison to which I must
return captive, despite myself." |
In spite of D'Aiguines's warning, Jacques marries Irene, and Irene
promises to never again see Madame D'Aiguines. Act III opens a year after
their marriage. Jacques and Irene have been traveling and have been back in Paris
only a month. She has tried to make Jacques happy, but he knows she doesn't
love him. He says to her, "If you knew how hard it's been to convince myself
of it. The stupidly hopeful stages I went through! I've clung desperately to
the substitutes of love—from
tenderness and friendship to the most pathetic of all—compliance.
On a word or a gesture that I could interpret in terms of my desire I'd
regain confidence. Those illusions are gone. I know that I can really mean
nothing to you. I'm as incapable of making you happy as of making you
unhappy."
To fulfill his need for love, Jacques renews his affair with Françoise.
And Irene has tried to stay away from Madame D'Aiguines, but after running
into her at the studio, she is again captivated by her. Jacques sees the
light in Irene's eyes and knows that he cannot hold her. When a bouquet of
violets are delivered to Irene, she grabs her coat and goes out. The play
ends with Jacques also going out, presumably to see Françoise.
| Irene de Montcel, ordered by her diplomatist father to be prepared
to move from Paris to Brussels, refuses to go. De Montcel, suspecting Irene is
held by the fascination a degenerate woman companion exerts for her, insists
upon her going. To escape submission Irene begs a girlhood sweetheart, Jacques Virieu, to marry her. Jacques, though warned by the husband of the degenerate
that such a marriage cannot be successful, agrees to Irene's proposal.
A year later they are returned from their honeymoon. Their marriage
has been a failure and Irene, still under the influence of her friend,
deserts her husband. —The Best Plays of 1926-27, ed. by
Burns Mantle (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1927), page 390 |
Rathbone has quite a bit to say about The Captive in his autobiography
In and Out of Character. He wrote, "The play was produced without any preproduction
publicity with Helen Menken as Irene and myself as Jacques. Of course there were
rumors as to what it was all about since a limited number of Americans had seen
the play in Paris, but our first night audience was completely ignorant of its
theme. They were stunned by its power and the persuasiveness of its argument. We
were an immediate success and for seventeen weeks we played to standing room
only at every performance. At no time was it ever suggested that we were
salacious or sordid or seeking sensation" (pp 101-102).
Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken
photo by Vandamm
Irene turns away when Jacques tries to kiss her. |
Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken
photo by Vandamm
Irene: "I'm late for my appointment." |
The critics praised The Captive:
| "An unprecedented play ... an absorbing play ... a study of a young woman
struggling helplessly in the toils of an abnormal erotic passion ... Bourdet has
made the venture with infinite tact and reticence." —Alexander Woollcott in the
New York World "Bourdet's excellent La Prisonniere in its extremely adroit
translation by Arthur Hornblow, Jr., is as profoundly wrought a drama of the woe
of physical passion as has come out of France since Porto Riche's Amoureuse."
—George Jean Nathan in the New York Morning Telegraph
"Bourdet has wrought a play of gigantic proportions, of compassion and
candor, and, above all, of terrific dramatic effect. Nowhere does the inexorable
pace of the heavy marching let down ... From the moment that the sullen mystery
is invoked until it lands its ultimate smash, the play proceeds with adroit
balance and cunning. ... Adapted sensitively by Arthur Hornblow, Jr. ... The
movement is intense, swift and perpetually provocative." —John Anderson in the
New York Evening Post
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Rathbone continues, "We were helping to educate the public to a better
understanding of a social sickness that could not be ignored. Such matters
have always been the prerogative of the theater when approached seriously
and in good taste" (p. 102).
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 The most daring play of the season is "The Captive." And one of the best
written and acted in years.
Its topic has never been previous[ly] used as a theme on the American stage.
When Gilbert Miller secured the rights in Paris, where the play known as "La
Prisonniere" was something of a sensation there, other showmen were frank in
saying the subject matter was entirely too delicate or indelicate for them to
handle.
