Longacre Theatre, (9/24/1928 - circa. 1/1929)
Opening: Sep 24, 1928
Closing: Jan 1929 Total Performances: 136
Description: A play in three acts
Setting: Outter office of the Pioneer Studio, Hollywood; Jarnegan’s office at the Metropolis Studio; Leedman’s home
Opening Night Production Credits
Produced by Charles K. Gordon and Paul Streger
Written by Charles Beahan and Garrett Fort; Based on the novel by Jim Tully
Directed by Richard Bennett
Opening Night Cast
Guido Alexander — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Mabel Allyn — Mrs. Crossman
Edith Arnold — Cherry Lindal
Hooper L. Atchley — Nathan Leedman
James H. Bell — Jimmy Fallon
Joan Bennett (Broadway debut) — Daisy Carol
Richard Bennett — Jack Jarnegan
S.K. Benyon — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Elmer Berlab — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Peggy Blair — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Eleanor Cabot — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Robert Cain — Edward Bernard
Eddie Court — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Mindelle D’Or — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Louise Dear — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Claudia Delys — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Lucy Dietz — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Moss Fleisig — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Velma Forrest — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Lillian Gibson — Dancer
Wynne Gibson — Pauline Clare
Violet Gray — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Maynard Holmes — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Betty James — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Betty Jordan — Maid
Beatrice Kay — Velma
Jack Klendon — Herb
Samuel Levine — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Marian Martin — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Dennie Moore — Sally
Margaret Mower — Dorothy Chester
Helen Nafe — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Robert B. Nelson — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Henry O’Neill — Patsy Brady
Polly Peyton — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Walter Plinge — Watchman
Angela Raigh — Nurse
Jack Reiger — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Frank Ross — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Frederick Rudin — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Harry Schaefer — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Renee Shepard — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Lionel Stander — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Ruthelma Stevens — Alice Toren
James R. Waters — Jacob Isaacs
Ralph Willard — Guest at Leedman’s Party
Dorothy Young — Guest at Leedman’s Party
From TIME Magazine, Monday, Oct. 08, 1928 “New Plays in Manhattan”:
Jarnegan. To Hollywood, the “bums’ paradise,” where there is “a pushover on every corner,” comes Jack Jarnegan, a crude and noisy dynamo, full of boxcar bombast. Soon he is a director of cinemasterpieces. He confesses that on his arrival in the loud metropolis he slept in a flop house in company with other tramps; now, on the contrary, he has a fine house where there are eleven bedrooms and a Jane in every one. Richard Bennett plays Jarnegan with guttural roars, hob-nails, stubble-beard and a chest expansion. All this is profane and exciting.
Jarnegan is successful with the loose ladies of Los Angeles but there is one, a demure 16-year-old with “something in her eyes,” whom he wished only to make into a star. When she dies of the effects of an operation, Jarnegan grows furious. He visits the mansion where an executive is giving a party; here, he states convincingly that the executive is a murderer, that the mother of a celebrity runs “a two-dollar house in Seattle”; then he shakes the rival director who has defiled the 16-year-old star. This is also profane and exciting.
Jarnegan is then a profane and exciting melodrama, though one which retains, despite the severe directorial auspices of George Abbott, many touches of Jim Tully’s soapy sentimentality. Richard Bennett does most of the acting; Joan Bennett, his daughter and the sister of famed Constance Bennett, is beautiful and well cast as the 16-year-old unfortunate. The truest thing in Jarnegan is the performance, provided by Wynne Gibson, of a dipsomaniac star arriving at the peak of her intoxication; hearing noises in the night, she surmises that the owls are after her; with puzzled insolence she abuses an extra girl and wraps herself wildly in a black lace shawl.
