PART 1 of 2
“A Little Racketeer (1932) is notable only because composer Dimitri Tiomkin contributed several melodies.” —Ken Bloom, The Routledge Guide to Broadway, 2006
Dimitri Tiomkin in Hollywood with film director Edwin Carewe, a year before he wrote music for “A Little Racketeer,” 1930
Dimitri Tiomkin’s contribution to the Broadway musical revue is notable; he provided three songs and two ballet numbers. But there’s more to the story. Who was Haskell Brown and why did he receive sole billing for the music when the production opened on Broadway? The complete performance history of the show has never been written and, until now, no one has discovered the title of the underlying dramatic work that forms the basis of the libretto.
Considering the music score, there are at least four variant versions of the “Little Racketeer,” spread among five out-of-town tryouts leading up to the Broadway debut followed by a road tour that was cut short after the first stop, a casualty of the Great Depression, not to mention the loss of box office from an untimely and unusual musician’s strike. Dimitri Tiomkin’s music was performed in five of the seven theaters that mounted productions.
One of the constants during the five-month run of the show that included performances in six cities and five states—amidst changes in direction and casting as well as frequent changes to the music—was the headlining star, Queenie Smith.
Queenie Smith plays the leading role
Queenie Smith, who went on to play Elly in the 1936 film version of Jerome Kern’s Show Boat, is remembered today as a television and film actress; however, her talent was first on display as a teenage ballet dancer with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1920, while in her early twenties she gravitated to acting and became a member of the Shubert company of artists. By the time the decade was over, Queenie had appeared in ten Broadway musicals and both her talent and her whimsical and dynamic personality were getting noticed.
The Shubert organization had the petite singer and dancer in mind from the outset for the leading role in a new Broadway musical and in May 1931 announced the selection of “Hearts in Repair,” an adaptation of a German stage play, as Queenie Smith’s next show. Tryouts were to be in Brighton Beach the week of August 17 and in Atlantic City the following week.
(Ponder this, was the choice of this unique title influenced by “hearts in repair,” from the closing stanza of a popular poem widely published in American newspapers the year before by the People’s Poet, Edgar A. Guest? Because, as we will soon learn, the Anglicized title is not a literal translation of the German source.)
Queenie would play Dixie, a young girl who after failing to succeed in New York devises a creative racket—she hides in cars of rich men and when discovered pleads poverty. As one reviewer put it, “Misunderstandings follow but a mutual love prevails.”
Harry Clarke would write the book and “Hearts in Repair” would include a revolving stage and a small chorus, with rehearsals now set to begin in early August.
“Queenie Smith is to start rehearsals tomorrow,” ran a blurb in the New York Daily News on the 23rd of August, “in a third new Shubert musical, announced as ‘Hearts in Repair.’ It is likely that the title will be changed to ‘Raising a Racket.’ It concerns a nice little girl who tries to work her way up in the world by becoming a gangster’s moll.”
The title is changed to The Little Racketeer and by mid-September the cast includes African American comedian Hamtree Harrington, actor Daniel J. Sullivan, chorus girl-turned-character actress Lorraine Weimar, and the Javanese dancers Yo Hay Tong and Kalil Ogly [Khalil Oglou Mazini].
Yo Hay Tong in a fan magazine, “Broadway and Hollywood Movies,” promoting “The Little Racketeer,” 1932
Queenie Smith is scheduled to headline a singing and dancing cast of 100 in a three-day run beginning October 8 at the Parsons Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.
Music and lyrics by Henry Sullivan and Edward Eliscu
Composer Henry Sullivan and lyricist Edward Eliscu would provide the songs for the first tryout for the Edward Royce staged production with a book by Harry Clarke based on a play in German by F. Kalbfuss and R. Wilde.
