Broadway

Crunching celery and olives in the Louis XIV Restaurant, which is only a short parachute jump from Mr. Freedley’s office in the RCA Building, the producer and the Fieldses mulled over possible ideas. Mr. Freedley, who usually provides at least the locale or a main character for a show, was then toying with a play about Boy Scouts. The Fieldses turned up a collective nose. Some other ideas were dissected and dismissed before Mr. Freedley came across an item in Variety which told of an epidemic of requests from various patriotic ladies anxious to build Army morale by inviting personable privates to their homes for week-ends and sending them back to camp on Monday mornings morally and spiritually refreshed.

At first the Fieldses shook their heads dourly. Everybody, they said, would be doing an Army show this year and why stick your neck out? But Mr. Freedley, remembering the story of Cradle Snatchers and its three middle-aged female philanderers, began to argue eloquently. Gradually the Fieldses cozened to the idea and the rest was work. On the first of June Mr. Porter tuckered off to Hollywood to escape the heat; the Fieldses after an ill-fated journey to Fort Dix, where they were suspected of being fifth columnists, began to bang out a first draft of the script in Dorothy's Chinese Chippendale Study.

Herbert and Dorothy Fields

Photo by Luis Lemus. Vogue, 1943

Danny Kaye, 1941

Private collection

Meanwhile, no one knew who the performers would be. Then one day Danny Kaye’s agent walked in and let it be known that his client’s obligations to Lady in the Dark would be acquitted when that show suspended for the Summer and that Kaye would not be unwilling to better himself in the Fall, provided—but he got no further. In a short while Mr. Freedley had whispered the plot of the show to Danny and his advisers who in turn went into a huddle and came back to say yes. A few days later the Fieldses went West to begin revisions with Kaye in mind for the central role and to discuss song cues with Mr. Porter.

On July 4, after vainly casting about for other players in New York, Mr. Freedley went West too. He took quarters in the Beverly Hills Hotel, set appointments for every half hour, went down to the swimming pool in his bathing trunks, ordered a highball and waited. In six days he had accumulated most of his principals between splashes in the pool—Eve Arden, Edith Meiser, Sunnie O'Dea, Benny Baker, Nanette Fabray and Jack Williams. Harry Horner agreed to do the sets and Bob Alton, then teaching Garbo how to move her feet, couldn’t get away but recommended Charles Walters, who could. Returning East, he signed the others: Mary Jane Walsh to sing and John Harkrider to sketch the costumes. Vivian Vance strolled into a grill in Skowhegan where he had gone for a brief jaunt. Looking up from his hot cakes Mr. Freedley said: ‘How'd you like to be in a show I'm doing?’ Miss Vance said: ‘Love to.’ And that was that.

By August the decks were cleared of all except minor matters with costumers and scene builders. From his Connecticut diggings Mr. Freedley conferred by long-distance with Mr. Porter and the Fieldses until they arrived in the East two days before rehearsals began on Sept 4. Rehearsals lasted only four weeks instead of the usual five it takes to assemble a musical, and this despite one last-minute bottleneck—the second act wasn't funny enough. So five days before the show tripped off to Boston the Fieldses sat down and despite babies, husbands, hell and high water turned out an entirely new second act.

In the Boston tryout the show did a rare thing. Instead of the usual tryout loss, it made money. Mr. Freedley began to worry that the show would be oversold before it reached New York—a waste of energy because three weeks later Let’s Face It! became the first top-ranking new hit of the season. Since then, the actors have all taken out long-term leases on their apartments, Danny Kaye has moved to a sumptuous new hogan overlooking Central Park, and Mr. Freedley tries to make polite excuses to his friends as to why there aren’t any more house seats available.

THE PLAY IN REVIEW

Let’s face the facts of Let’s Face It! which was staged at the Imperial last evening. It is a wonderfully joyous musical show. Taking an old remainder, once known as Cradle Snatchers, Herbert and Dorothy Fields have run it up into an impudent knockabout book that keeps all the performers congenially at work. Cole Porter has shaken some good tunes and rhymes out of his sophisticated juke-box. And Danny Kaye, who was the white-headed boy in Lady In the Dark last season, has twisted his sharp fingers and aquiline profile into some highly original musical mummery. Everything about Let’s Face It! is bright and brisk and continuously enjoyable.

After all, it is the people who count. You will not be devastated to learn that the libretto recounts the alarming adventures of three married ladies who decide to freshen their lives by hiring three soldiers to strut with them. It is more to the point that Eve Arden, a lovely and rangy clown with a droll style of fooling, is first lady of the masquerade, and Edith Meiser and Vivian Vance trail along with her. As for Uncle Sam’s uniformed forces, Benny Baker, the moon-faced minstrel, and Jack Williams, who was dancing in Meet the People last season, meet temptation with antiseptic forbearance. Toss in Mary Jane Walsh, who can sing with exhilarating assurance, Sunnie O'Dea, Nanette Fabray and a number of new shapes and faces, and you have a singing society well suited to merry-making.

For let’s face this eerie fact: the songs are designed for enjoyment. ‘Jerry, My Soldier Boy’ is resounding band music. ‘You Irritate Me’ is ‘You’re the Tops’ turned upside down. In ‘Farming’ Mr. Porter shakes a wry stick at the sport of smart people. ‘Let’s Not Talk About Love’ restores the patter song to its ancient eminence as a test of memory and wind. Last year Mr. Kaye disclosed an uncanny skill in racing through the names of Russian composers without stumbling over the vowels, and here he Is in high fettle again. It is amazing. Since there are other accomplishments in his bag of tricks, Sylvia Fine and Max Liebman have written him a travestied ‘Fairy Tale’ that is compact with hilarity, and a double-talk finale that is uproarious. Mr. Kaye conquered every ermine in the house last evening.

Although Mr. Kaye is a lean and likable virtuoso (who looks like a startled Julius Caesar, in case you care) he does not swindle the other performers. For Edgar MacGregor, who has contrived the staging, has whipped Let’s Face It! into a swift and dry-humored comedy that races through the night with no concession to favorites. Jangled as the world may be today, chorus girls still come in attractive designs, looking as though they never worried about anything, and Charles Walters has found a number of ways to keep them in impish motion. Trust Harry Horner to fantasticate milk farms and country estates into gay-colored settings. The Army uniform, which was not invented primarily for the musical stage, must have puzzled John Harkrider, who designed the costumes, but luckily for all of us, women still dress like peacocks in the mating season. It’s a good thing. And so is Let’s Face It! In fact, a mighty good thing in the vein of high-pressure fooling.

The New York Times, Thursday, 30 October 1941, p.26