New Monkeyshines in Manhattan

Laffing Room Only (book by Olsen & Johnson and Eugene Conrad; music & lyrics by Burton Lane; produced by the Messrs. Shubert and Olsen & Johnson), considering that its father was Sons o' Fun and its grandfather Hellzapoppin, is a little on the rational side. It has the family tic--love of firearms and mania for practical jokes; it casually flips a sausage in your lap, starts an uproar in the aisles, and sports a big, live brown bear. But either Laffing Room Only lacks the old lunacy, or the old lunacy lacks the lure it once had.

In any case, though dutifully dippy at intervals, Laffing Room Only is more often just a loud, vulgar Broadway revue--corn, slapstick and smut, with some fancy production numbers thrown in for size. The slapstick and smut are out of vaudeville's filing cabinet, and the bottom drawers at that. The production numbers, if easy to look at, are nothing to listen to. The corn, as usual, is served up home-style with the audience encouraged to compete for prizes, wave handkerchiefs, sing round songs, dance with chorines--as though they were paying for exercise as well as entertainment.

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