Songwriter Sullivan’s scant previous experience on Broadway did result in a hit song, “I May Be Wrong, But I Think You’re Wonderful.” Written for a 1929 musical revue, the song became a standard and has appeared in a dozen films from Young Man With a Horn, the 1950 musical drama based on the novel of the same name and inspired by the life of jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, to the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, on homosexuality in the movies.
Coincidentally, Queenie Smith sang “I May Be Wrong, But I Think You’re Wonderful” in a St. Louis Municipal Opera production of The Street Singer in the summer of 1931, alongside Archie Leach, destined to become movie star Cary Grant.
Edward Eliscu, like Queenie Smith, was no stranger to musicals and at this stage of his career he was knocking out lyrics right and left for the Shubert organization. In a previous adaptation job for the Shuberts, he Americanized the lyrics for the operetta The Duchess of Chicago based on the 1928 Vienna production, Die Herzogin von Chicago.
Bandleader Paul Ash, described as a “former picture house m.c. [master-of-ceremonies],” is assigned to conduct The Little Racketeer at the same time he is placed in charge of all Shubert legitimate music and orchestras, in addition to supervising all pit bands for the organization.
Discovering the German source of The Little Racketeer
After the title change to The Little Racketeer, the Chicago Tribune reports that the new operetta “comes from the German stage, where it bore the same title.” This misdirection has persisted since 1931. The work was from the German stage; however, the title differed. English-language sources consistently neglect to fully name or identify “F. Kalbfuss” and “R. Wilde” and, until now, no one has made the connection between The Little Racketeer and the original German title of the Kalbfuss and Wilde work.
Friedrich Kalbfuß [Kalbfuss] (1903–1938), a German dramatist, stage designer, and lyricist, worked largely as a set designer in Frankfurt, Königsberg, and Mannheim, after studying art history and painting. While most of his written works are poems, short stories, and essays, he did create a handful of stage comedies. The first, written in 1929 or 1930 (some sources indicate 1931, which is the U.S. Copyright year), while still in his twenties, was Panne des Herzens—literally, “Glitch of the Heart,” or mixing German and French, “Heart Break”—a comedy in three acts, co-authored with Richard Wilde.
Richard Wilde (1872–1945), considerably older than Kalbfuß, was a German Jew, and later a member of the German Association of Writers and the Working Committee of the Gendarmenmarkt Playhouse in Berlin. Wilde earlier gained fame for his translation into German of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice for the libretto to Otto Taubmann’s opera Porzia (Portia). He wrote a number of silent films and an idea by Wilde formed the basis of the scenario by Ernst Lubitsch for the 1919 silent film, The Merry Husband.
The U.S. Copyright for Panne des Herzens, dated March 7, 1931, provides evidence of a 118-page unpublished manuscript, “von Friedrich Kalbfuss und Richard Wilde,” and notes the work dates from 1930 and Berlin. Koblenz, Germany was the site of the work’s premiere.
The American copyright predates by two months the Shubert announcement of the New York musical revue and within four months of that announcement, “Hearts in Repair,” based on Panne des Herzens, becomes The Little Racketeer.
Hopes were high in the fall of 1931 that the “lively, lilting and laughable” show “under the ever-waving banner of the Messrs. Shubert” would be a prize booking of the new season, since the Shubert organization was in financial straits and in desperate need of income to extricate the company from receivership and possible liquidation as the Great Depression worsened.
A troubled production from the start
The first sign of trouble came out of Hartford on October 6, when “Manager Stevenson of Parson’s Theater received word that the new musical show called ‘The Little Racketeer’ could not be brought to Hartford” because additional rehearsals were necessary to bring the piece into shape for public performance.”
Queenie Smith later explained the unusual rehearsal process. “In ‘A Little Racketeer’ the plot was arranged so that it followed a logical course, and so that the songs, instead of hindering the story, advanced it. In spite of the mad rush to see that the dances were as nearly perfect as possible, we rehearsed an extra week, so that the book could be given about twice as much attention as it usually gets. These rehearsals were not held in the same theater as the others. In fact, the same methods were used with which straight plays are staged. Then, in a few days, before the out-of-town opening, libretto, score and dances were put together for the first time. And it did make a difference.”
