Babes in Arms

[Bwaybaby109]

Posted: 4/14/06 at 5:05pm

Hey guys. Ok I'm a little confused. I know that there are 2 versions of Babes in Arms. I'm writing a paper on it and my website sources seem to be unreliable. Can someone give a good summary of the show?

[Jon]

Posted: 4/14/06 at 5:19pm

Here's the official synopsis from the R&H site.
babes in arm synopsis

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/15/06 at 1:00am

Let me provide a few nuggets you can drop in to your report.

Here's a link to a great set of liner notes for the recent CD of the music:

www.newworldrecords.org/liner_notes/80386.pdf

Of course, look the show up on IBDB.com, the Internet Broadway Data Base which provides the cast, musical numbers and stats for the show.

Babes in Arms was the follow-up show to Rodgers and Hart's incredibly successful show "On Your Toes". The idea to use an all-kid cast was pretty daring because historically, nobody thought kids could carry a show. But in 1935, Norman Bel Geddeds, (the great moderne designer and father of actress Barbara Bel Geddes who played the mother on "Dallas") produced Sidney Kingsley's play "The Dead End" with a cast of kids including Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, who went on the become The Bowery Boys. The play was a big hit, so Rodgers and Hart were able to convince their producer from "On Your Toes" Dwight Deere Wyman to finance an all-kids musical.

But just to be on the safe side, they kinda cheated. They cast mostly kids under 21, but slipped in 23 year olds Alfred Drake (who went on to star in Oklahoma, Kiss Me Kate and Kismet)and Ray Heatherton who still both looked pretty youthful.

Wynn Murray, 16, was a chubby but amazingly talented girl singer they found in a Church choir. She sang "Johnny One Note" and held that damn note for a full chorus over the orchestra and singers. Mitzi Green, the leading lady, had been a child movie star. I think she was 17.

Rolly Pickertt was hired because he could tap dance on stilts!

The great majority of the boys in the cast were total newcomers to Broadway but most of the girls were experienced dancers, and most of them had worked with choreographer George Balanchine on "On Your Toes." Again the deck was slightly stacked to make the accomplishments of these "kids" seem even more amazing.

And then there were The Nicholas Brothers. By the time they came to the show, they were seasoned pros. The had been appearing at The Cotton Club in Harlem for about a year and in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. As you now probably know, one of the main arcs of the story is the rejection of the two black kids by a rich southern kid who was financing the show. Eventually, the gang found a way to mount the show without his money. It was a gentle but forceful slap against the institutional racism that was the norm back then.

Sadly, Rodgers and Hart may have been very forward-thinking, but not everyone associated with the show was that brave. In the souvenir program, The Nicholas Brothers are shown in one photo, all alone. They do not appear in any of the other photos of the show and not with any of the white cast members.

And then, of course, even with the storyline bemoaning racism, the Nichols Brothers still had a solo titled "All Dark People Is Light On Their Feet." Sad but that was America in the 30's.

During the tour following Broadway, the Nicholas Brothers went back to The Cotton Club and then off to Hollywood and they were replaced by an older team of black singer/dancers named Dot and Dash.

But perhaps the most amazing accomplishment of this show was the incredible score, of which practically every song is a world-wide hit. I would assume the average of hit-to-miss on the songs in this show is on par with "Annie Get Your Gun." I believe this is the only score that has had all its songs covered by Frank Sinatra.

Also in the cast were two young boys who grew up to be stars, Dan Dailey, who became a ubiquitous song-and-dance-man in Fox films of the late 40's and 50's and Robert Rounseville who grew up to play the lead in "Candide" and much later in his life was The Padre in the original cast of "Man Of La Mancha."

Hope this helps.

[Theatreboy49]

Posted: 4/15/06 at 2:47am

I was in this show. I was Lee Calhoun. Such an amazing fun show.

[Bwaybaby109]

Posted: 4/15/06 at 11:31am

wow allformylife! thank u sooo much!!! that is very helpful!!

