Word: mona
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...harried advertising executive was on the phone, demanding a print of the Mona Lisa. Since he was talking to Manhattan's Bettmann Archive Inc., which has more than 5 million pictorial representations covering every subject from cave painting to moon walking, he had certainly called the right place. Did he want black and white or color? "I don't want the usual thing!" barked the adman. "How about a side view?" It was one of the few requests that the archive has ever been unable to fill...
...Mona Lisa...
...moment little Ruby from Utah walks into "any 42nd Street Theatre" and announces she wants to star in a Broadway show, Ellen Zachos' wide-eyed insouciance insures Ruby will make it big in show business. But first the nasty leading lady of the show about to open that night, Mona Kent (Susannah Rabb), must be eliminated, done neatly when the public-works projects of the W.P.A. force the play-within-the-play to open on a battleship, where Miss Kent succumbs to sea-sickness. And of course Ruby has to fall in love along the way; one of those shore...
...chorus girl who takes Ruby under her wing (a resemblance to Joan Blondell certainly helps). The chorus-girl's argumentative romance with yet another sailor (Frank Pastor) makes Ruby's saccharine affair a little less cloying. Although conducted in a duet which dreamily imitates the worst of Cole Porter, Mona Kent's seduction of the wealthy Captain injects some welcome opportunism into an otherwise hopelessly unworldly world. Goodness prevails, but, gratifyingly, even the selfish end up happy in Dames...
...MONA KENT deserves her happy ending; Susannah Rabb maker even selfish bitchiness appealing. Rabb isn't as good a singer as Zachos or Reed, but David Edelman and Penny Outlaw, the musical directors, have cleverly arranged her songs so she can talk her way through the hardest parts. After all, it's in the script that the ingenue should sing better than the fading star who got where she is on her sex appeal. Rabb brings a glorious cattiness to her role--drawling "I'm sure" when poor Ruby stammers out her name--and dances with the proper verve...