Some of the information is Boop-Oop-a-Dooping full of SPOILERS. Boop-Oop-a-Doop!
| Helen Kane Stops Booping And Does Something New In Shady Lady[1] |
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There is more to the plot of "Shady Lady" than that because it seems that the artist once got drunk in a night club and celebrated by marrying a woman of easy virtue who disappeared immediately after they were pronounced man and wife. Miss Kane, we son discover, once worked in that very night club. And so on and on through all sorts of complications and what the program playfully refers to as the "fun interest." But as none of this seems to matter, even while it is happening, there is little reason for recording it here.
Miss Kane is an artiste who has grown with the years, but her talents have not broadened. Her personality is, fortunately, very much her own. Her face is as doll-like as it ever was and her voice just as piercing. It is saxophonic in its muted whines, as it squeaks and drawls its way out from an expressionless mask that brings Betty Boop to mind.
But instead of Booping it up as she used to do, Miss Kane has apparently decided to go in for what the program calls a "dramatic role." The result-especially in such a dolorous number as "Everything But My Man" is pretty hard to bear. It is like an unsuccessful parody of Helen Morgan.
Miss Kane's supporting company contributes as little to the evening as she does herself. Lester Allen proves to be a "pint-sized comedian" indeed, and Charles Purcell, Helen Haymond and Max Hoffman Jr, falls to help matters to any apprectable extent. The truth is that Shady Lady is a consistently dull affair that is, if one excepts some spirited dancing by the chorus, and a stray platinum blonde who wanders vacantly around the stage all evening and proves to be funny without meaning to.