MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Turnabout’ a Celebration of an L.A. Theater

Dan Bessie’s “Turnabout” (Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Sunset 5 through Oct. 24), a delightful one-hour documentary on the Turnabout Theater and the multitalented people who ran it, calls attention to a cherished Los Angeles institution.

Between 1941 and 1956 puppeteer and performer Harry Burnett, composer and lyricist Forman Brown and business manager and assistant puppeteer Roddy Brandon, aided by director-performer Dorothy Neumann, ran the Turnabout Theater on North La Cienega Boulevard.

You would enter the theater building, which still stands, through an open passageway to a large, inviting patio, behind which was an auditorium filled with old streetcar seats. You would first be treated to a puppet show, an original musical comedy, and then flip the back of your seat to watch, after intermission, a revue, which for nearly 12 years was headed by the inimitable Elsa Lanchester.

Mime Lotte Goslar was another mainstay, with Burnett and Neumann participating in the sketches, along with other regulars. Guest artists ranged from Marais and Miranda, the South African singing team, to vaudeville’s Duncan Sisters, and even, if memory serves, to Gilda Gray, legendary shimmy dancer of the ‘20s. None of us fortunate enough to have been to the Turnabout is likely to have forgotten it.

“Turnabout” is a great deal more than a reminder of how sophisticated live entertainment in Los Angeles actually could be 40 or 50 years ago. It is the story of how three men, who happened to be gay at a time when being out was not a realistic possibility, managed to share their lives and their talents to forge remarkably creative accomplishments.

Burnett, who died in May at 92, and Brown, also born in 1900, were second cousins who briefly became lovers while at the University of Michigan. They were founders of the Yale Puppeteers. Subsequently, Brown would meet Brandon (he died in 1985), whom he describes as the “love of my life.” After much touring, with two stints at theaters in the newly restored Olvera Street during the ‘30s, the three finally settled in Hollywood, realizing their dream of owning a theater where they could stage both puppet shows and revues.

Unfortunately, none of Burnett’s puppet shows were preserved on film in their entirety, but we do get to see Lanchester, from her own memorable one-woman show of the ‘60s, sing one of the hundreds of songs Brown wrote for her, and also Goslar in performance. Best of all Burnett, who has a clown’s wistful face, and the durably handsome Forman, perform their favorite numbers along with sharing with us their reminiscences. Their lives have been rich in associations, attracting, at crucial moments, mentors as diverse as Robert Frost, Marie Dressler and Dorothy Chandler, who saw to it that the Turnabout was filled during its final two weeks, and fans from Einstein to Chaplin and Garbo. (Burnett provided singing lessons for the theater’s cleaning woman--and she grew up to be the folk singer Odetta.) We’re never told why the Turnabout closed, which is all the more curious because Burnett and Brown continued working long after.

Brown, who recently has received fresh acclaim for his landmark 1934 autobiographical gay novel “Better Angel,” which he wrote under a pseudonym, is more open about being gay than Burnett was. Indeed, filmmaker Dan Bessie at times emphasizes their sexual orientation rather heavy-handedly when he might better have explored what constituted a gay sensibility in their work. In any event, “Turnabout” (Times-rated Family) is a charmer, just as the theater and its shows were.

‘Turnabout’

A Shire Films presentation. Writer-producer-director Dan Bessie. Cinematographers Matt Burgess, Victor Nelli, Robb LaRussa, Edvardas Yurchis. Editor Helen Garvy. Sound Susumu Tokunow, Richard Strickland. Running time: 1 hour.

MPAA-rated Family (suitable for all ages).