Fred Murray and Joy Youlden in the 1942 revival of The Girl Friend. National Library of Australia, Canberra.
Further Reading
Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019
Stanley Green, The World of Musical Comedy, 4th edition, Da Capo Press, 1980
Dorothy Hart & Robert Kimball (eds.), The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart, Hamish Hamilton, 1987
Thomas S. Hischak, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, 2007
Ethen Mordden, Make Believe: The Broadway musical in the 1920s, Oxford University Press, 1997
Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages: A autobiography, Random House, 1975
Robert Seeley & Rex Bunnett, London Musical Shows on Record, 1889-1989, General Gramophone Publications Ltd., 1989
Don Tyler, Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American popular music of the pre-rock era, McFarland & Company Inc., 2007
J.P. Wearing, The London Stage: A calendar of productions, performers and personnel, 1920-1929, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
Images
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Art Centre Melbourne
National Library of Australia, Canberra
New York Public Library, New York
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
Theatre Heritage Australia
Discography
Orchestral versions
‘The Blue Room’
Savoy Orpheans, conducted by Carroll Gibbons (with the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce)
HMV B5322; (Coll.) AJA5041
‘The Girl Friend’; ‘Mountain Greenery’; ‘What's the Use of Talking?’; ‘Step on the Blues; ‘I’m in Love’; ‘The Blue Room’
Savoy Orpheans, conducted by Carroll Gibbons
HMV C1409; (Coll.) SH355
Listen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imLynMeGya4
‘The Girl Friend’; ‘Mountain Greenery’; ‘Step on the Blues’; ‘What's the Use of Talking?’
Light Opera Company (with George Baker, Derek Oldham, et al)
HMV C1399 (Coll.) AJA5041
The Girl Friend
The following recording of the (U.K.) Colchester Mercury Theatre revival, with Barbara King, Mark Hutchinson and Mark Barratt, released in 1987. (The production reinstated a number of songs from Rodgers and Hart’s original Broadway score in addition to those from the Weston and Lee revision.)
Overture; Step on the Track; The Blue Room; Boys of Hagerstown / Good Fellow Mine; What's the Use of Talking?; The Girl Friend; Sleepy Head; I’m in Love; Oh, by Jimmy; Finale, Act 1. Kitty Brown, Kitty Brown; Kitty’s Kisses; The Blue Room (reprise); Early in the Morning; I Don’t want Him!; Mountain Greenery; Step on the Blues; Why Do I?; Finale, Act 2
That’s Entertainment TER 1148 4ZCTER1148
Cover versions
‘The Blue Room’
This song has been recorded by numerous artists over the past 90 years, including:
The Revelers and the Melody Sheiks (1926)
RCA Victor 20092-B
Hildergarde with the Ray Sinatra Orchestra (1938)
DECCA American 23234 A - matrix 65754 A
Perry Como with Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Henri Rene (1949)—from the Rodgers & Hart biopic Words and Music (1948)
RCA Victor 20-3329-A
Bing Crosby on his sixth LP—Bing Sings Whilst Bergman Swings (1956)
Verve
The album also featured the song ‘Mountain Greenery’
‘The Girl Friend’
George Olsen
Victor 20029
Ohman and Arden with their Orchesta
Brunswick 3197
Filmography
The Weston and Lee musical The Girl Friend has never been filmed. There is no footage of the original 1926 London stage production.
However, two of the Rodgers & Hart songs were featured in Hollywood movies:
‘The Blue Room’ was used in the Rodgers and Hart biopic Words and Music (MGM, 1948), Young Man with a Horn (1950) and The Eddy Duchin Story (1956)
‘The Girl Friend’ was played as an instumental in Words and Music (1948)
There is a 1935 Hollywood movie titled The Girl Friend, starring Ann Sothern and Jack Haley, but the story has nothing to do with either the Rodgers & Hart or Weston & Lee musical comedies.
Les Thorp Home Movies
Theatre Heritage Australia is very fortunate to be able to make available 16mm footage taken by Les Thorp from the wings of various J.C. Williamson Ltd. theatres.
In 1942, he was in Sydney for the revival of The Girl Friend starring Marie Ryan, Allen Christie, Don Nicol and Marie La Varre. The following film clip focusses primarily on the antics of comic Don Nicol, who played the role of Richard Dennison, the husband with the roving eye. We see him in Act 1, Scene 3 flirting with a young lady and with Jennie the telephonist; again in Act 2, Scene 1, when he discovers that Kitty has slept in the adjoining room of his hotel suite; and finally in Act 2, Scene 3, when he is trying to reason with his wife. In the footage we also see the comic characters of Jennie and Jerry, played by Fred Murray and Joy Youlden, including various high-energy dance routines performed by them in Act 1, Scene 3. In addition, there are routines performed by the chorus/ballet boys and girls, including what appears to be ‘Mountain Greenery’ and ‘Step on the Blues’ (both Act 2), and a specialty number by dancers Betty Sparks, Gerald McEarlean & Earl Henderson.
