CDs: London '54

In the last couple of years, the U.K. label Sepia has done us a service by issuing on CD the London cast recordings of Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam, Kiss Me, Kate, Paint Your Wagon, Wish You Were Here, Love from Judy, and Bet Your Life. Also on Sepia were the first CDs of the Broadway shows Hazel Flagg and Make a Wish.

Continuing with London scores, here's a generous Sepia combination release date February 1 of two Paris-related musicals that premiered in the West End in 1954. Wedding in Paris, a self-described "romantic musical play," opened at the London Hippodrome in April of '54 and remained there for 411 performances. It told of a young Canadian girl Susan Swinford on her way to Paris to marry her childhood sweetheart. Along the way, she's dazzled by the charms of a Parisian man of the world; attracted to a young reporter; and a recipient of the hospitality of a beautiful, wealthy, much-divorced French woman.

As you might expect, the French characters wind up together, and the heroine ends up with the reporter. Wedding in Paris was a star vehicle for its older principals, Anton Walbrook and Evelyn Laye. Walbrook was a film star The Red Shoes, Colonel Blimp, La Ronde who had made one previous London musical appearance, in Call Me Madam. London's outstanding musical star between the wars, Laye Bittersweet, The New Moon played the gay divorcee.

Laye had not appeared in a London musical for a decade, and staged a comeback here, marking her transition from younger romantic leading lady to mature, character lead. Laye had hoped to star in the London production of The King and I; when she was turned down in favor of Valerie Hobson, she took Wedding in Paris instead. In the '60s and '70s, Laye would return to West End musicals in Phil the Fluter and as a fill-in for Anna Neagle in Charlie Girl.

Wedding in Paris employed both male leads from the London Call Me Madam, as Jeff Warren, who had sung "It's a Lovely Day Today" in the latter show, played the reporter. An American, Warren had appeared on Broadway in Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus.

The book for Wedding in Paris was by crime author Vera Caspary, best known for adapting her novel Laura for the screen, and also fashioning the screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives. Austrian film composer Hans May wrote the music, with lyrics by Sonny Miller.

At the time of Wedding in Paris, London was playing host to such American musicals as The King and I, Guys and Dolls, Pal Joey, Wish You Were Here, and Can-Can. Perhaps for that reason, the London Times wrote of Wedding in Paris, "Romantic musical plays in the English tradition have hardly dared in recent years to challenge the competition of thunderingly confident American musicals....Wedding in Paris is a notable revival of a tradition believed to be dead." The Stage was particularly impressed with the leading lady's return: "The affair is mainly notable as a considerable triumph for Evelyn Laye....As actress, singer, dancer and the wearer of a series of dazzling creations, she is equally in command of the situation, and in the second act has two musical numbers that are indisputably smash hits."

Only eight numbers were recorded on the cast album, which begins with a pretty title-song waltz for the young heroine. Walbrook has two numbers, and he talk-sings both of them, somewhat in the manner that Rex Harrison would adopt two years later in My Fair Lady. The young romantic couple have two duets, one called "It Only Took a Moment," the other a song at customs, winningly titled "I Have Nothing to Declare But Love." Best of all are Laye's two numbers, "A Man Is a Man," sung to a group of reporters, and the celebratory "In the Pink."

With a touch of operetta about it, the romantic score is generally mediocre but pleasant. The CD adds the bonus of two orchestral medleys not on the original, ten-inch LP, and they allow one to hear the tunes of two songs not included on the cast recordings.

Also originally a Parlophone ten-inch LP, the London cast recording of Can-Can lacks two numbers included on the Broadway set, the "Quadrille" dance and the leading lady's weakest item, "Every Man Is a Stupid Man." Cole Porter's Can-Can was a hit at the London Coliseum, even if the West End run 394 performances was only half as long as the Broadway run 892. The London Can-Can was a reproduction of the Broadway version, featuring Michael Kidd's choreography, Abe Burrows' staging, and Jo Mielziner's sets.

Like Can-Can's Broadway leading lady, Lilo, London's Irene Hilda was an authentic Parisian stage and cabaret performer. Her leading man was the big-voiced Edmund Hockridge, who had recently taken over the male leads in the London productions of Carousel and Guys and Dolls, and would later star in the London Pajama Game.

Playing laundress Claudine and heard in "If You Loved Me Truly" is Gillian Lynne, who would go on to much greater success as a choreographer Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Heard as one of the artists is Warren Mitchell, who would go on to fame as Alf Garnett on TV's Till Death Us Do Part, the English model for All in the Family.

Hilda is excellent, about as good as Lilo on the Broadway set, and Hockridge is likewise superb. The bonus tracks include Hockridge in the "Soliloquy" from Carousel. The CD also boasts new notes by Hockridge, who recalls playing in Can-Can just a few hundred yards away from Wedding in Paris, and dating and later marrying Laye's Paris understudy.

There is only one New York cast album of Can-Can, a short-lived 1981 Broadway revival starring Jeanmaire going unrecorded. But there would be one more London cast recording of Can-Can, from a 1988 revival, starring Donna McKechnie, Milo O'Shea, and Janie Dee, that made substantial alteration to the tunestack.