Evening star., 1945-04-13
BY PATRICIA SIMMONS

Despite the title of the picture We
would say it's the audience left hold.
ing the bag at the Capitol this week
Only possible excuse for the Free
Allen opus would have peen a re.
lease date to coincide with April !
and even then it wouldn't have beer
funny.
Wait minute-we did notice {
little audience reaction yesterday
1t was that scene where Fred Aller
plays recording Willed to him by
his uncle. Almost the instant tle
and crescendo squeals came forth
from the bobby-socks audience. II
vas the familiar voice of one known
affectionately as frankie AS soor
as Fred discovered his mistake anC
turned over the record things re-
turned to normal.
Maybe the mistake was in trying
to pin FredS strictly vaudeville
styled humor onto semblance of q
plot. In any case it was a mistake
On stage the comedian was funny
but F'red'S one stage appearance
Thursday afternoon, can't carry
ITS in the Bag" for the entire run
Aliens stage patter, yesterday, fol-
lowed his radio style, injecting some
dry but funny lines into a script
about wartime Washington. There's
nothing new about the food or local
room shortage but before the Cap
itol mike Allen put it across so that
no one cared.
Amazingly enough Hollywood
wasn't satisfied with simply mis-
using the talents of Allen. They
went ahead and casually dumped
overheard enough marquee names to
cast three or four musicals, two good
comedies and, at least, one mildly
upsetting thriller. Alphabetically
speaking we counted: Don Ameche
Jack Benny, Binny Barnes, William
Bendix, Robert Benchley, Jerry Co.
lonna, John Carradine, Victor
Moore and Rudy Vallee. Most of
these stars appear in short, stock Sc
quences looking pretty uneasy about
1t. BendlX as the namby-pamby
racketeer boss who innerlts the gang
from his mother and simply can't
stand the sound of a pistol shot
Is the only one who even slightly ap-
proaches the point of being funny.
X
A few good reasons why you might
want to skip Its in the Bag''-stay
away if you're allergic to fieas, pre-
cocious children, crackpot psychi-
artists, singing walters or rat ex-
terminators. They're all there IN
abundance and confusion. If you
don't mind We'll leave you at leisure
10 match the above with the given
list of characters (see paragraph
four. Remainder of the yarn is
given over to Aliens ATTEMPT to
track down five antique chairs in
one of which is hidden 100000 left
to him by his uncle.
Gradually the chairs turn up and
are broken one by one, always in
the most amazing ways. They're
smashed, run over, demolished until
there's nothing left but Splinters.
About half way through the picture
with two down and three to go we
began wishing We had kept score
Suffice it to say that it's question
of who will last longer you or the
chairs.
Fred Aliens stage appearance,
yesterday afternoon, may have been
responsible for some of the confu-
sion at the Capitol. However, most
of the rumpus was caused by a
fellow named Dorsey-and not
Tommy, as Fred called him to get a
rise out of the bobby socks. To say
the place was jumping, jiving or
rocking would be putting it mildly.
According to the manipulating
kids, it was a simple process of
being sent"
AS far as we could gather being
sent by Jimmy Dorsey includes the
vocals of lovely Jean Cromwell and
a sizzling version of Rum and
caCola." sung by an eyeful
from south of some border named
Nita Rosa. Baritone Teddy Walter