The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved is an American temperance play first performed on February 12, 1844."The Drunkard: Author's preface (1850 edition) in Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-media Archive on the University of Virginia websiteWilliam Smith, The Drunkard. Literature House/Gregg Press, 1972. A drama in five acts, it was perhaps the most popular play produced in the United States until the dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin "The Drunkard" in Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-media Archive on the University of Virginia website premiered in 1853.
By 1933 the play's theme and theatrics had become antiquated, lending the show to parody: the florid dialogue would be delivered as written, but exaggerated deliberately for comic effect. The Drunkard enjoyed new popularity as a comedy in live performances and on screen, and especially as a record-breaking stage revival (1933-1959).
The original play In New York City, P.T. Barnum presented it at his American Museum in a run of over 100 performances.Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 815. . It was among the first of the American temperance plays, and remained the most popular of them until it was eclipsed in 1858 by T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.
The primary writer of the play was William Henry Smith (1806–1872), who also directed and starred in the original production in Boston in the 1844–45 season. Smith was the stage manager at Moses Kimball's Boston Museum, where the play was originally produced. An anonymous collaborator (credited as "A Gentleman") co-wrote the script. A commonly held theory identifies Unitarian minister John Pierpont as the unnamed collaborator. Pierpont's motive to remain anonymous may have been rooted in the desire to avoid affiliation with the theatre, which was considered a taboo subject in the Christian community.
The play ran for an unprecedented 140 performances in the Boston Museum's 1844–45 season, sometimes running three times a day. This was astonishing at the time. The success of the play led to the beginning of the temperance movement's success. The Drunkard "was presented in the 'large room' of the City Hotel in Brooklyn instead of the regular weekly lecture on temperance. Then, in 1850, it had its first Manhattan run at the then National Theatre," reported a historian in Variety. "Thereafter, The Drunkard joined Uncle Tom's Cabin as a standard in America's storehouse and remained so until the turn of the century. Hypocrisies of Prohibition made it a natural for revival at the McDougal St. Playhouse on Dec. 30, 1929."Variety, July 8, 1959, p. 93.
The long-running revival
Little-theater producer Galt Bell mounted a revival of The Drunkard at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles. The show opened on July 6, 1933, and was an immediate success. Bell presented The Drunkard as an audience-participation show, with the audience supplied with free sandwiches and beer—themselves an attraction during the Depression—and urged to hiss the villain and cheer the hero. Bell's festive approach ensured steady audiences and repeat customers. "Tuesday evening we witnessed the 439th performance of The Drunkard at the Theatre Mart. What a record, and what a show!", enthused the trade publisher Harry Burns.Harry Burns, Hollywood Filmograph, Sept. 22, 1934, p. 3. Mildred Ilse of the production team (who later took over from Galt Bell as producer) noted that the audience was reluctant to go home after the curtain rang down, so musical and vaudeville acts were added as an olio to conclude each evening. "Jan Duggan's song 'Gathering Up the Shells from the Seashore' is still one of the highlights of the olio which follows the performance of The Drunkard," reported the Los Angeles Times. "It is one of Hollywood's favorite tunes."Variety, "Old Song Found Feature of Olio at Theatre Mart", Mar. 11, 1935, p. 17.
The play became a popular venue for movie people. "When a customer has made five visits to The Drunkard he receives a gold star. Lyle Talbot, W. C. Fields, John Barrymore, Mae West, Lewis Stone, and Gloria Swanson are proud owners of the stars," reported Picture Play.Picture Play, Sept. 1936, p. 63. Jan Duggan said in the same report, "If our audience doesn't hiss and shout and pound tables with its beer mugs, our performance inevitably begins to sag. Our best audiences are picture or stage people. Claudette Colbert came for the first time the other evening. The entire cast concentrated on her, trying to make her laugh. When she did, our evening was a success!"
W. C. Fields loved the show and wanted to make a film version. He arranged for Paramount Pictures to hire members of the Los Angeles stage company: Jan Duggan, Ruth Marion, Samuel Ethridge, Larry Grenier, and William Blatchford.The Hollywood Reporter, Apr. 21, 1934, p. 3. The villain of The Drunkard, actor Henry Kleinbach, was also signed; Fields kept Kleinbach on hand during the filming. Fields would be appearing in the Drunkard part of the film, but hadn't decided which role he would take. Fields finally took Kleinbach's role of Squire CribbsHenry Brandon interviewed by Scott MacGillivray, 1990. in the film version, The Old Fashioned Way (1934). Fields especially enjoyed working with Jan Duggan as a comedy foil; her "Seashore" song was featured in The Old Fashioned Way and she appeared in five of his films, as well as dozens of other features and shorts. Henry Kleinbach enjoyed a long career as a movie character actor (as Henry Brandon), as did Samuel Ethridge (as Sam Flint).
The advance buzz surrounding the production of The Old Fashioned Way prompted a revival of the original play in New York. It ran for 277 performances at the American Music Hall, through November 1934.The Internet Broadway Database.
