CDs: Dietz and Schwartz Revues

The Band Wagon, Three's a Crowd, At Home Abroad, and Flying Colors were Broadway revues of the 1930s boasting songs by composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz. After a nine-year separation, the team reunited in the late '40s for their seventh and final Broadway revue, Inside U.S.A. With each sequence built around one of the forty-eight states, the show was inspired by Schwartz's cross-country automobile trip as well as by John Gunther's widely-read non-fiction tome, from which the show took only its title.

With sketches by, among others, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, Inside U.S.A. boasted that critics' darling, British singing comedienne Beatrice Lillie, appearing opposite Jack Haley the Tin Woodsman in the Wizard of Oz film. Opening at the Century Theatre on April 30, 1948 and soon transferring to the Majestic, Inside U.S.A. had a year's run of 399 performances.

It was fortunate that RCA Victor recorded the show prior to its Broadway engagement. Had the label waited until after the show arrived in New York, Inside U.S.A. might not have been recorded at all, as it would have fallen victim to the ASCAP strike that seems to have deprived a number of 1948 musicals Where's Charley?, Love Life. Magdalena, Lend an Ear of cast recordings. The strike ended in time for the last musical of '48, Kiss Me, Kate, to get a recording.

Recorded in late '47, RCA's album of Inside U.S.A. consisted of four 78 discs, and, as was often the case in those days, stars Lillie and Haley were joined on the recording by popular singers who were not in the show's cast. The show's big ballad, the haunting "Haunted Heart," was sung on disc by Perry Como, while "My Girl Is Mine Once More" was sung by Billy Williams. Because the show was recorded prior to production, Lillie performs a rowdy salute to "Atlanta" that was cut by the time Inside U.S.A. came to town.

Inside U.S.A. was also the recipient of a second RCA album recorded in '47, this one three 78 discs and featuring studio vocalists Pearl Bailey and Buddy Clark. Once again, a song cut prior to Broadway, Bailey's sardonic "Protect Me," was preserved. Bailey also sings the sultry "Blue Grass," a song that was heard on Broadway but not included on the other recording.

Sepia's new CD releasing September 6 offers in their entirety both albums, ten songs in all, with the second recording repeating four of the songs heard on the first set.

With a cast that also included Carl Reiner, Louis Nye, Thelma Carpenter Bailey's standby in Hello, Dolly!, Jack Cassidy, and Herb Shriner, the latter imitating Will Rogers and delivering his own Hoosier monologues, Inside U.S.A. opened to unanimously favorable reviews, particularly for the sublime Lillie. The recording does not allow one the chance to hear Lillie playing, as she did in the show, a mermaid; an Indian squaw; a superstitious maid who upsets an actress on opening night; a school teacher explaining world events through the eyes of a Texan; or taking a leaf from Hollywood biopics a femme fatale who fancies herself the inspiration for Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky.

But you do get to hear Lillie leading a choir singing the praises of fair Pittsburgh in "Come, Oh Come," and as the belle of the ball in the New Orleans sequence "At the Mardi Gras." Haley gets the two outstanding charm songs, "Rhode Island Is Famous for You," in which he catalogues the attractions of various states, and "First Prize at the Fair," a Wisconsin salute.

The songs are quite pleasant, but Inside U.S.A.'s score isn't as strong as that of The Band Wagon, the hit 1931 revue by Dietz and Schwartz. The show marked the final joint Broadway appearance of brother-and-sister Fred and Adele Astaire. Adele left the stage for marriage; Fred did one more Broadway musical then concentrated on movies.

When The Band Wagon opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on June 3, 1931 for a run of 260 performances, New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, "After the appearance of The Band Wagon, it will be difficult for the old time musical show to hold up its head....Both funny and lovely, it has wit, gaiety, and splendor...It is a long step forward in the civilized art of stage revues."

Indeed, The Band Wagon, which featured sketches by Dietz and George S. Kaufman, is often considered the peak of the Broadway revue. It was an innovative production, employing a double revolving stage for theatrical effect rather than just for scene changes, and dispensing with footlights in favor of lights hung from the front of the balcony.

In addition to the Astaires, the cast included Frank Morgan the title role in the Wizard of Oz film, comedienne Helen Broderick, and ballerina Tilly Losch. The standout song was "Dancing in the Dark," but there were such other strong items as "I Love Louisa" performed on a merry-go-round in a Bavarian sequence, "High and Low," "New Sun in the Sky," and "Hoops."

As Dietz later wrote, The Band Wagon, which cost an expensive $100,000 to mount, was "an experimental production, combining the best features of the intimate revue with the more spectacular background associated with Ziegfeld."

The Band Wagon got an early version of a cast album when RCA issued an experimental, 33 1/3, ten-inch LP recording with the Astaires, composer Schwartz at the piano, and Leo Reisman and his orchestra. The two sides of the disc lasted a total of twenty minutes, and was recorded in '31, almost two decades before the LP became popular.

Sepia's combination of Inside U.S.A. and The Band Wagon on a single CD includes that experimental LP, along with two bonuses. We get the four Band Wagon songs that were issued as one side of a 1953, ten-inch RCA studio set backed by the Dietz-Schwartz Little Show, sung by Harold Lang, Edith Adams, and George Britton.

Finally, there are three cuts from the soundtrack of the classic 1953 Hollywood musical The Band Wagon, a film which took from the stage revue only five songs plus Astaire.