Louis Robie’s Knickerbockers

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Features Frank Manning, Joe Dixon, Ben Neff and H. K. Morton. Manning and Dixon, as Hebrew and German, are indifferently skillful comedians in the pieces, but in the olio they scored the hit of the evening with Matthews and Ashley's old skit "A Smash-Up in Chinatown." Alice Cheslyn leads four of the five numbers in the first part, besides doing a singing act in the olio and holding down a principal part in the burlesque. On the other hand, Gyde Darrow has almost nothing to do in the first part, does not appear in the olio at all, and puts all her work Into the latter half of the burlesque. Flo Elliot also came forward in tights at the finale looking particularly well by the burlesque standard, but her attempts to read lines were not conspicuously successful. Zela De Marr did a slow step during the number "My Abyssinian Maid," which she led very nicely, and Lillian Wright and two boys gave an interesting hard shoe dancing act in the olio, but that was all. Of the minor women, May Temple did a "slavey" that brought her unusual distinction for a part of the sort. The California Trio (two women and a man) do very nicely. Elliott and Neff have a medley, ringing in half a hundred popular songs in an exchange of dialogue. The house seemed to like this.
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Variety 12:4 (10/03/1908)