Words and Music by Jerry Herman

A favorite Broadway guessing game: What makes some songs and the shows that contain them a hit, and others not? Perhaps the surest way is to aim at the middle: neither too sophisticated nor too facile. Jerry Herman is a perfect man of the middle, as Amber Edwards' documentary, Words and Music by Jerry Herman (first broadcast on PBS on New Year's Day and now available on DVD) makes eloquently clear.

Near the beginning, singer Michael Feinstein remarks that to be simple without being cliché is nearly impossible; yet that is what Herman accomplishes in both words and music—a quality in which he most resembles his favorite, Irving Berlin. A man who neither writes nor reads notes, Herman has a sovereign grasp of how to write a song, play it on the piano and leave the hearer happily hungry for more.

The documentary benefits from Herman's candid revelations, never-before-seen archival footage, and the contributions, in commentary and sometimes also performance, of celebrities. Thus Herman leading ladies Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Phyllis Newman and Leslie Uggams; major actors George Hearn, Charles Nelson Reilly and Jason Graae; fellow musical-comedy makers Charles Strouse, Fred Ebb and Arthur Laurents; renowned others, Michael Feinstein, Marge Champion, conductor-arranger Donald Pippin, writer Francine Pascal and producer Barry Brown; and theater historians Miles Kreuger and Ken Bloom. A stellar cast indeed.

Mostly, though, there is the man himself talking about his life and work with piano illustrations: reminiscing, theorizing, explicating where explication is possible. His most important achievement may be that he writes, without elaborate preconceptions, from character, and also from period style. His next strength is writing music and words simultaneously, perceiving them as an inseparable entity. Furthermore, he boldly seeks variety: His sources and subjects could not be more different, although the special brand of unsyrupy melodiousness is always recognizably Jerry Herman.

He is the son of a pianist and radio performer mother, who encouraged him, and a father who ran a summer camp, which he wanted Jerry to take over, but who also played the sax. Parents and son performed fruitful show-tune trio musicales.

A return visit to Herman's childhood home in New Jersey elicits moving memories, especially of Jerry's beloved mother, who died of cancer at 44, before her son's career really took off. One feels that the great female leads Herman wrote for mature women—Dolly, Mame, the Madwoman of Chaillot—are posthumous tributes to her.

Starting with modest off-Broadway shows like Parade, a two-year hit, the self-taught pianist-composer was off and running. If most of his songs had a common element, it was infectious optimism. He was determined, as Miles Kreuger remarks, to make you feel better and could just about cure your illnesses. His first Broadway show, Milk and Honey (1961), about Israel, was living proof thereof.

[IMG:R]Herman had had to play four songs to the frighteningly diabolical producer David Merrick, who wondered whether Jerry was "American enough," but, convinced, gave him that Broadway start. After that it was Hello, Dolly! with, among other goodies, that phenomenal title number in Gower Champion's choreography, which, as Ms. Channing notes, may be the most famous production number ever.

Though Herman did not want something like a repeat, Mame rather was that, with another great title production number, this time staged by Onna White. The show contains what I consider one of the finest show tunes ever written, "If He Walked Into My Life," which here we see Eydie Gorme parlaying into a Grammy Award.

Sometimes a Herman show was too strange for a musical-comedy audience—and, I confess, even for me; now I would dearly love to see Dear World, based on Giraudoux's Madwoman of Chaillot again; what we see of it here is mighty appealing, even if it escaped me then.

What did not escape me was that, perhaps alone amid an unfavorable critical reception, I had to rave about Mack and Mabel, surely one of the supreme American musicals, and, in Herman's view, as good as Dolly and Mame combined. Contributing to its failure was the unhappy ending, which in today's more knowing climate ought not to elicit the repeated fiddlings with feel-good improvement inflicted on it in revivals. Too bad the superlative Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters, as Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand, cannot be repackaged for each production, but even without them, this show by itself confers immortality on Jerry Herman.

The Grand Tour, though unsuccessful in its time, could in ours, with its political turmoil, fare deservedly better. It is based on Franz Werfel's fascinating play Jacobowsky and the Colonel, uniting a fearsome, anti-Semitic Polish colonel and an ingenious little Jew, traditional enemies, in their love of Marianne (the symbol of France) and struggle for survival in World War II. At the very least some of its marvelous songs justify a revival.

Then came La Cage aux Folles and its interesting genesis, recorded here on film. Everyone concerned claimed it as just an atypical family show rather than a social message statement. Amazingly, it excelled as both. A number like "I Am What I Am," presumably influenced by the identically titled Jacques Prevert-Joseph Kosma song, is a tremendous propaganda tool as well as a powerhouse song, especially as delivered by George Hearn.

All this and more is in the documentary, which proves something like an insider's behind-the-scenes account combined with a bang-up post-performance discussion. And something better yet: a searching tribute to a major songwriter, musical-comedy magician and warm human being: Jerry Herman.