In 1935, James Murray and Clara Kimball Young starred in a low-budget feature, The Drunkard; the play is presented as part of the film's plot, in which two theatrical producers cast their needy relatives in the show.Boxoffice, June 8, 1935: p. 29. Murray's casting in The Drunkard was ironic, because his promising screen career as a leading man had plummeted with his own addiction to alcohol. The film was produced by Louis Weiss's Stage and Screen Productions. According to archivist Kit Parker, who now owns the Weiss library, Weiss intended to offer the feature as a roadshow attraction, with the actors making personal appearances in theaters across America.Kit Parker, "Weiss Bros.-Artclass and Beyond: The Sound Era", kitparkerfilms.com, Nov. 17, 2012. The ambitious plan was foiled by economics and logistics, and the film went out through ordinary, independent distribution channels. The feature film exists in condensed form, as a two-reel segment in Joseph E. Levine's nostalgic anthology feature Gaslight Follies (1945); the full-length version of The Drunkard is no longer available because Weiss sold it outright to Levine, so it is no longer in the Weiss library.
In 1940 Alan Mowbray, Richard Cromwell, Anita Louise, and Buster Keaton starred in another film parody, The Villain Still Pursued Her,Charles P. Mitchell (2004). Filmography of Social Issues: A Reference Guide. Greenwood Press. . p. 4. with Billy Gilbert in a spoken prologue, urging the movie audience to hiss the villain and cheer the hero in the tradition of the stage revival.
Meanwhile The Drunkard continued its long and prosperous stage presentation. As of 1945 "Drunkard still has the original producer and four members of the original cast, including Jan Duggan", wrote Frank Scully in Variety. "Practically everybody who is anybody (and in Hollywood, who isn't?) has seen the show. Efforts to put on versions of The Drunkard elsewhere have met only with mild success. But The Drunkard still enjoys the longest run in America."Frank Scully, Variety, Mar. 21, 1945, p. 2.
In 1953 the show had been running for 20 years and 7,572 performances, when producer Mildred Ilse reformatted it as a musical with the title changed to The Wayward Way ("without missing a performance", commented Variety). The revised version opened on September 3, 1953, with 12 new songs by the team of Lorne Huycke and Bill Howe.Variety, Sept. 2, 1953, p. 1. The new musical treatment was a refreshing change: "It is an innovation that will catch on with the tourist trade," wrote syndicated columnist Hubbard Keavy. "About half of the audience will consist of out-of-towners who rate The Drunkard as a must-see like Catalina, the Farmer's Market, and any movie star, and the other half of residents like me who've seen it from 10 to 25 times. We regulars take a proprietary interest in the performance."Hubbard Keavy (syndicated, Associated Press), Sept. 9, 1953. Hollywood columnist Bob Thomas raved about the new musical: "It is terrific entertainment, as good as many Broadway shows."Bob Thomas (syndicated, Associated Press), Jan. 6, 1955. The Hollywood Reporter agreed: "Jan Duggan's entr'acte trilling is thrilling."Maurice Stoller, The Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 11, 1953, p. 5.
But the show was so familiar and popular as The Drunkard that both shows ran concurrently, with The Wayward Way presented every night except Thursday, and The Drunkard reserved for Thursdays only.Los Angeles Times, Jan. 3, 1954, p. D2. Columnist Keavy even commented on The Drunkards biggest fan: "Seymour Hess, an extrovert whose business is reviving ailing business firms, was there for the 7,816th performance and his 183rd. After Hess paid his way into 150 performances, producer Mildred Ilse gave him a gold lifetime pass. Now he gets in for free, but always takes guests. Last night he got in for free but bought 48 tickets for his guests." True to Keavy's prediction, The Drunkard was indeed listed as a popular tourist attraction among other California landmarks like Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm.Fredda Dudley Balling, "Vacation Wonderland", Photoplay, May 1956, p. 73.
At the show's 26th-anniversary performance on July 8, 1959, producer Mildred Ilse announced to the audience that The Drunkard would be closing in three months. She and her husband would be retiring to a ranch in Texas. Brad Williams of the Los Angeles Times was there: "The announcement that the end was in sight was first greeted with stunned silence, some of the most avid fans began to weep. Cries of 'No! No!' rang throughout the theater. Probably for the first time in the history of the 26-year performance, the audience left the theater sadly."Brad Williams, Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1959, p. B1. Ilse explained to Times reporter Bud Lembke: "When the fire department decreed that we'd have to reduce our seating from 340 to 260, it just wasn't worthwhile to continue."Mildred Ilse to Bud Lembke, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 18, 1959, p. B1. On October 17, 1959, after 9,477 performances—with Jan Duggan in most of them and comedian Neely Edwards in almost all of them since 1933 -- The Drunkard rang down its final curtain with a champagne toast and a cheering audience, concluding an outstanding run.
Other stage adaptations The Goldenrod, "the last of the Mississippi showboats", was still presenting old stock-company perennials for its passengers' entertainment. The Drunkard was dusted off in 1945, with juvenile performer Kathy Nolan in the role of little Mary Wilson. Nolan was already a stage veteran, and appeared in Goldenrod shows for 12 years.NBC Trade Releases, "Who's Who in Peter Pan", Jan. 5, 1959, p. 9.