By Steven Suskin
19 Sep 2004

BELLE, or The Ballad of Dr. Crippen [Must Close Saturday MCSR 3016]
Last year, an outfit called Must Close Saturday Records brought us the long out-of-print cast album of the 1959 West End musical The Crooked Mile [MCSR 3002]. This musical was highly unusual for its time, and quickly disappeared; the CD, though, showed us how very relevant to our ears a long-lost West End score can be. This lesson is displayed, once again, with Must Close Saturday's release of Belle, or The Ballad of Dr. Crippen.

There are distinct differences between the two, mind you. The Crooked Mile was well received, in some quarters; business was quite strong, initially; and the score contained at least one smashingly good song. Belle, which opened in May 1961 at the Strand, was critically excoriated. "A sick joke with music," said the Daily Mail, more or less expressing the popular view. The show quickly shuttered and went down in the annals of British flops.

But Belle, on CD, reveals itself as something else again: a cunning and somewhat wicked satire. The show relates the tale of Dr. Crippen, a dentist who apparently poisoned his wife Belle for the love of his secretary Ethel le Neve. This triangle provided front-page fodder back in 1910. The notoriety of the case was enhanced by the use of modern technology in the apprehension of the murderer. The couple fled to Canada, with Ethel disguised as a boy. The Captain of the ocean liner became suspicious and used the brand-new Marconi wire to radio Scotland Yard. Crippen and Le Neve were arrested as they disembarked.

The episode has had somewhat surprising resonance; in their 1943 hit Broadway musical One Touch of Venus, Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash included an extended production number called "Dr. Crippen." (This in an apparent hope to capitalize on the popularity of "The Saga of Jenny," from Weill's prior musical Lady in the Dark.) Crippen got hung, with Ethel winning an acquittal. When Belle opened in 1961, an intrepid journalist managed to track down the 78-year-old gal, bringing unwanted publicity.

Belle was the work of librettist Wolf Mankowitz and composer-lyricist Monty Norman. With various collaborators, the pair had written two influential new-style British musicals, Expresso Bongo (1957) and Make Me an Offer (1959). Norman had also served as one of the adaptor-lyricists of the musical hit Irma La Douce. What Mankowitz and Norman came up with was a "music-hall musical" with attitude. The form is not unlike what Fosse, Kander and Ebb came up with for Chicago; but I suppose that a musical morality tale in which the murderer and murderess got all the sympathy, was not likely to find favor in 1961.

The CD might well take a few listenings for proper appreciation; but this is a meat-and-potatoes score. (Is there such a thing as a shepherd's pie score?) The pleasures include "The Ballad of Dr. Crippen," laced through the proceedings like the "Moritat" ("Mack the Knife"); three highly interesting songs for the heroine, with "Don't Ever Leave Me" the standout; a rouser about "Coldwater, Michigan," which takes its place alongside "Wilkes-Barre, Pa."; and "Bird of Paradise," what well might be the funniest musical comedy number featuring a singer who can't hit the notes that I've heard.

So if you delight in unusual, macabre, pocket musicals, you most certainly might want to make the acquaintance of Dr. Crippen and his Belle.

—Steven Suskin, author of "A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork" [Chronicle Books], the "Broadway Yearbook" series, "Show Tunes" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached by E-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com.