Shirley: Visions of Reality

Voilà Mademoiselle, votre chambre.

Merci Monsieur. Bonne nuit.

Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle.

mhh... these lights...

at least from a French hotel

expect something a bit better.

I couldn't imagine Paris,

now I can't even imagine Greenwich Village.

Another week here,

another week on the sea,

then back home to New York.

Maybe the trip across the ocean will help me get adjusted again.

Where is that program?

S.S. De Grasse

Commandant Jules Chabot

De 8 heures 45 à 9 heures 45

au Grand Salon

Concert sous la direction de M. -

ah...

Monsieur David,

Violoniste.

Vendredi, 11 septembre 1931.

Programme:

Martha

Ouverture

Flotow

Romance en Fa

Tchaikovsky

Danse Norvégienne No 3

Grieg

La Navarraise

Massenet.

At 10 p.m in the Salon de Thé:

Dancing.

How strange?

The dancing is in English.

Se glisser dans ton ombre à la faveur de la nuit.

Suivre tes pas, ton ombre à la fenêtre.

Cette ombre à la fenêtre c'est toi,

ce n'est pas une autre...

...c'est toi...

N'ouvre pas cette fenêtre.

...mhh...

Ferme les yeux.

The Group Theatre, which has been rehearsing

through the Summer at Dover Furnace, New York,

feels that its first production of the season

will be ready for local showing about the third week in September.

Benito Mussolini has come to the conclusion

that neither the existing 'Marcia Reale'

nor the Fascist fighting song 'Giovinezza'

is good enough to be counted as the Italian national hymn.

An estimated 25000 theater-goers,

actors, directors, stagehands, the majority in New York,

are displaced by the effects of the depression

I don't want to hurt him

but I just need to work and live together with the Group Theater.

If we have a relationship off-stage,

wouldn't that be reflected in our work?

Sunday night.

People are still going out,

enjoying themselves in cinemas, theaters.

But how could I go to the movies tonight?

To see 'Scarface'.

I am scared enough of reality as it is.

Should I feel guilty?

Weekends don't exist for journalists.

He even worked today.

How does he manage to enjoy himself,

being confronted day after day with the most horrible stories

based on other peoples fate?

People, like our neighbor.

Every morning he leaves the house with his briefcase

pretending to go to work as usual.

And then I see him

standing in one of those bread lines

waiting for leftover food

in his grey suit,

his tie removed.

Theater should deal with the tragedy of daily life.

Not the other way round.

It's not because of him that I am moving out.

All preparations for Danzig's defense have been completed,

and the city is now awaiting events,

tense but calm,

despite the fact that almost all believe war between Poland and Germany

is imminent.

It is not the British Cabinet alone

that will sit today to decide the answer to Chancellor Hitler.

Cooling northeast winds brought relief to the city yesterday

after twenty-seven days of high temperatures and high humidity.

Get outta here!

Before I crack your face again.

I'd kill a guy for looking at me that way you are now

Yeah,

you killed, all right?

You're a murderer!

You're a butcher, sure.

Why don't you let me forget you?

Ain't I got troubles enough with the cops

and newspapers bothering me

and Johnny and Martha?

What's the matter with them?

None of your business!

Just leave us alone

you never brought nothing but trouble!

Just stay away and leave us alone and

die!

But leave us alone!

I prefer the role of an usherette.

Hollywood films with social content

how perverse!

$165,000 for the film rights,

paid right after Samuel Goldwyn

saw Sydney Kingsley's 'Dead End' at the Belasco Theater.

Eleanor Roosevelt came to see us three times.

She even made it the first command performance in the White House

presented at the request of the president.

Stars, stars, stars.

Hollywood is a dead end.

Everybody comes back.

Like Clifford,

after 'Waiting for Lefty' and 'Awake and Sing!'

Hollywood offered $4,000 a week.

He resisted at first but then

'Paradise Lost' ran into trouble at the box office

so he went.

A communist in Hollywood.

A screenwriter doesn't have to sacrifice art and ideas for his work.

People can be given a sense of problems, a heightened perception of life,

and at the same time be entertained and even gripped.

Nonsense!

Hollywood corrupts people.

Good thing he came back.

'Golden Boy' was back to the roots...

and successful.

But now it starts again.

Two failures and financial problems are enough,

and then the cohesiveness of the group begins to crumble.

Hollywood is calling again...

or even worse...

we are calling Hollywood:

Please send some more stars...

send Silvia Sidney.

We need her to enhance box office appeal.

Where are the fundamental ideals?

I had to leave the group.

I prefer the role of an usherette.

No, don't!

What's the matter? I ain't good enough for you?

Oh no, it ain't that.

You know Frenchie, I never forgot you.

Go on, you and all your fancy dames, where do I come up?

They don't mean nothing - Of course, what's her name?

Nothing, she ain't got nothing. None of them have!

Remember that night on the roof?

Yeah, I remember.

Sky was full of stars and I was full of dreamy ideas.

Yeah, me too.

What a couple of crazy kids we were

we were gonna get married!

I bought a ring.

I didn't have enough money to buy the license. Remember?

It seems like yesterday. We were talking about it right here.

Yesterday seems like a million years

The United States Army transport American Legion is scheduled to dock

at the Army Base in South Brooklyn at 1 p.m. today,

carrying 897 refugees from the war zones of Europe.

Leon Trotsky's body was reduced to ashes yesterday afternoon

in the crematorium attached to the Panteon civil cemetery.

Heavy German raids on various objectives in England

were carried on with hardly a pause into yesterdays night.

London suffered its most prolonged attack of the war.

She's gone for a snack and a drink with her boss.

Right now they were sitting in this bar

on the corner of Broadway and 52nd street,

talking to the polish barkeeper.

The subject was - as always and everywhere in those days -

the war in Europe.

Already a year ago

the invasion of Poland,

when the New York World's Fair reopened this spring,

the Polish and Czech pavilions were gone.

And on the 25th of June

the flag of the French pavilion was flying at half-mast.

Paris had fallen into the hands of Hitler

Wiener Blut Vienna Blood

this time will have taken on another meaning since the start of the war

and now music from the occupied city of Paris.

Music from a better time

That's her boss,

they just returned from the Bar.

She's in the bathroom reapplying her lipstick,

getting ready for the next scene as the secretary in this play.

Newspapers never sleep!

Steve has been telling me this for the last ten years.

Good thing they put me in the advertising department

so I don't have to deal with any kind of crime story or social drama.

I simply get too emotional

a result of the method acting, I guess.