PLAYGOER

This is one show you can walk in on an hour late, and it won't matter. By that time things will have finally started. Mary Martin doesn't come on for the first half hour, and the first good musical number is another half hour later.

The most self-incriminating gesture of the premiere was the printing of programs without any writing or production credits, but the show isn't that bad. The book is over-written and badly timed, the direction shoddy. The musical numbers as usual are far better, though only two are really solid from start to finish. Bob Alton's dances and Vernon Duke's music are sprightly and novel, but not up to their previous levels. So we might as well sing the old refrain: "By the time it reaches New York, etc."

If you expect Martin to do another strip, you'll be disappointed, although she does show a prodigious amount of leg. Her forte is the musical numbers, and she is superb here. Though Mary may not strip, the chorus does, and Dudley Digges and Ernest Cossart take a bath, but not at the same time. The latter could be cut and the former should definitely be prolonged.

The chorus and the showgirls are, nearly every one the biggest assets in the show. Such famed beauties as Kay Aldridge and Mildred Law will not go unrecognized by frequenters of the Shubert and dippers into Vogue. The veteran cast includes, beside Digges and Cossart. Cora Witherspoon, Mary Wickes, Jack Smart, and Eddie Green of "Duffy's Tavern." All are capable comedians without suitable material, but, all join in the chorus, "By the time it reaches New York, etc."