"The Captive" is a homosexual story, and in this instance the abnormal sex
attraction of one woman for another. "Ladies" of this character are commonly
referred to as Lesbians. Greenwich Village is full of them, but it is not a
matter for household discussion or even mention. There are millions of women,
sedate in nature, who never heard of a Lesbian, much less believing that such
people exist. And many men, too.
The adaptation is such an excellent work that the unfolding of the play is
not repellent; in fact, one feels sorry for "the captive."
Arthur Hornblow, Jr., who adapted the play, just leaped into prominence among
the literati by his brilliant effort. He comes by writing naturally. He has
written of the theatre as a publicist, once for the Frohman office, by the way,
and his father has long been a commentator of plays. Young Mr. Hornblow might
well have been led upon the stage with Gilbert Miller and the players after the
second act. He probably dodged that, but his actress-wife, Juliette Crosby, who
sat out front, must have gotten a great kick out of it all.
An Austrian woman, married to a Frenchman, has lured the daughter of a
diplomat into illicit relations, but the woman does not appear on the stage. The
father suspects his daughter, Irene, of leading a suspicious existence. She
refuses to go to Rome, where he is assigned, and in answer to a barrage of
questions weaves the fable of love for a distant relation, Jacques, whom she
might some day marry. To Jacques she confesses the lie, but he had always loved
her and never understood why she has suddenly turned away from him.
Jacques stands for the story in front of her father, and he marries her, that
after a splendid scene in which the husband of the other woman tells of the
relations of his wife with Irene. The man is greyed beyond his years. When he
learns of Jacques' love for Irene he tells him to go far away until his feelings
change; that if he marries her he will be forever chasing a phantom.
A year elapses. Irene as the wife will not do. In an earlier excellent scene
she had confessed being a prisoner's captive to a desire she did not want to
pursue. She rushed into marriage in the hope of eliminating that desire forever.
But within the twelvemonth the life of the newlyweds has become platonic.
Jacques is for resuming an old affair. Irene has seen the other woman.
In anger Jacques declares she no longer means anything to him, and in the
end, caressing the violets sent by the girl friend and a symbol of Lesbianism,
they say, she goes off to her.
The case of a married woman leaving her husband for another woman is recorded
in Kraft Ebbing's book, "Psychopathia Sexualis." There are other recorded
instances.
Helen Menken, at last in light, and Basil Rathbone are the featured players
and are the Irene and Jacques of the play. Miss Menken is a remarkable person, a
young thoroughbred of the stage born. It was her fine performance that kept
"Seventh Heaven" on Broadway for nearly two years. As "The Captive," the pallor
of her make-up was somewhat distracting, but she etched the character of
abnormality, she evoked pity, she arose to the heights of pathos and her playing
cannot but command stardom from now on.
Mr. Rathbone is a rattling good actor, and he has always commanded attention.
On the opening night he was exasperating because of an almost continuously low
pitched voice. That appears not to have been his fault. Mr. Miller is reported
to have insisted on that point. The manager's idea was not to overdo the idea.
As it came out it was underdone for those three-quarters way back on the lower
floor.
Close to the shoulders of the two leads was Arthur Wonter, a well-known
English actor, new to this side. He was the husband of the other woman. His
expose of his position in his home, the lure with which she somehow still held
him and his passionate warning to Jacques won an honest and earnest tribute.
Norman Trevor, featured and starred heretofore, is content to play a
comparatively small part, that of Irene's father. He is on the stage only in the
first act, and then for a few minutes. Ann Trevor, said to be no relation, plays
Irene's sister, quite a flapper and real enough but quite indistinct.
The premiere ran until past 11.20, with the curtain rising nearly on
scheduled time. Because the crowd of notables tarried in the lobby between acts,
some minutes might have been lost. Yet so interesting in "The Captive" that it
will not lose patrons any more than it did the first performance.
"The Captive," despite the soft pedal on the players, is to be regarded as a
feather in Gilbert Miller's directional cap, and its settings are beyond
criticism. His late father would have been proud of his son for this neat bit of
work.