That “extra week” of rehearsal resulted in the cancellation of the Hartford booking. “Due to the magnitude of ‘THE LITTLE RACKETEER,’ the new and lavish QUEENIE SMITH vehicle, it will be impossible to have this attraction ready for its presentation on Oct. 8-9-10. Instead, it will be offered at PARSONS’ THEATER on Oct. 19-20-21.”
Shubert Theater, Newark, New Jersey, October 12-18, 1931
Meanwhile astute readers of the New York Times and fans of Queenie Smith may have noticed a small display ad announcing the impending opening of The Little Racketeer the week beginning October 12 at the Shubert Theatre in Newark, New Jersey, with Paul Ash and his orchestra engaged for this tryout. On October 11 a newspaper display ad proclaims, “First Time on Any Stage.”
Lacking a program or reviews it’s difficult to determine the musical content of the run in Newark. After the week-long engagement, the Parsons Theater in Hartford fails to mount the show a second time and the musical revue is scheduled to open in Boston on October 19; however, even that show faces delays, “due to the necessity of putting up unusually large stage sets,” and to the last minute casting of Grace Hayes.
Shubert Theater, Boston, October 21-November 7, 1931
The opening in Boston takes place on Wednesday, October 21—one day after the Shubert Theatre Corporation went into receivership—at the Sam S. Shubert Theatre.
A Boston Globe reviewer notes, Queenie Smith “came back to Boston last evening as star of a big and brand-new musical show, said to be adapted from the German and named ‘The Little Racketeer.’ It is new because it is still in the preliminary try-out stage and it is big because it has lots of players, lots of dancing, lots of scenery, and lots of costumes.” And offers this honest appraisal, “The opening of ‘The Little Racketeer’ here was postponed from Monday night for further rehearsal. It might have been wise to have delayed the opening still longer.”
A program from the October 21 performance lists the following musical numbers by Henry Sullivan and Edward Eliscu: “Marde Grai [sic],” “Waltz,” “Here’s Tonight,” “Inside Looking Out,” “You and I Could Be Just Like That,” “Finaletto,” “Walking on Air,” “Whiling My Time Away,” “You’ve Got to Sell Yourself,” “What Great Big Eyes You Have,” one dance number by Ray Rhonheimer titled “Tango Eccentrique,” and “SRIMPI,” described as a Javanese Sacred Dance, occasionally incorrectly referred to as “Japanese,” performed by Tong and Oglou.
At the eleventh hour the statuesque Grace Hayes replaced Newark cast member Ruth Shields in the prominent supporting role of Ethel Pierson and according to Variety was a “show stopper.”
A Harvard student, reviewing the production for the school newspaper, writes that Queenie Smith is most of the show, the story is only of casual interest, and, with kudos to Paul Ash, praises the orchestral performance as “one of the very best ever heard in a theater pit in Boston.”
Decent reviews didn’t translate into ticket sales at the box office. A horse show attended by 80,000 people and some other unspecified “monster benefit performances” drew theatergoers away during the run of the show, crimping ticket sales at all Boston theatrical houses. A delegation of Texas Longhorn fans in town for a football game with Harvard did attend weekend performances.
This second tryout saw musical changes and a comparison of programs indicate the changes put in place by week three:
- “Frown” replaces “Here’s Tonight”
- Rug Dance, a second dance performed Tong and Oglou is added
- “Drunk with Love” and “Happy Ending” are added
- “Little Racketeer” replaces “Whiling My Time”
- and “Let’s Face the Future” is dropped.
The West Coast press announcement that the musical revue “may be expected at the Majestic theater in New York the week of October 26, mounted on two revolving stages” turns out to be premature, because after the November 7 performance, the Boston show is halted temporarily to eliminate the revolving stage and “for two weeks of intensive revision.”