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/15/06 at 2:17pm

We had a community theatre group do the original 1937 version (the one outlined in the link to the synopsis) last year. They had fun with it and made as entertaining a show as was possible. (The director used a conceit similar to the Carol Burnett Show movie parodies so the cast was all 30+ year olds playing teens, which added to the goofy fun.) The songs are great and he got the original orchestrations and had them played by a full size orchestra.

Yet the show overall doesn't really hold together very well. The dialogue is limp and many of the "jokes" are painfully unfunny. Older audience members (his shows attract a lot of seniors) loved the familiar songs. Younger audiences have never heard these songs before and hated the book so they were less enthralled.

This show really works best as a concert version so one can hear the wonderful score devoid of the book!

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/15/06 at 10:27pm

Bwaybaby109, check your private messages in the upper left hand corner. I have stuff for you.

allofmylife

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 4/16/06 at 1:27pm

Great summing-up, allofmylife. BABES has become a seriously neglected show, despite the staggering number of classic hit songs to come from it. And I think "All Dark People" has gotten a bum rap - I don't see why it is considered so offensive. Now, "Underneath the Harlem Moon"...that's another story!

I am facinated by Wynn Murray. She went from BABES into BOYS FROM SYACUSE (as Luce), them did one bomb revue after another for a few years...did one or two more roles, then vanishes. Somewhere I have a magazine article about her from c. 1945 where the once hefty gal revealed a new pin up-girl trim figure(achieved by eating only one roast beef sandwich a day and unlimited coffee). There are a few recordings of her singing songs from BABES and she had a terrific baby-Merman voice. After she stopped performing on Broadway I know of nothing more she ever did. She was only 35 when she died in 1957.
Wynn Murray

Updated On: 4/16/06 at 01:27 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/16/06 at 10:54pm

1 roast beef sandwich. So the Subway Diet does work! Wow!

and to solve the Wynn Murray mystery (and it's a doozy)

From Ann Landers column

"Dear Ann:
You recently printed a letter from a World War II vet who asked about Wynn Murray, a young singer with a USO troupe who entertained soldiers on Morotai in 1944. She performed in a downpour while lightning streaked across the sky. He said she
was magnificent, and asked whatever happened to her.

Thank you for printing that letter, Ann. Wynn Murray was my sister. Shortly after Wynn performed for those troops, she was hit with shrapnel in New Guinea, for which she received the Purple Heart. She was lucky. Two young chorus girls from the
company were killed. Later, Wynn went to the European theater, where she met and married a captain in the U.S. Army. She then retired and settled down as an Army wife. She and her husband had three daughters, Mary, Alice and Kathleen.

In 1957, Wynn died at the age of 35 from a heart attack. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Please tell the man who wrote how much our family appreciated his kind words about my sister. Her daughters were very young when Wynn died, and
his letter gave them some insight into their mother. It meant a great deal to us that she has not been forgotten.

-- Ann Henning in Carbondale, Pa."

Updated On: 4/17/06 at 10:54 PM

[Bwaybaby109]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:49am

real quick...does anyone know whats happening when the song Lady is a Tramp is sung in context of the show?

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 11:11am

If memory serves me, the ORIGINAL (1937) context of the song changed when Sinatra befan singing it. He turned the phrase "The Lady Is A Tramp" into a "she's a sort of a slut" meaning. In the original '37 show, Billie Smith was a young girl who was without parents and travelling across America on the rails - a hobo. She met the leading man and fell in love and settled down in the small town the kids were living in, for a while. And she sang the song about why she liked living without ties. She was a tramp, in the hobo, not slut way.

The song has changed and quite frankly, since Sinatra was a guy sining about a woman he called a tramp, a rather mysoginistic way.

I can't comment on the context of the song in the sucky 1959 version as the story was totally altered and became much more like "Bye Bye Birdie".

