The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved is an American temperance play first performed on February 12, 1844. 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 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).
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The original play
In New York City, P.T. Barnum presented it at his American Museum in a run of over 100 performances. 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."
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. 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."
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. 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 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 Cribbs 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).
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.
Another version of the play, adapted by Richard Mansfield Dickinson, has been performed every Saturday night since November 14, 1953, at the Spotlight Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the company touts this as the longest-running stage production in America. (For comparison, The Mousetrap has been running in the West End since 1952.) The show's longevity earned the Tulsa Spotlight Theatre recognition on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
A musical adaptation of the play by the British writer Brian J. Burton, The Drunkard or Down With the Demon Drink, was published in 1968 and has been performed several times since.
The Drunkard returned to Broadway in July 1959—while the show was still running in Los Angeles—with new songs by on-stage pianist Robert Proctor and lyricist Caroline Kellogg. A 1961 revival in Kansas City was presented at the intimate Bandbox Theatre, which accommodated 125 patrons.
An off-Broadway run of the play was produced at the Metropolitan Playhouse in New York City in 2010.
The Drunkard Song
The 1933 revival of the play featured an old song about a maiden's lost love. When the play became an instant hit, the song caught on and became known as The Drunkard Song. It was recorded under this title by Rudy Vallee; his first attempt failed when one of the band members made a rude "raspberry" noise. Vallee broke down and laughed uncontrollably during the last part of the song. The orchestra went along with him anyway and finished the tune, with everyone certain that the take wouldn't be released. Vallee then recorded the song more soberly. Edward (Ted) Wallerstein, president of Okeh Records, sent Vallee a test pressing of the "laughing" take, accompanied by a note: "What do you say we let the public have this one? The 'slip-up' makes the record much funnier." Vallee agreed, and Okeh pressed a "plain white label" version of The Drunkard Song with facsimiles of Wallerstein's and Vallee's handwriting across the label. Radio stations and record shops, especially in college towns, snapped it up and it became an underground hit.
The song ran into legal trouble when it was revived, because 15 different publishers assumed it was in the public domain. Variety commented that "the publishing trade, stirred to action by the revival of an old tune over the air, flocks to run it off the press without first finding out if the song is protected by copyright." Only one of the 15 publishers, M. M. Cole of Chicago, bothered to check, and found that the song was composed in May 1883 by William Hills, and that Hills had renewed his copyright in March 1911. Cole bought the publishing rights from the composer's widow, but neglected to secure the "performance and mechanical rights" (encompassing live performances, radio, and recordings). A second publisher, Louis Bernstein, bought those rights, and made a deal with Cole for Bernstein to become the publisher of record. The song was now officially known by a new title, taken from the lyrics: There Is a Tavern in the Town.
W. C. Fields adopted the song as his informal theme when he appeared on network radio in the 1930s and 1940s.
Plot
Act 1 opens on a lovely rural cottage occupied by the tenants Mrs. Wilson and her daughter Mary. They are terrified of losing the cottage because they are unable to make regular payments and they are speaking to Lawyer Cribbs who insists they will because the new landlord, Edward Middleton, is not as generous as his father was. Cribbs is lying to them because he is managing the estate of Edward's late father and has an opportunity to sell the cottage and land for quite a healthy sum. However, when Edward meets Mary he falls in love with her and they get married. Also in act 1 there is a scene between Edward's foster brother William and Miss Spindle who is in love with Edward.
Act 2 begins with a furious Cribbs trying to get revenge on Edward for thwarting his sale by testing the jealous Miss Spindle to see if she might have a case against Edward. Upon discovering she has nothing of substance he switches tactics and decides that since Edward has been known to drink some in the past, perhaps he can be made to drink too much. Edward and Mary have a daughter now, young Julia, but that doesn't stop Cribbs. He convinces Edward to drink too much brandy at the local tavern and then spreads the rumor that Edward has fallen and is a no-good drunk. On the night that Edward first returns to the cottage drunk, Mrs. Wilson is found dead and Edward blames himself. He flees the cottage and runs to Boston (New York in later scripts).
Act 3 Starts with Cribbs finding Edward in the city to gloat and enact another money making scheme. Cribbs wants the fallen Edward to forge the name of one Arden Rencelaw, a wealthy philanthropist, in exchange for money to fuel his drinking habits. Showing goodness still, Edward refuses, but goes off to continue drinking in the city. In desperate search for William, Mary and Julia have also gone to the city. They are starving and cold when Cribbs stumbles upon them and tries to have his way with Mary. Luckily, William shows up at the perfect time to stop the assault, and then he swears to help find his foster brother.
William finds Edward at the top of Act 4 and along with Arden Rencelaw's help he convinces Edward to return to his family and stop wallowing in self pity. There is a happy family reunion for the Middletons. Before this happens, though, another complication arises as it is discovered that Cribbs forged Mr. Rencelaw's signature himself and is skipping town with $5,000 of his money.