By Steven Suskin
13 Sep 2009

Back in the late 1970s, producer Herman Levin (of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and My Fair Lady) closed his office and asked a stage manager friend of mine to help clean things up. Among the odds and ends was the cast album of the 1964 musical Our Man Crichton [Parlophone PCS-3066]. This was a musicalization of J.M. Barrie's 1902 comedy The Admirable Crichton, in a which an upper-crust English family is shipwrecked — and the admirable Crichton, their butler, turns out to be the fittest of the group. The show had a six-month run at the Shaftesbury (where it was followed by Twang!!). It is best remembered for giving prominent roles to Millicent Martin and Kenneth More; the score — by composer David Lee (a musical director writing his only West End musical comedy) and lyricist/librettist Herbert Kretzmer — is no great shakes, as it were; but these are amusing shakes. Standing out is a song for Martin which turns into a grand production number, "Let's Find an Island" (with a nice vocal arrangement tacked on); the opening number, "Tweeny!"; a trio, "Oh! For a Husband"; and a pert duet in which Ms. Martin meets David Kernan, "Little Darlin'." Kernan and Martin later joined together for Side By Side By Sondheim; and Kretzmer turned up, rather unexpectedly, with English lyrics for a little item called Les Miserables.

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Lyricist Kretzmer followed Crichton with another adaptation. In 1967 he joined composer Laurie Johnson to take "The Three Musketeers" and transform it — with the addition of post-Pickwick star Harry Secombe as the dashing (?) d'Artagnan — into The Four Musketeers! [Philips AL3655] . Mr. Johnson was a top film and television composer, best known in the theatre for his excellent music to Lionel Bart's lyrics for Lock Up Your Daughters. Something of a Pickwickian reunion — with that show's producer, director and designer in attendance — The Four Musketeers! was a popular success though not in any way distinguished. This cast album was on the borderline of making my U.K. list; a couple of people wrote in suggesting it, tipping the balance. It has been a long time since I've heard it — I miraculously managed to dig up the LP and am staring at it as I type, with no turntable to play it on — but I quite like d'Artagnan's (Secombe's) theme song, "A Little Bit of Glory"; two pleasant duets for Secombe and love interest Stephanie Voss, "What Love Can Do" and "I Was Only Doing It for You"; and a rousing song for the four Musketeers, "If You're Looking for a Man."

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The flurry of e-mails following the appearance of Part One of this survey included several requests for the London cast album of Harold Rome's Gone with the Wind [Columbia SCXA 9252]. The original 1970 Japanese version was, briefly, on CD; but Scarlett, being in Japanese, is little more than a two-disc puzzler. The 1972 London production, starring the late Harve Presnell (as Rhett) and June Ritchie as Scarlett, was fairly successful and duly recorded. As much as I like Rome's work, though, I can't say that I am breathlessly waiting for the CD. I also had several calls for Ambassador [RCA SER-5618], the 1971 adaptation of the novel "The Ambassadors" by Henry James. Unable to raise the money for a Broadway production, the producers took their show to London where it opened in October 1971. Despite a lukewarm reception, they plunged ahead and brought the thing — complete with stars Howard Keel and Danielle Darrieux — to the Lunt-Fontanne. The Broadway import of the American-musical-from-London opened on Nov. 19, 1972 — "effete and pallid," Clive Barnes called it in the Times — and limped through 19 performances. The show was earnest but plodding; sort of a Lerner and Loewe musical without Lerner or Loewe. For all we know, Lerner might have lent a hand; Ambassador was directed by Bud Widney, Lerner's longtime assistant/production supervisor. (Three of the songs sound transplanted from My Fair Lady/Gigi, though without the strength of Loewe's music). Lyricist Hal Hackady, who had already written the tuneful but flawed Minnie's Boys, had been working on this one with composer Don Gohman since 1960 or so; they did a decent job, but Lerner & Loewe it wasn't — and that's what was needed. (Gohman was one of the saddest cases of one-shot Broadway composers; Peter Howard told me that he was despondent over the show's demise and, in 1974, committed suicide.) I can't go so far as to place this LP high on my list, although I'm glad to see any such item turn up on CD. In the case of Ambassador, I feel sure that a CD would earn the show many new fans.

While I can't recommend shows like the two above that I find lukewarm, there are — as I said — any number of West End albums I've never heard and cannot address. Cole [RCA LRL2 5054], for example, the Mermaid Theatre's 1974 anthology revue with Julia McKenzie, Kenneth Nelson and others. When I sent in the first column, my editor said he hoped I would include it on my U.K. list. Can't do, I said, as I've never heard it. Okay, he said, but it's wonderful. The first column, however, brought forth additional vehement requests for Cole. So I guess it's proper to place it on a conditional list until I get a chance to listen.

Our next column will complete our discourse on cast album LPs worthy of CD release, centering on Off-Broadway and miscellaneous scores.

(Steven Suskin is author of "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations" as well as "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com)