Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-03-30

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cheerfully noisy place.
Mr.. Disney's shaggy dog
ing. of course. for those adults
pressed into escort service. All
you have to do is accept 1t as
fact that the teen-age son Of
a mail carrier allergic to dogs
suddenly develops a faculty
for turning into a large shaggy
dog.
This ought to be as easy to
believe for purposes of fun as,
for instance, the implication
that Jack Lennon could pass
himself of as a credible bass
fiddle player in an all-girl Or
chestra.
Mr.. Disney's wacky farce
fantasy, or fantastic farce If
you prefer, is performed by a
cast headed by Fred MacMur-
ray that embraces its nonsense
with obvious relish. It has been
directed by Charles Barton, an
old hand at camera comedy.
He hasn't made every foot of
Shaggy Dog" uproarious. but
he has come close enough and
there are few dull moments.
Mr.. MacMurray plays the
mailman who hates dogs and
has the PekineSe scars on his
ankles to prove it. 1t is his lot
to be parent to the hero Of this
Disney adventure, a teen-age
boy with a menagerie and a
penchant for getting into trou-
BILE. Such as having respectable
citizens locked up because of
resemblance to the faces on
post Office posters.
He starts things of here,
just to set the tone for the
proceedings, by blasting of a
homemade rocket in the base
ment. 1t leaves a considerable
Jagged hole in the roof and a
like one in his fathers nervous
system. And the gleeful reac-
ton of young members of the
audience to all of this may
leave YOU a bit shaken.
X 4 4 y
This doesn't take long, and
Shaggy Dog" soon gets around
to the business its title prom
ises. Its hero, intrigued by an
old ring belonging to Lucrezia
Borgia, inadvertently chants
the words that unleash its spell.
AS, it happened to DR.. Jeckyll,
it happens to him, only in this
case it is funny. In a few
moments, the boy who went
down to the basement a boy
comes out of it large, I'M
kempt, improbable but definite
ly shaggy dog.
For him it may be a record,
but this is the most unfortunate
situation he's ever been in be-
cause his father has vowed to
take a shotgun to the next dog
on the premises. He does just
that, too-fortunately with
poor aim.
To complicate things for the
shaggy young man, the spell
doesn't seem to be permanent,
but comes and goes. He barely
escapes one predicament by
turning from boy to dog before
getting into another by turning
from dog to boy. Before it is
over, he's involved in thwarting
a spy ring and in one of the
daff1est chase sequences ever
set on film. A police car driven
by a shaggy dog pursued by
two policemen in a hot red is
quite a sight.
.MacMurray gives this whole
enterprise quite lift with his
portrait of the haraSSed parent.
So do Tommy Kirk as the I'M
fortunate teen-ager who looses
a spell on himself and Kelvin
Corcoran as his delighted young
brother, who always wanted a
dog.
X X X
AFTER DARK - Two i'm
ported singers are making the
evenings brighter around here
at the moment. One of them,
no stranger to us and a welcome
returnee is Margerita Sierra, this
time spreading the warmth of
Spain around the Shoreham
Hotels Blue Room. Miss Sierra,
a small lass with large talent,
sticks largely to the Spanish in
her singing La Paloma."
CELTIC Lindo," and the like,
but she can turn a tidy Ameri-
can ballad, too. Her version of
In the Still of the Night" for
instance, has the customers
clamoring for more. She also
enlivens things with a bit of
dancing in flamenco and related
styles.
The other and new import is
Marie Bernard, in the SaZerac
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