The air, ladled by scores of cardboard fans, washed about the tiny Clinton (N.J.) Music Hall like warm soup. A maple branch that had grown in through an open window drooped damply over the audience.

In 1933 fluttery Comedian Edward Everett Horton made a walloping twelve-week success of Springtime for Henry in Los Angeles. In June 1939, with no cinema commitments to tie him down, he decided to ...