Word: premis
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Strange and wonderful are the premieres (pronounced "premiérs") of Hollywood: the trappings of publicity; the lights and decorations painting the gaudy lily of the Carthay Circle Theatre (where the big premieres are held); the pushing, stargazing crowds; the troops of real live stars ("I seen him! Didja see her?"). This week Manhattan sees a premiere stranger and more wonderful than any of Hollywood's. The celebrities present, the publicity, the lights on the marquee, may be lost in the blare and blaze of Broadway. But strangeness and wonder belong to the show itself. It is Walt Disney...
Asked after the première if The Notorious Elinor Lee was going to show some more, Producer Julian bridled. "Some more?" he snapped. "It's been showing all day since 11 o'clock this morning. This 9 o'clock show is the only one that was the world premiere...
Last week the revised Geneva had its world première in Toronto. However topical, the play is not so much straight political satire as one more Shavian exercise in deflating the human race, one more proof that the world's most famed vegetarian is intellectually a cannibal. Shaw's mischief-hungry mind first conceived of Geneva when he learned that The League of Nations possessed something called the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. When he decided that the Committee showed few signs of intellect and fewer of cooperation, he licked his chops and fell to. In Geneva...
Author West starts off well, with wit, a nimble imagination, shrewd slants on the social roots of Hollywood's crackpottery. But well before the last scene-a world première which turns into a savage riot-his intended tragedy turns into screwball grotesque, and groggy Author West can Barely distinguish fantastic shadows from fantastic substance. At a similar stage of Tying to get Hollywood on paper, William Saroyan before him merely folded his arms, admitted with rare humility that Hollywood had given him "the smiling heart of an idiot and the good nature of a high-class phony...
...keeping with the present Hollywood urge to return to the mise en scéne, Young Mr. Lincoln had a world première on Decoration Day in the Fox-Lincoln Theatre in Springfield. Two trainloads of guest critics, Hollywood columnists and cinema stars attended, Springfield fat-purses paid $3.30 for orchestra seats, the rest paid the usual 40?. All heard Negro Contralto Marian Anderson, hired by Producer Zanuck for $6,000, sing America. Only complaint Springfield had against the film was that Abe Lincoln arrived in Springfield not on muleback, but on horseback...