Of course, men will want to see this show and women will flock to it, whether
they believe it or not. It is something new for those who never heard of the
topic and naturally feminine curiosity will be aroused. Maybe "The Captive" will
never go on the road very far, but it's set for Broadway.
With the proviso that if it's not interfered with—and
a question: What is the stage coming or going to?
There isn't much left to show or talk of in a public performance after this.
And the censors!
What a play to promote censorship!
And what a play! Ibes.
—Variety, October 6, 1926,
p. 80
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Variety reported that in its first week, The Captive grossed $14,000.
By November 10, the seventh week, Variety reported, "Capacity all performances; continuance of
abnormal demand questioned in ticket circles but on form exceptional drama
should make real run of it; nine performances, over $24,000 last week." (Nov.
10, 1926, p. 37.) The play was making a profit of more than $5,000 each week.
Arthur Wontner later played Sherlock Holmes in films from 1931 to 1937. This
play is the only time that Wontner and Rathbone worked together.
At the time she appeared in The Captive, Helen Menken was married to Humphrey Bogart (May 20, 1926 to Nov.
18, 1927).
J. Brooks Atkinson's review of The Captive was published in the New
York Times
September 30, 1926. Read the review on The Baz!
Basil Rathbone and Arthur Wontner
photo by Vandamm
D'Aiguines: "It's not only a man who may be
dangerous to a woman. In some cases it can be another woman." |
Basil Rathbone and Ann Andrews (Françoise)
photo by Vandamm |
Basil Rathbone and Arthur Wontner
photo by Vandamm
(similar to the above photo, yet slightly different) |
Helen Menken and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm |
| In the play Irene's lover gave her a bouquet of violets. The giving of violets
as a symbol of lesbian love existed prior to the presentation of The Captive,
but the general public may not have been aware of it before seeing the play. The
popularity of The Captive educated the public about this symbol. Audience
members who wished to show solidarity for the characters in the play pinned
violets to their clothing. In the 1920s, however, most people were opposed to
expressing any support for homosexuality. As a result, sales of violets
plummeted
(reported in Variety , Jan. 12, 1927, p. 33). |
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| M. Bourdet has described his people as ordinary
well-bred human beings, whatever their failings may be. Irene's
tenderness towards her little sister, and her own humility and
anguish, reveal her as a young lady of fine instincts; she is in no
sense the neurotic debauchee of tawdry melodrama. Jacques Virieu,
likewise, is a young man of high impulses; and of sufficient strength
of character to fly recklessly in the face of danger to support an
ideal. ... M. Bourdet does not excuse his characters on the score of
congenital weakness or worldly disillusionment or pseudo-scientific
buncombe. No, indeed, he is not interested in excuses; his is a
tragedy of consequences. He shows Irene estranged from her father,
playing false to her ingenuous sister, and fast losing all the friends
with whom she once associated freely. He tortures her before Jacques.
Once she was his ideal, a woman to whom he looked up; now she comes as
a petitioner for mercy and pity rather than respect. ... And if any
proof were needed of the sincerity of M. Bourdet's purpose, his
treatment of Madame d'Aiguines [Irene's lover] would be sufficient.
The talk of her occasionally, but by keeping her in the background and
by describing the blighted fruits of her influence, M. Bourdet retains
the fine objectivity and austerity of his drama. —J.
Brooks Atkinson, from the Introduction to The Captive, by
Edouard Bourdet |
In spite of the popularity of The Captive, some people were offended
by the subject matter. As a result, a citizens' play jury was
formed to investigate the play. The job of the citizens' play jury was to review
plays which were reported as being objectionable or salacious. If the jury voted
against a play, it could be forced to close. Variety reported that one
juror gave his opinion that not only was "The Captive" an admirable stage work
but that it was informative." (Variety,
November 10, 1926, p. 35)
On November 15, the play jury voted on the fate of The Captive. Nine
of the twelve jurors would need to vote against the play to condemn it. Six
voted against it, five in favor, and one abstained.
