Murray Hill

[Leslie Howard pictured in Film Weekly, September 30, 1932]

Most people remember Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes from Gone With The Wind (1939) or as Sir Percy Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935). What most people don't know is that Howard was also a writer and had many articles and stories published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and many trade magazines. Howard's first published story appeared in The Penny Weekly when he was in his early teens. But Howard didn't limit himself to stories for magazines. He was also a playwright. Two of the first plays he produced, staged and appeared in were of his own composition: The True Artist—of which little is known—and Deception—the story of a private detective on his quest to track down stolen jewels.

Howard's most famous play, though, was Murray Hill. According to Leslie Ruth Howard in her book A Quite Remarkable Father, Murray Hill was a play her father worked on for many years. Howard was constantly revising the play, changing its title each time—Higginbotham, Tweedie, Tweedie Gets Married, The Man From Crumbles, A Farce In Three Acts, Collecting Cousins, Tell Me the Truth and Elizabeth Sleeps Out—until he finally settled on the title Murray Hill.

Murray Hill, according to Ronald Howard in Trivial Fond Records, was named for a "respectable locality of seedy retirement in New York where the action takes place—the principal characters were three maiden ladies who lived, concealed from the world, behind the shutters of an ancient, 'brownstone' house. Totally divorced from contemporary time, they existed oblivious of 'speakeasies', short skirts or 'The Charleston'."

Leslie Howard showed the play to anyone and everyone who was willing to read it, including his friend Scott Fitzgerald. He even read it aloud at family gatherings. After many years he finally found someone willing to produce the play, E. E. Clive, and the play went into rehearsals in Boston at the Copley Square Theatre in August, 1927, with Howard directing and appearing as "Wrigley." Howard and Genevieve Tobin were to be the guest players. The play opened on August 13th and received very favorable reviews by the Boston critics, so favorable that Lee Shubert sent his agent to see the play. The agent must have liked what he saw because the Shuberts offered to produce the play at their theater in New York.

Murray Hill was originally scheduled to run in Boston for two weeks but because of its popularity continued to play there for a full ten weeks. A New York company was formed with the plan to bring the play to the Shubert's Maxine Elliott Theatre in New York on September 19th. Howard and Tobin left the play in Boston at some point after September 3rd to take the play on out-of-town tryouts to the Shuberts' theaters in Wilmington and Philadelphia. The play was very popular in those cities as well.

[Click here to read an article Howard wrote for Vanity Fair titled "The Broadway Première" on how out-of-town tryouts can ruin a play.]

Due to various delays Murray Hill finally opened at the Bijou Theatre in New York on September 29th with Leslie Howard again in the rôle of Wrigley and again directing. This time the critics were not so amused. Although Howard received favorable reviews for his performance and some critics found parts of the play witty, the play was criticized as being "funny at unimportant moments, not nearly funny enough when it should be funniest. And quite often it seems merely silly."(1) However, there were dissenting opinions: "Howard...employs familiar material turned and twisted so well that we are almost convinced we have never met it before."(2) But most reviewers were not kind, some even nasty, stating the play was "slovenly written"(3) and calling the play "a wreck" and "a bore"(4) One unappreciative critic, who knew and liked Howard on a personal level, commented on how the audience must have been somehow "uncommonly friendly" because they seemed to actually enjoy the play.(3)

Howard must have been discouraged. The play closed after only 28 performances and he sold the rights to it under the title Elizabeth Sleeps Out. What happened next says a lot about why it is never good to judge a play by its critic. Elizabeth Sleeps Out went on to be a favorite of stock and repertory companies for decades. I have been investigating the history of Murray Hill, aka Elizabeth Sleeps Out, for eight hours a day every day for the last week and am only just now coming near the end of all the newspaper articles written about this play.

Murray Hill was performed as Collecting Cousins in Tunbridge Wells and Eastbourne (both in England) in 1928 and as Tell Me the Truth in London at two different theaters for a total of 64 performances also in 1928 and as Elizabeth Sleeps Out in just under 40 cities—at last count—from the early 1930s through the late 1950s, with some productions being extended over and over again. The 1933 production at the Hollywood Playhouse was continually extended from two weeks to a total of three months. But, Howard was embarrassed by the play, or at least claimed to be so. When it reappeared as Elizabeth Sleeps Out on Broadway in 1936 he actually apologized to New Yorkers for being its author. Howard would like to have had the production shut down, but having sold the rights to the play there was nothing he could do. That production, however, was poorly presented and somewhat suspect—non-union actors and crew had been hired and when the show folded no one got paid, the producers disappeared—and the show closed on its own after 44 performances.

But Howard had no reason to be embarrassed. The play served as a vehicle for many up and coming actors and for older actors who were retired to regional theater, and obviously brought pleasure and happiness to a lot of theatergoers who paid good money to see it throughout the years.


Sources:

(1) Arthur Pollock, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 30, 1927
(2) The Enquirer, Cincinnati, October 9, 1927
(3) J. Brooks Atkinson, "The Play," The New York Times, September 30, 1927
(4) The Pittsburgh Press, October 9, 1927


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