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THE SACRAMENTO BEE, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29,1957 Page A-ll iO-BB THE MIAMI HERALD Sunday, January 24, &SS4 JACK VALENTINE'S EXTRAVAGANZA! Produced by Donn Arden Featuring Betty Valentine and her Golden Harp SHOWS?╟÷7:30 and 11:00 Dinner - 6 to 11 Supper -11 till 1 DANCING Dave Lester's Orchestra JACK VALENTINE'S ''Famous for Food and Ice Shows" Phone 3-2551 ?╟÷ 3-2552 and in the Voodoo Room Continuous Entertainment 9 P.M. to 4 A.M. No Cover - No Minimum No Advance in Prices Cocktails from 5 P.M. Breakfast-ll:30 'til 4 A.M. Weela Gallez and Julia Cummings aviiiG nine. ?╟≤ ?╟≤ ?╟≤ STEVE MULROY, the former Cincinnati roller skater and well known mixologist, writes from Los Angeles, Calif., enclosing a clipping which tells about Frank Sennes, who operates a theatrical booking agency at 421 Walnut Street, taking over the lease on the Earl Carroll Theater-Restaurant in Los Angeles. Sennes, who has booked shows into Cincinnati night clubs and hotels for many years, plans to open his new venture around the Christmas holidays. He will feature a dance line of 30 girls, with another former Cincinnatian, Donn Arden, who won his spurs a good many years ago at Jimmy Brink's Lookout House, as producer. ?╟≤hill Breeze, Dull Show Keep Audience old At Fair Night Grandstand Opener ?╟÷ By William C. Glackin , microphones and a general The wind was cold at the!llck <* a^cL^husiasm' grandstand last night for the first of four State Fair night shows. So was the audience, in more ways.than one. The opening night of C'Est La yie was something less than a success. Well, that's life. Before anything further is said, however, a firm tribute must be paid to a lot of val- they all kept driving along with speed and spirit, in the admirable tradition of show business. C'Est La Vie is the first of two spectacles imported from Frank Sennps' highly successful Moulin Rouge theater restaurant in Hollywood. It will fun for three nights, to be followed by another Sennes spectacle. Beautiful costuming features one of the Moulin Rouge theater productions in the night show in front of the State Fair grandstand. Bee Photo In consists of three produc- iant performers?╟÷singers, dancers, showgirls and particularly Bob Top and Lauren, who did a scary skating act on a circular platform atop a very high pole in the face of a stiff breeze which must have had them wondering if they shouldn't have gone into some other line bf work. Lots Of Spirit Despite goose pimples, the sputter of the wind in the tion numbers and several individual vaudeville acts. Comedy Dancers The best and most successful of the latter is the Albins, a comedy dance team which burlesques the suave attitudes of ballroom dancing. The act is broad but well done and it is fun to watch. There are also Loni, a blond girl who juggles large objects on her feet; the Fredianis, an acrobatic quartet along standard lines; The toppers And Donna, an instrumental and vocal trio whose work sounded tasteful when you could hear it, which was little of the time; and Johnny La Padula, who plays an electrified accordion with considerable skill but whose acfc:was too long for last night% audience (seven numbers, ifeluding an impression of t h e Mendelssohn violin concerto in E minor). He, also sings. This seems to me a mistake. Production Numbers r The production numbers, produced by Sennes and staged by Donn Arden, include Bon Voyage, a finale entitled The Circus and a Spanish one in between apparently the number called Symphonie D'Espagne originally billed as part of the second Sennes show. This includes some flamenco heel work, excerpts from Carmen and a lot of Spanish attitudes but little real Spanish dancing. On the credit side, these numbers have a lot of very pretty girls?╟÷singers, dancers and statuesque showgirl types, in the old Ziegfeld tradition?╟÷ and a lot of colorful, expensive looking costumes. They are ww\l supported by an excellent orchestra led by Eddie O'Neal, and include occasional original music by Pony Sherrel and Phil Moody. Some Things To Learn Sennes and Arden have something to learn about staging a show under the peculiar conditions at the fair. It would help, for instance, if somehow, early in the game, someone established personal contact with the audience. This helps at the fair, experience has shown. But beyond this, the spectacles are, too much of the time, mere spectacles. They lack the coherence, real style and theatrical point of a good production number. They are eneigetic, they are pretty but they rarely hang onto your interest. To talk about continuity and style is not necessarily to be a fussy purist. They are the basic stuff of good entertainment. Perhaps they can be applied to C'Est La Vie in time to pull it into shape. And maybe the breeze will die. 3u**jteicm xouin uenxer, purcnasea jj