The revolving stage, a turntable device allowing for rapid scene changes, played an important role conceptually in The Little Racketeer and was the handiwork of scenic designer Watson Barrett. (A revolving stage had recently been installed at the Municipal Theatre in St. Louis to showcase Shubert productions staged by Barrett.)
A major role in the storyline is assumed by a brand new Chevrolet, a focal point on the rotating stage in two scenes. In Boston it was a Coupe with rumble seat and in New York a Chevrolet Six, an inline six cylinder car introduced in 1929, both provided by the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. The smaller open-seat Coupe was probably the more practical choice for Dixie to hide in; the Chevrolet Six may have been bigger and better but had an enclosed passenger compartment. American car culture was still more than a decade away and reviewers do not mention the stage car.
When the show was halted some performers moved on. “When the piece goes on again Nick Long Jr. and Lita Grey Chaplin will be new in a company from which John Price Jones and Grace Hayes will have departed.” Around this time, Paul Ash bails as bandleader—Variety reports he stated he did not have enough to do in the show—to take a band engagement in San Francisco.
After the departures, J. J. Shubert makes his way to Boston to appraise the show. What started life in America as “Hearts in Repair” has now literally become, “Show in Repair.”
Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, two fresh faces on the rise, are called on to doctor the music; however, after the announced two-week closure the show fails to re-open in Boston. (According to a later press account, the songwriters were responsible for placing the dancing Wonder children, Tom and Wendy, in the show around this same time.)
Billboard reports on November 21 that Shubert’s financial receiver, the Irving Trust Company, is calling off all future Shubert productions save Smiling Faces, “with The Little Racketeer another possibility for closing.”
What a difference a leading article makes: The Little Racketeer becomes A Little Racketeer
On the next day, November 22, J. J. Shubert announces that The Little Racketeer is in the process of revision and will now not open until Christmas week at Chanin’s Forty-sixth Street Theatre. Other sources note, “the book of the musical comedy has been revised somewhat.”
Queenie Smith and the cast are back in rehearsals in mid-December and at least two reopening dates in December are announced as well as a possible change in title, none of which come to pass. Within a week Albertina Rasch, who happens to be married to composer Dimitri Tiomkin, is engaged by the Shuberts to stage the dances.
Around this time the newspapers continue to tout Henry Sullivan as the show’s composer; however, at some point before arriving in Brooklyn more songs by Sullivan and Eliscu are cut. The cut songs, now including “Here’s To Night,” “Inside Looking Out,” and “Whiling My Time Away,” happen to be the only songs from The Little Racketeer that were published and are documented by copyright records, unlike the songs that remained, “You and I Could Be Just Like That,” “You’ve Got to Sell Yourself,” and “What Great Big Eyes You Have.” Even the title tune, “Little Racketeer,” comprising act I, scene 5, is cut and never heard again.
The opening date slides into 1932, when A Little Racketeer—the leading article in the title becomes “A,” replacing “The”—is booked for an engagement at the Majestic Theatre in Brooklyn on January 4, a date it actually meets.
As announced in early November, Lita Grey Chaplin would assume the role of Ethel Pierson in the supporting cast. After her brief marriage to actor-comedian-director Charlie Chaplin ended in 1927, Lita Grey Chaplin joined the Radio-Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit to perform popular songs; however, as 1932 dawns, her novelty is wearing thin and popularity waning.
The Majestic Theatre, Brooklyn, New York, January 4, 1932
The opening of the show in Brooklyn makes headlines in the trade papers, not because the music score was completely revamped, but because the presumed co-star balks at performing.
Variety led the way with “Lita Grey’s Walkout,” noting the actress created “an atmosphere of mystery” when she is unexpectedly replaced by Grace Hayes for the premiere.