Arthur Hornblow (the translator of the play) said, "This is a rather critical case for the theatre. It will test whether adult subjects may be treated hereafter in a decent way on the stage." (New
York Times,
November 16, 1926, p. 23)
And so, the cast of The Captive continued to perform before
standing-room-only crowds until February 1927.
Arthur Wontner and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm |
Basil Rathbone and Ann Andrews
photo by Vandamm |
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| POLICE READY TO RAID THEATRES WITH 'DIRT' PLAYS District Attorney Banton and Police Commissioner McLaughlin came forth with
statements late last week to the effect that presentation of dirt plays would
bring about arrests and prosecutions. ... The governor again made it plain that
he did not believe in stage censorship, saying it would not work. His attitude
about fixes the status of censorship bills now pending at Albany. He even called
attention to a supreme court decision wherein it was held that any play tending
to incite or arouse impure imagination, constitutes the maintenance of a public
nuisance, is punishable under the law, even though there be no indecent language
or obscene exposure. ...
The district attorney was plain in his position stating he would make arrests
upon the complaint of any reputable citizen and prosecute under the existing
laws.
—Variety,
February 9, 1927, p. 34 |
Eighteen
weeks after opening night of The Captive, a local politician decided to make a point and close down three "immoral"
plays running on Broadway at the time, and that resulted in the
arrest of the cast of The Captive on a morals charge. The other two plays
involved were Sex (a story of a prostitute's revenge upon a society mother who
had sent her to jail) and The Virgin Man (a story of an innocent youth from
Yale beset with temptation in New York).
The night of the arrest (February 9) Rathbone went to the Empire Theatre as usual.
In his book In and Out of Character, Rathbone wrote that, looking out his dressing room
window, he saw "an unusual number of people outside and more policemen
than I had ever seen anywhere at one time in New York. . . . As we walked
out onto the stage to await our first entrances we were stopped by a
plainclothes policeman who showed his badge and said, 'Please don't let it
disturb your performance tonight but consider yourself under arrest!' At the
close of the play the cast were all ordered to dress and stand by to be escorted
in police cars to a night court" (p. 103). The cast was released on bail and
ordered to appear in court a few days later.
Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken
photo by Vandamm |
Ann Andrews and Basil Rathbone
photo by Vandamm |
Rathbone wrote that after being released on bail, the cast was forbidden
to reenter the Empire Theatre (p. 104). But he must have been remembering
incorrectly. Newspaper reports contradict that statement. The cast members
were arrested on Wednesday, February 9. According to Variety, Basil Rathbone
experienced this bad night on Friday:
 Basil Rathbone, leading man of "The Captive," had a
bad time of it Friday night, when the play eruption was at its worst.
Two minutes after the first act curtain his lines slipped away from
him and he turned to the prompt side flying "distress." A thick
silence was wafted in his direction from the prompt desk. The actor
floundered deeper and deeper into tangled lines until the stage
manager rang down.The reason for the prompter's default was that
the police had commandeered the prompt script, and it was nestling in
an inspector's desk at headquarters. They took Rathbone aside and fed
him his missing lines, but he couldn't pick up where he left off, by
some odd quirk of mind. So they started the act all over again
from the beginning to the audible wonderment of a puzzled audience.
—Variety,
February 16, 1927, p. 39 |
Because this item was reported in the February 16 edition of Variety,
it seems the reference to Friday must be to Friday, February 11. And this
suggests that the cast members were allowed to continue performing the play
until the decision was made the following Tuesday (February 15) to close the
play. The New York Times confirms this. The headline of the
February 11 edition reads:
RAIDED SHOWS STAY OPEN; INJUNCTIONS STOP POLICE
"The Captive," "Sex" and "The Virgin Man," the producers and casts of which were arrested Wednesday night, were performed last night under the protection of Supreme Court injunctions.
