Sandwiched in between its usual weekly vaudeville show, RKO has some really first class entertainement this week. Count Basie, his band, and Maxine Sullivan, the girl whose Scotch has real flavor, are currently playing and singing there. Basie is such a genuine master of his mode of expression, he even makes the vaudeville seem fairly unobtrusive. In fact there are four couples of jitterbugs that do not once make you want to tear your hair, and who actually seem to belong in the show, because the Count plays it hot all the way.

Most of the numbers are Basie's own compositions or new arrangements like his "One O'clock Jump," and feature plenty of his intense piano work. Basie's stubby fingers undoubtedly have the touch for jump rhythm. Maxine Sullivan does "Loch Lomond" in her own manner, of course. She also sings a very good "Saint Louis Blues." Both these performers deserve the name artist, because they both know how to eliminate frills. Basie doesn't hit any extra notes that turn so much hot piano playing into noise. And Maxine Sullivan does not slide around her notes after the fashion of the lithesome torchsinger. These two are not the only top-notch people in the show. There is Jimmy Rushing, who puts all of his large person into telling the world he's "Movin" to the Outskirts of Town" to get rid of the grocery boy and the iceman for the traditional reason. He also sings his famous "Going to Chicago Blues." Fortunately the management has spared a dozen tumbling acts and lets these various components of the feature attraction be more than names on an ad.

There's a movie which is almost worth sitting through. Its title, "Butch Minds the Baby," should man something. It concerns a gangster, Broderick Crawford, who is reformed by minding a baby, and a cop, Dick Foran, who is a bit too faithful to his part. Faning Virginia Bruce fades in and out occasionally. The picture is a little too long, its plot a trifle illogical, but its dialogue can't always get away from the fact that it was adapted from Damon Runyan, and is consequently good. If the omission of the "Harvard Blues" is considered an unpardonable sin, it is the only blight on a good evening's entertainment.