HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, HALF A SIXPENCE
By Peter Filichia We’ve missed the fiftieth anniversary of Half a Sixpence, but let’s not allow it to go by without mentioning this “big, blooming hit” (John McClain, Journal American). The happy-go-lucky musical, which celebrated its semicentennial on April 25, wound up as Broadway’s fourth-longest-running British musical import – or maybe even third-longest, depending on […]
DAMES AT SEA SAILS TO LONDON
By Peter Filichia There have been 1,025 recordings of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” 1,604 renditions of Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish’s “Star Dust” and over 2,200 covers of Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” But there have been precious few recordings of “Good Times Are Here to Stay,” the marvelous cheer-up song that’s the Act One closer […]
Hello, Hazel Flagg!
By Peter Filichia If you didn’t get to the Lion Theatre last month, then you missed your chance. Musicals Tonight! did an excellent staged reading of Hazel Flagg. At least there’s that 1953 original cast album of the Jule Styne-Bob Hilliard score. The first of those two names you undoubtedly know. Jule Styne was the […]
When A Lyric Picks Up A New Relevance
By Peter Filichia Every now and then, a lyric written long ago assumes a new and suddenly relevant meaning. That happened with the 1962 TV-special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. It contained a hellishly clever parody of The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews played Mrs. Pratt, a happy-go-lucky Maria von Trapp stand-in who supervised […]
Nuns And The Nazis And Whiskers On Kittens
By Peter Filichia She was one of the most esteemed film critics of all time, but her enviable reputation didn’t stop her from getting fired. Pauline Kael started writing for McCall’s in early 1965 and didn’t even last through all of 1966. She was canned for giving her honest opinions, and the first nail in […]
