'Inside U.S.A.' with Bea Lillie, Jack Haley, Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey

The 1948 Broadway revue Inside U.S.A. is not generally considered to be the best such production from composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz. That honor is reserved for their 1931 staging of The Band Wagon, which boasted the Astaires and "Dancing in the Dark." But Inside U.S.A. was nonetheless a hit for the team and the revue's stars, Beatrice Lillie and Jack Haley.

Inside U.S.A. borrowed its title if little else from a popular 1947 book by John Gunther, one in a series that Gunther had begun with Inside Europe in 1936. The revue used the title as a pretext for a series of songs and sketches, each focusing on a different state or locale. Lillie and Haley were both comics, so the focus was squarely on fun, but the score did feature one gorgeous ballad, "Haunted Heart." It became a hit in the versions by Perry Como and Jo Stafford, but even so is not often heard today.

There is no "original cast album" per se for Inside U.S.A. However, RCA Victor did bring Lillie and Haley into the studio to record several songs for an Inside U.S.A. album, filling out the contents with Como's hit version of "Haunted Heart" and Victor artist Billy Williams' recording of "My Gal Is Mine Once More." Meanwhile, Columbia Records was busy assembling a competing album with Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey handling the vocals. Apparently both albums were rushed to completion before the 1948 recording ban could hit on January 1, several months before the show opened. The Columbia LP includes one song ("Protect Me") dropped before the show opened.

Today's download includes both the Victor and Columbia albums and restored artwork for both, along with a number of production stills and sketches, a Life magazine feature on the revue, and other ephemera.

Lillie and Haley were ideally suited to the revue format. Haley, who was nearing 50 when the show opened, had had extensive vaudeville and film (notably, The Wizard of Oz) experience. In 1940, he had been a lead in Rodgers and Hart's Higher and Higher on Broadway. (See this post for the Shirley Ross recordings from that show.) Haley was an excellent song-and-dance artist.

Lillie was another veteran trouper, noted both for her West End and Broadway appearances. Song parody was her métier; it was what made her famous and is in full flower in Inside U.S.A.

Haley and Lillie win "First Prize at the Fair"

Beside the opening number, the Victor album includes songs set in, celebrating or at least parodying New Orleans ("At the Mardi Gras"), Wisconsin ("First Prize at the Fair"), Rhode Island ("Rhode Island Is Famous for You"), Atlanta (err, "Atlanta") and so on. Lillie's mock madrigal "Come, O Come to Pittsburgh" makes fun of the air quality in that steel town. While this may be mystifying to those familiar with the clear-skied city of today, here is what its air looked like in the 1940s.

"Rhode Island Is Famous for You" is probably the best remembered song in the score, except for "Haunted Heart." Haley duetted with Estelle Loring in the show; here he is partnered by an anonymous studio singer. Billy Williams, heard in "My Gal Is Mine Once More," was a former Sammy Kaye vocalist who led (and recorded with) a Western group called the Pecos River Rogues. That song and "Haunted Heart" were sung on Broadway by John Tyers, who had experience both in musicals and opera.

The Broadway orchestrations were by Robert Russell Bennett, but the arrangements on Victor are led by Russ Case and Irving Miller.

Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey

The Clark-Bailey album includes two songs not in the Victor set - "Blue Grass" and "Protect Me" - both delivered by Pearlie Mae. In 1946, she had made a tremendous impression in St. Louis Woman, with its fabulous Arlen-Mercer score.

Buddy Clark - one of my favorite singers - is heard in "Haunted Heart," "My Gal Is Mine Once More," "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" and "First Prize at the Fair," all of which he does very well, particularly "Haunted Heart." Clark, who had been on the radio in the 1930s, became a big star for Columbia in the postwar years. He died in a 1949 plane crash.

Mitchell Ayers provides the backings for Clark and Bailey. The sound on both albums is lively and present. The raw transfers were found during my recent expedition into the boundless reaches of Internet Archive, but I have remastered them for this post.

One final note for anyone who likes (or even remembers) 1950s and 60s American television. Comics Carl Reiner and Louis Nye both were in the Broadway production, and can be seen in the production still below. Reiner is at center left, Nye at center right. Jack Haley is at the right.

Click to enlarge

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