Word: sugaring
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Mickey Rooney gets his second chance in Sugar Babies...
...SUGAR BABIES musical conceived by Ralph G. Allen and Harry Rigby...
Nostalgia shows do not flourish on gilded memories alone. They remind us of things that we miss on the modern stage. We miss chorines who look smashingly lovely. The chorus line in Sugar Babies could qualify for the Miss America Pageant. We miss the assured versatility of a show-biz veteran. Mickey Rooney has grease paint in his blood and the house in his pocket...
...word for his partner and costar, Ann Miller. When haven't we missed her long, lithesome legs? The years have left them far sounder than most currencies. Her taps are tops, routines done with effortless style and sophisticated rhythms. Do we miss burlesque, which forms the substance of Sugar Babies (if sheer fluff has substance)? Not so much, admittedly, for its cornball bag of tricks as for its relaxed mental climate, its absolution from thought. We relish its tipsy humors, its panting satyrs and bird-brained nymphs, who pursue each other with a strangely pagan innocence...
Most of the staples of burlesque are in Sugar Babies. The attempts at strip tease are pretty stripless, but there are consolations even in that sector. In a tribute to Sally Rand, Barbara Hanks and the entire chorus manipulate their lushly feathered fans with the trancelike motion of peacocks performing a ballet. There is a howlingly funny dog act, durable through the decades, in which a sullenly uncooperative spaniel does no stunts while his agonizingly animated trainer (Bob Williams) covers for the beast...