Posted: 4/18/06 at 1:21pm

My aunt, Marion (Mickey) Herson was in the original Broadway production of BABES IN ARMS. Now that Fayard Nicholas has passed away, she may be the only surviving cast member. She's alive and well and living in Florida, still swimming laps every day at the age of 96. She likes to tell about the "Johnny One Note" ballet costumes. The girls had to wear mop-heads dyed black to look like cheap Egyptian wigs. Aunt Marion says the wigs were so hot that everyone hated doing that number.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 10:34pm

For god's sake, Tom, get a video camera and ask her to reminice on tape. Anything she says is something that should be preserved at the Lincoln Center Library. It doesn't have to be professional. The star is your aunt and what she has to say.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 3:39am

Tom, your aunt was one of the ringers, an older dancer cast in a show about teenagers to provide a solid basis for Balanchine's choreography. You should also ask abou her recolections of working with The Merm and Jack Haley and Jack Whiting on "Take A Chance" She probably has insights that nobody else in the world still has. Amazing.

[beenthere]

Posted: 4/19/06 at 7:36am

Lady is a tramp in the 50's revival is sung by "Bunny" as I recall. (I did the show 10 years ago, and it is something I've tried to forget ever since) She sings, Johnny One Note and Way Down West as well, she is the older, more seasoned performer in the troupe of actors. I don't really remember why she sings it, The 50's version really was only held together by the AMAZING score not the silly book.

Posted: 4/19/06 at 7:41am

While it is true that Marion Herson sought the job, I don't believe thatBalanchine or anyone else involved in the production of Babes In Arms sought her out. As she tells it, she need work and, although she was aware that all the roles were for people much younger than she was, she dressed "young" for the auditions hoping that the age issue wouldn't come up. An assistant stage manager recpgnized here therefore her cover was blown. She got the job, however, and she had always hoped that she would leave the profession in a hit, which Babes in Arms certainly was. However, she is adamant that her favorite show and the best show she ever appeared in was The Little Show with Clifton Webb and Libby Holman. Also, in a 42nd Street-like scenario she replaced Nell O'Day in a featured role in Fine and Dandy when O'Day injured her leg just a few hours before the curtain. As far as I'm concerned and I'm sure Marion would agree, the show most involved with her ultimate personal life was Rain or Shine. She left Babes in Arms years later to marry Owen Murphy, who contributed several songs to the show, and when Murphy passed away in them mid-1960s Marion married Donald Voorhees who had been the conductor of Rain or Shine. Voorhees had subsequently gone on to conduct the Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra for many years on radio and television. I don't know why the Lincoln Center library hasn't seen fit to pick her brain but they haven't.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/20/06 at 2:44am

So you should. And I'll tell you why, it's up to us to fill in the blanks. My father was a theatre producer in Canada with a rich history going back to 1948 and I left it too late. Now he has Alzheimer's and all those stories, which would be so rich in his voice, are gone.

Your aunt has led an amazing life and SOMEONE should capture her stories. We can argue later what to do with them, but I daresay there are numerous libraries that would LOVE to have an hour with Marion Herson.

And BTW, when I was talking about using strong women dancers in the show, I IBDB'd the entire cast of the original show and discovered that many of the women, but none of the men, had been in Balanchine's corp of dancers on "On Your Toes." I guess Marion would be a pick-up but the fact that they cast her in a show that was supposed to be about kids just furthers my theory.

Anyway, it was just a clever little trick on their part. At least the singing kids were very young. It's all theatrics, isn't it?

Please try to record Marion. I for one would love to be exposed to her memories.....

[Vickinichols]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 9:54pm

I think that is wonderful about your aunt. I was at Lincoln Center Performance Library looking at photos of the original cast in those specific Johnny one note ballet costumes. I was wondering if you could help me out and ask your aunt what the original Baby Rose (Wynn Murray)wore when she sang the song Johnny one note. I was confused and did not know if the Johnny costume for the song was different than the ballet. I would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks alot!!!