Basil Rathbone and Ann Andrews
photo by Vandamm |
Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken
photo by Vandamm |
The district attorney was determined to prosecute those implicated in the production of
The Captive in spite of the fact that they had been acquitted by a play jury in November. At the court hearing the management of the play announced its voluntary withdrawal from the stage in exchange for charges against the cast being dropped. The cast had no choice but to accept this decision. Rathbone felt that the closing of the play
was a "hideous betrayal, this most infamous example of the imposition of political censorship on a democratic society ever known in the history of responsible creative theater; this cold-blooded unscrupulous sabotage of an important contemporary work of art; this cheap political expedient to gain votes
by humiliating and despoiling the right of public opinion to express itself and act upon its considered judgment as respected and respectable citizens" (In and Out of Character, p.
105).
| ZUKOR STOPS "CAPTIVE" Following the raiding of three Broadway theatres—Empire, Princess and
Daly's—where the police arrested managers and actors in "The Captive," "The
Virgin Man" and "Sex," a dramatic anti-climax came on Tuesday when it was stated
"The Captive" would be withdrawn after last night's performance.
Pressure from Famous Players is understood to have caused the move. The show was
produced by the Charles Frohman, Inc., owned by F.P. and , while the managing
director is Gilbert Miller, who really presented "The Captive," Miller is
actually an employee of F.P. Miller refused to comment on the withdrawal.
On the inside it was stated the withdrawal is by "mutual consent," but it was
plainly inferred that the play might later be presented, if not by the Frohman
office, some other management. That may not occur, however, until the status of
the play is established in court. Eminent counsel has been engaged and the case
will be fought out. The show has been a big money maker, grossing between
$21,000 and $23,000 weekly.
—Variety,
February 16, 1927, pp. 1, 40 |
Download the full article (PDF file) here.
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In a bizarre bit of irony, on the eve of his arrest for presenting The Captive, Gilbert Miller received the
Legion of Honor decoration from the French Government. Variety
reported, "The
decoration is in recognition of Miller's efforts on behalf of French dramatic
literature in America."
(Variety, February 16, 1927, p. 40) The Captive was, of course, the French
literature that Miller was promoting in America.
Oddly enough, New York Supreme Court Justice Jeremiah A. Mahoney upheld the literary
quality of The Captive, but maintained that it was immoral.
Horace B. Liveright bought the rights to the play and subsequently appealed
to the New York Supreme Court to grant an injunction to prevent the District
Attorney from interfering with his efforts to produce it.
Justice Mahoney refused to grant the injunction.
The New York Times
reported,
"Justice Mahoney gave the opinion that the drama had excellent literary quality and that it might not harm a mature and intelligent audience. On the other hand, he held that it might have dangerous effects on some persons in
an indiscriminate, cosmopolitan audience. . . On that ground, he held that the police and the District Attorney had acted correctly in seeking to stop 'The Captive' and to prevent its revival." (The New York Times, March 9, 1927, p. 27)
The
Empire Theatre in 1922 |
Gilbert Miller, who once said that Rathbone was the best equipped actor on the English stage. |
The Captive had played for 21 weeks. But Rathbone was not unemployed for long. Soon after The Captive closed, he went into rehearsal for Love Is Like That, which opened at the Cort Theatre on April 18.
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 Withdrawal of Leading Box Office Attraction Victory for City Authorities New
York, Feb. 16, UP. — The leading lady, the manager and director, the stage
director, another actress, and one elderly actor walked out of the limelight
today among the central figures in the police raided public censored play, "The
Captive," promising they would no longer appear in
the play or try to put it on again in New York. The withdrawal of Gilbert Miller
as manager, George Mondolf, Jr., as stage director, and Helen Menken, Winifred
Fraser and Arthur Lewis meant the closing down of the show at the theater where
it has been a big box office drawing card for several months. These members
agreed not to appear again in their roles under any management — but several
others, when asked to make similar promises, held back. The closing of "The
Captive" was interpreted as the first victory of the city authorities in
their moral crusade along Broadway, but the presence in the court room of Horace Liverright, publisher and producer, who announced he was negotiating with M.
Bourdet, the Paris author, for American rights to the vehicle, was taken by some
to betoken the fact that interest In the play has not died out and that
Liverright may produce it himself.
—Cornell
Daily Sun, 17 Feb 1927 |
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