The Old Recipe

A MOUSE Is BORN (214 pp.)--Anita Loos--Doubleday ($2.50).

Lorelei Lee is one tart that never seems to go stale. Her crust is as crisp in a Broadway musical today as it was in 1925, when Anita Loos composed her memoirs of a floozy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Now Author Loos has tried the old recipe again.

Effie Huntriss, "Hollywood's Chief Exponint of Sex," takes to childbed nine months before the event--the studio can't be too careful with such a property. To pass the time, Effie writes her autobiography: how a sweet, simple girl of 16 walked straight off the streets of Kansas City on to the broad "expense of carpet" that leads to Louis B. Mayer's desk. .

On the way, she preserves her morals--"The first thing I require out of any man is for him to say he respeckts me, even if our romance is all over in a few hours"--and acquires wisdom: "A Camerman that knows how to light you in bed has just simply got to be cherished."

At the end of her story, Effie labors mightily and brings forth a creature known as "Little Mouse." After 214 pages of dim wittiness and wearisomely cute misspelling, the author's labors come to the same thing.

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