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HE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. FRIDAY MORNING. OCTOBE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS At the Spectrum CapacityCrowd Of 11 500 Sees 'Holiday on Ice' By SAMUEL L. SINGER Of The Inquirer Staff The 24th edition of "Holiday On Ice," the second to play at the Spectrum, where it opened Thursday night, is as eye-filling as ever. There are a half- dozen production numbers, each more lavish that its predecessor. Yet the most heart-warming feature of this show is how the! comedians elicit spontaneous,! concerted laughs from the; capacity audience of 11,500. The chuckles are good to hear, CONNIE AND GLYDE The crowd roars at the antics j of Connie and Glyde and their little old car as it gradually disintegrates and explodes. The "two on the lam" are Paul Andre and Johnny Leech. The audience appreciates the discomfiture of the adagio pair when a sideline photographer loses his camera to them, then, joins in the act. Alfredo Mendoza and Darolyn Prior dance to Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet," and it is Johnny Leech again who barges in. The spectators love the affectionate "houn' dog," played by Mendoza and Johnny LaDue. Then there is Werner Muller's three little chimpanzees, who1 jump over hurdles and play an ice hockey game which, of course, ends in a brawl. TRIBUTE TO ASTAIRE There also are a tribute to Fred Astaire, with star Ronnie Robertson as the top-hatted spinning skater; something called "Jungalero," which re-| minds one of old Hollywood "B" pictures in an African setting, and a Spanish vignette. The grand climax of the show Is a nostalgic tribute to Hollywood across half a century. Any- One of voting age or over will! have his memory tugged by the Keystone Kops; child stars of] yesterday; Al Jolson; the Marx Brothers, and dancing luminaries| of film musicals. "Startime" engages the entire cast, including the Cook family?╟÷Cal and Dorie, their 8- year-old daughter, Kim, and the 7-year-old twin lads, Kris and Kelly. Another featured performer is Anna Galmarini, whoj strips from a clown costume to a lightly attired whirling lady. 'Holidayon Ice' Glides In By RICH AREGOOD J "Holiday on Ice" is am entertaining series of old movie-style j extravaganzas?╟÷at its best when it relaxes and admits it. The show, which opened last night at the Spectrum for am 11-day run, is another of the ice revues we've become accustomed to ?╟÷ maybe a little long, maybe a little too concerned with pomp, but good, like a circus. It's a tradition. This year's version comes on with the usual chorus line of Barbie-Doll-like girls in gaudy gowns who prance like cold I Ziegfeld girls while the stars | cavort and the clowns clown. Skates flash and people leap and the audience loves it. EXCEPT FOR one beautiful "Happy, Orazy Clown" number! skated by diminutive girl star Anna Galmarini, the best moments in the show, for pageantry buffs at any rate, comes in] tihe second part, when "Holiday on lee" relaxes and acts like "Gold Diggers of 1933." A series of vignettes of movie r stars is offered (one has eight,! count 'em, eight Jean Harlows),; followed by a big, guttering pro-, duotkm number, to the': turned of j "Broadway Rhythm;" Comic Paul Andre contributes j a fine segment as a sailor. Ice comedy, like burlesque, is stylized and slapsitiok, but Andre j is fine. He also does a "Commie" to Johnny Leech's "Glyde" in] another sketch. RONNIE ROBERTSON, who's|| been here before with both "Holiday" and the "Ice Ga pades," is his usual theatrical and entertaining self, offering some excellent and flashy skat- Lug when all those boys and girls of the chorus get off the ice. One might wish that ice shows would offer more of the ballet- like beauty of amateur competitions, but it's probably a forlorn nope. Ice shows are all pretty much the same and the Protopopovs probably wouldn't pull in the customers like sequins seem to. All that flash of skates does pale a bit before the show's over, but there are a lot of girls, to look at out there on the ice for those who may get bored. That, in itself, offers many time what a baseball game that gets dull ever will. At the Spectrum Holiday on Ice: Big Girls ma uiiw !6&out Town | At the Boyd u/ri 'J By WALTER F. NAEDELE Of The Bulletin Staff THE LAST TIME I saw that much skin . . . No, that's not the way to begin. If you wonder where the Ziegfeld Follies went, with its graceful girls, sweeping gowns and rampant fields of soft swan down . . . Yep. That's it. ?╟≤ ?╟≤ ?╟≤ HOLIDAY ON ICE opened last night to an 11,000 person near-capacity benefit audience to touch off an 11-day run at The Spectrum. It brought to Philadelphia all the extravaganza once reserved for the burial of the pharaoh, tie slaughter of the Christians, or the slightest whim of Cecil B. DeMille. That the slightest whim of Cecil B. DeMille might have been ravishingly sequined girls suffering from extreme^ exposure is not taken lightly. The ice show is nothing if it is not girls. One report is that Holiday on Ice has spent $750,000 on costumes. Ah, to paraphrase a revered statesman, that so much was given for so little .?╟≤?╟≤;?╟≤?√ß?╟≤?√ß.' In the very first number, some dozen girls skate out in sdarlet gowns, tall head plumes the image of Lillian Russell. But when the light changes, the gowns are revealed as sheer to the thigh. Late in the first half, 16 girls \ come out in pink gowns, 12! young men in top hats and; tails, and eight other girls in furs ?╟÷ harem pajamas, sheer floor-length skirts, deep bare 'midriffs, plunging necklines. It should have been reviewed, La Mancl by our fashion editor. THIS IS the overpowering energy of the ice show ?╟÷ its mass movement, its exciting color (even black light is used to strike fluorescent shades from the darkened dancers), its cumulative effect of pageantry. It is something that cannot be obtained anywhere outside an enormous auditorium, and for much of the evening, it fills the auditorium with its energy. But it's been said before: it's not much more than that. Its skating routines are meant to be routine ?╟÷ the audience wouldn't appreciate a lot of leaps without competitive reason; the chimp act can be seen in a circus; the clowns getting doused with ice water is per-; verse. And Ronnie Robertson, the | boy wonder of the 1956 Olym-j pics? My idea of the Man ofj 'Holler'S }f THERE ii a plot twis PmCe ??j"He Hollers-Let Him Go ?╟?e3t hasn't already been use alls with !the convict-on-the-lam nip; shirt and b down through the years,'; he'd comVt think what it is. back allej{cre is a partial list 0f t\ ignities heaped on Raymor DESPITE jaC'ques in the film whic the hit of \ its world premiere la act, Cal Cht at the Boyd. and his winvasion 0f privacy (whil seven-year- making love to nude and Kelly, ra McNair)..-. old da.ugh5oliee beating (during abo: stew of Irne). The littlerrame.d for murder of cutting one-* .white 3M' , , . 'nitnn 11 n h\r Victim's and dainty spins." What tittle < girl wouldn't? But this kid had certainty, and smoothness at an mis b T