SOURCE: "Too Good Not to Be Better," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 143, No. 19, November 7, 1936, pp. 557-58.

Krutch was an American drama, literary, and social critic who wrote esteemed studies of Samuel Johnson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau. In the following review of Stage Door, he attributes both the strengths and weaknesses of the play to George S. Kaufman, and laments the fact that the play itself is far less intelligent than its many witty lines and gags.

It is unfair, of course, but anyone as good as George S. Kaufman must pay the penalty for not being a great deal better. He has paid it before and he will have to pay it again in connection with Stage Door which he has written in conjunction with Edna Ferber. Since the penalty generally includes an extremely profitable run, it is perhaps not too severe, and yet...