TIME (09/Feb/1942) - New Play in Manhattan
(c) Time (1942)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Clive Brook, John Van Druten, Patricia Hitchcock, Solitaire
New Play in Manhattan
Solitaire (adapted by John van Druten from Edwin Code's novel; produced by Dwight Deere Wiman) is a harmless piece of flimsy-whimsy about a poor little rich girl who makes friends with a kindly old tramp, visits him in his hobo jungle, coos over his tame rat, prattles on about Life. Her snobbish parents and his tougher fellow tramps whip up, between them, some lurid melodrama, but nothing that a final curtain can't cure.
High spot of the show is fat Movie Director Alfred Hitchcock's tiny 13-year-old daughter Pat who, never having been on a professional stage before, won rave notices for the delightful way she carried off her enormous role. Pat has no desire for a movie career but wants to be a "struggling artist" and live in a theatrical boarding house.