Welcome to a new Musical Theatre Monday! This month, our extended “1950s takeover” continues — in celebration of my recently published first book, Great American Sitcoms of the 1950s, which you can purchase here (or on Amazon here) — as I spotlight one of this era’s most tunefully charming musical comedies, Bells Are Ringing (1956).
Boasting a score by Jule Styne and Betty Comden & Adolph Green that even managed to produce several standards (“The Party’s Over” and “Just In Time”), Bells Are Ringing is a quintessential fifties musical that evokes the ethos of the period well, with an affable rom-com plot, from a book also by Comden & Green, about an empathetic operator at a telephone answering service (a character inspired by the real life Mary Printz) who falls for one of her clients while assuming a false identity. This farcical narrative setup, enriched by a bevy of swinging songs, was a naturally terrific vehicle for the effervescent Judy Holliday, whose Academy Award-winning turn in the 1950 movie adaptation of her previous stage triumph Born Yesterday established her among the finest comic actresses of the decade. In fact, the 1950s were the peak of Holliday’s power — she passed away in 1965 after several years of declining health (and a few stage flops) — rendering her a unique ambassador for, specifically, the Eisenhower decade (with a splash of Truman, of course), with which she is most uniquely associated.
Bells Are Ringing, both on stage and screen (where Holliday got to immortalize her role in 1960, her last cinematic foray) is also uniquely associated with this time period, for in addition to Holiday herself, and the trio’s joyful score of mid-century pop hits (or adjacent), its whole premise involves a telephone answering service, a luxury that was soon technologically outmoded, thereby locking this story quite firmly into its mid-century trappings. Accordingly, Bells Are Ringing is exactly the kind of show you do when you want a true Golden Age musical comedy — a reflection of the 1950s that is funny, romantic, and quite tuneful.
Beyond Holiday (whom you should check out in the imperfect but nevertheless enjoyable film version — and the original Broadway cast album, of course, which I much prefer to the 2001 revival with Faith Prince), the delightful score and era-specific plot with a juicy star role render it deserving of more attention as well — and I’m pleased to share, with subscribers who comment below to alert me of their private, non-commercial interest, access to several audios from post-1960 productions of Bells Are Ringing. The first is an untracked audio from a performance at The Melody Top in 1976, starring Rita Moreno and Tab Hunter. Here they are above.
Additionally, Encores! did the show in 2010, with Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase. From a sample of a soundboard, above is O’Hara with the show’s other big standard — “The Party’s Over.”
Lastly, I’ve also got a songs-only audio with Carolee Carmello in L.A. Reprise!’s 1999 production. Here she is above with “I’m Going Back,” a hilarious number that, as indicated in the film, Judy Holliday also made a tour de force — proof of this show’s charms and her own immense talent, which I maintain would have been so well-suited to a smart, funny situation comedy had she lived long enough. Alas, Holliday remains a special symbol of this time in our culture — with Bells Are Ringing a choice showcase, a beautiful time capsule of the 1950s.
Come back next month for another musical rarity. And buy my book if you haven’t already!