'I Married an Angel' - The Early Recordings

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart formed a wildly productive partnership - from 1925 to 1940, they opened a show on Broadway in every year except 1934, and usually more than one. One fertile period was 1936-38, when their productions were On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, I'd Rather Be Right, The Boys from Syracuse and I Married an Angel.

Not long ago, I explored the early recordings from Babes in Arms. The subject of today's post is a lesser hit, but still a popular show: I Married an Angel, which ran from May 11, 1938 to February 25, 1939. Its score is not as bountiful as Babes in Arms, but it has its moments, and there were interesting recordings from the time, which I've gathered for this post.

Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers

The contrived but amusing plot is from a play by the Hungarian writer János Vaszary. It involves the complications that ensue when banker Count Willy Palaffi (Dennis King) marries an angel (Vera Zorina), whose unvarnished honesty becomes a business and social problem for him.

The production involved some of the finest talents of the 20th century theatre - director Joshua Logan, choreographer George Balanchine (Zorina's husband at the time) and scenic designer Jo Mielziner, with Rodgers and Hart writing the book as well as the music.

One reason why the score is less impressive than Babes in Arms among other Rodgers and Hart shows is that the pivotal character, played by Zorina, was a dancer, not a singer. Even so, most of the 10 original songs in the score merited a recording, and a few can still be heard today.

Vera Zorina and ensemble

Let's examine the score, in running order.

Wynn Murray

The first song is Count Palaffi's "Did You Ever Get Stung?" which is nor heard today outside of a few cabarets. No member of the cast recorded it, but Rodgers and Hart veteran Wynn Murray did do so. (She had appeared in both Babes in Arms and The Boys from Syracuse.) Her accompaniment is by the Walter-Bowers Orchestra - cabaret legend Cy Walter and duo-piano partner Gil Bowers. Murray and the band are lyrical at first, then "get hot," in the musical fashion of the time.

Palaffi's "I Married an Angel" was not recorded by a Broadway cast member either, but it did merit a disc from Nelson Eddy, who played the Count in the 1942 film version. That production kept the main songs from the stage score, but added much more music, primarily by operetta veteran Herbert Stothart. He was well suited to providing songs for Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, in their last film together.

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

For this number, Eddy's singing was tuneful, but not especially colorful or flexible. For contrast, I've added a contemporary recording by the more relaxed Buddy Clark. Unlike the latter, Eddy includes the verse - a plus for his version. I believe this song still gets an occasional performance today - I was familiar with it, anyway.

Eddy returns for "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," a beautiful song with a tricky melody that he tosses off effortlessly. He again scores points by performing the verse, which adds greatly to the song. 

I could not resist adding a much different interpretation to the end of the playlist, even though it is from 25 years after the musical's run on Broadway. This is the remarkable version of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" from Barbra Streisand's debut LP. (No verse, though!)

Audrey Christie and Charles Walters

We now come to the only member of the original cast to merit a recording (actually, two). The fortunate artist is Audrey Christie, then a singer and dancer, later a film actor. Her first number is "How to Win Friends and Influence People," a title pinched from the 1936 best seller by Dale Carnegie. 

Christie isn't a great singer, but she does exude energy, essential for this lively number. In the show, he sang the piece with Charles Walters. On record, she is backed by Walter, Bowers and ensemble, again for the Liberty Music Shop label. 

The enduring hit from the show is the eloquent "Spring Is Here." Despite its quality and staying power, no one from the cast recorded it, to my knowledge. So I have again turned to Buddy Clark for a contemporary recording. To it, I've added an unexpectedly terrific version from cabaret singer Eve Symington, issued by the invaluable Liberty Music Shop. Cy Walter leads the band without Gil Bowers, who must have missed his train. Symington includes the verse; Clark does not.

Eve Symington

A parenthetical note about the unfamiliar (to me) Symington: born Eve Wadsworth, she married businessman Stuart Symington in the 1920s, and embarked on a career as a singer. On this evidence, she was quite a good one, but her career was short. It was at about this time that she and her husband moved to St. Louis, where he became the head of Emerson Electric. He later became a well-known US Senator - as Eve Symington's father had been. I've posted three of her other recordings on my singles blog.  

Wynn Murray returns for the clumsily risqué "A Twinkle in Your Eye," not one of the best songs from Rodgers and especially Hart. Murray, Walter and Bowers do their best.

The Roxy

Audrey Christie then performs her second song from the score, "At the Roxy Music Hall." The Roxy was a 6,000-seat behemoth of a movie theater on W. 50th Street. I had no recollection of the place until reader hkitt42 reminded me that it's referenced in the title song of Guys and Dolls. Oh, yeah - "What's playing at the Roxy?"! In this earlier number, Christie assures us, "Oh come with me, you won't believe a thing you see!" and "Don't be shy if a naked statue meets your eye!" among other marvels. It's a fun piece and Christie is the right person to sing it, but the song is now recherché considering that the Roxy has been dust since 1960.

Cy Walter and Gil Bowers

The playlist is completed - save for the Streisand reprise of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" - by a two-sided medley from Walter and Bowers and their pianos. It includes "Spring Is Here," "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," "I Married an Angel" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

The download includes a restored version of the souvenir program along with production stills, a few Jo Mielziner scenery sketches, and two reviews from Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times. The program and stills are cleaned up from originals on the New York Public Library site, and the resolution is not as fine as one might desire. Most of the recordings were cleaned up from Internet Archive transfers. The Liberty Music Shop items were not well recorded; I've done my best to help them out.