The Exposition Four showed a tendency to overdo and lingered a trifle too long for their own good. That the boys are “there” as a quartet and for straight singing there can be no question, but their efforts at comedy are lacking and the elimination of two of the encores would have been more is the way of discretion.
Mlle Nana, scheduled to start the evening’s entertainment, failed to appear and was replaced by Bohn and Bohn, a man and woman, applying a hand-to-hand routine that sufficed for them, while playing the smaller houses recently, and which allowed them to pass nicely as an initial bit. Only doing six minutes, the couple did no stalling and made a few twists, by the girl, stand out.
Bosseye Clifford started the show, but didn’t make the house forget the downpour outside. Her posings showed her pouring water from vases in no less than four different vases in no less than four different vases. She sure wears a classy union suit and shows more of it than ever.
Dick Duffey and Hazel Mann found a ready market for their very neat and brightly dialogued “Via Telephone,” offered in No. 3 spot. This turn isn’t designed for a comedy punch. But there is plenty of humor. Both the players are neat workers. Neither can sing, but they don’t make any serious efforts at that and their turn gets a standard rating.
The show was classy but quiet. Comedy was missed until Harry and Emma Sharrock brought on their sparkling personalities and happy dispositions to open intermission. From their entrance down to the old-fashioned hit they registered, the house was all smiles. Maybe an extra laugh came when Miss Sharrock parked her feet on the “ballyhoo box” which has a broken board and cracked loudly.
The Moore and Megley production, starring Corinne Tilton in “A Chameleon Revue,” closed intermission excellently. The billing still mentions the offering as a cycle in five verses, but since the rhyme is no longer programmed the billing line is a bit ambiguous. The producers show care in their management of the act. The costumes are fresh in appearance and little details are well taken care of with the whole turn spelling neatness. Miss Tilton’s work again stood out clearly and her souse stood up as the bets bit of its kind in months. The revue moved at right tempo and drew hearty applause at the curtain.
Louise Gunning, the light opera prima donna, next offered five selections. She had her leader to thank for receiving an encore call. The Palace audience was passing her up after the operatic selection and were ready to let her pass on when the leader pulled up the tempo of the men in the pit and secured enough for the closing selection. It was “Mighty Lak a Rose,” and it is by far the best suited to her voice of anything in the repertoire offered.
A.C. Astor, the ventriloquist, fared much better at the hands of the Palace audience than he did last week at the Riverside. There were two reasons: The first is that Astor seems to have speeded his act a little over the preceding week and the other that he could be heard in the Palace, whereas a great deal of his material was lost in the big uptown house.
The hit of the performance came with the advent of Eddie Leonard just before the interval. Leonard held stage for almost half an hour, did two encore number, made a little speech, and still the audience remained seated and asked for more. Finally “Roly Boly Eyes,” as a third encore, let the minstrel favorite get away. That dancing boy Stewart and Leonard has in his act and the showmanship which the star displays in presenting him is going to make vaudeville audiences sit up and take notice. The young man is a phenom as a stepper, and the routines that he showed won the house for him.
The entire show was fairly good entertainment. The Three Bobs, in the opening spot, were really one of the big outstanding hits of the show. The trio are providing one of the real novelties in opening acts with their trained bull terrier and crow. The bird and dog make the act a sure thing from an applause standpoint, and the club swinging that the boys exhibit earned heavy applause at the conclusion of the offering. The turn really stopped the show.