After Lita Grey Chaplin was cast as Ethel, three pre-existing songs were added to the revue specifically to suit the star and her voice: “Blow, Gabriel,” a traditional spiritual; “Mr. Moon”; and a solo, “Flesh and the Devil.” (Out went the Sullivan-Eliscu-Clarke sung and spoken material: “Drunk with Love,” She Met the Governor, and Automobile Song.) The role of the girlfriend in comparison to the Queenie Smith part now provided a near equal opportunity for singing, in fact, as Variety later notes, the role reassumed by Grace Hayes is “richer in character and humor than the star.”
Chaplin reportedly walked due to differences in billing. Perhaps she thought her name would appear on the marquee in addition to Queenie Smith’s name. Evidence for that might be found in the Actors’ Equity Association Records in the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, containing the Lita Grey Chaplin billing and wardrobe claims for The Little Racketeer from 1931 and 1932.
Newspaper display ads carry Chaplin’s name in all caps as late as opening day, “Great cast of musical favorites with LITA GREY CHAPLIN.” The following day, on January 5, the ad retains the tagline, “Great cast of musical favorites,” but drops Chaplin’s name.
Since the opening night program contains Grace Hayes’s name, there must have been enough advance notice of Lita Grey Chaplin’s withdrawal to prepare and print the programs. Variety notes Hayes, whose name is second in size to Queenie Smith, played the part with a “creamy blandness.”
Another reviewer wrote, “Grace Hayes appeared in the role that had been allotted to Lita Chaplin, but not a breath of explanation for the shift came from any source. Miss Hayes, however, filled the void satisfactorily and perhaps ‘A Little Racketeer’ benefitted by the change.”
American gossip columnist Walter Winchell, in his syndicated newspaper column teases, “Wonder why Lita Grey Chaplin deserted ‘The Little Racketeer’ due to open at the Majestic in B’klyn tonight?….Swelegant score in it by Dimitri Tiomkin (La Rasch’s husband).” In just two sentences, Winchell duly illustrates what he is best remembered for—delivering scoops and making up words. He never answers his rhetorical question regarding Chaplin’s abrupt departure; however, the scoop makes the paper on opening day. The “swelegant” (swell and elegant) score from the husband of choreographer Albertina Rasch is the earliest mention of Tiomkin by name in association with the musical revue, that now features three songs by Tiomkin as well as one Tiomkin-scored ballet number for the Albertina Rasch dancers.
In fact, the music and lyrics for the next three Broadway tryouts—in Brooklyn, Hartford, and New Haven, respectively—are credited to Dimitri Tiomkin, Lew Alter, and Edward Eliscu in reviews and programs. Songwriter Louis Alter previously wrote tunes for The Hollywood Review of 1929, an early entry in Albertina Rasch’s filmography, and contributed songs to Broadway musicals such as Sweet and Low.
Tiomkin’s music is praised by a reviewer opining, “Some of the best numbers in the piece were written by Dimitri Tiomkin, husband of Albertina Rasch, famous dancing instructor. They are ‘I Have a Run in My Stocking,’ sung by Miss Smith; ‘Ballyhoo,’ sung by Carl Randall and Barbara Newberry; “Brazilian, Rio Janeiro [sic],” and ‘Starry Skies,’ the last being the best of the four.”
Edward Eliscu, who previously provided words to the melodies by Henry Sullivan, wrote the lyrics for both Tiomkin tunes: “Ballyhoo,” published as “I’ll Ballyhoo You,” and “Starry Sky.”
Sheet music cover, Miller Music, 1932
“The music by Dimitri Tiomkin and Lew Alter and the lyrics by Edward Eliscu are particularly tuneful. Especially attractive are ‘I Have a Run in My Stocking,’ which Queenie Smith sings in the first act…” That song, originally titled “I’ve Run [sic] in my Stocking,” was conceived by Dimitri Tiomkin at least six months prior to the conception of the book for A Little Racketeer; in fact, Tiomkin copyrighted the work a month before Panne des Herzens itself was copyrighted.
Handwritten music sketch by Dimitri Tiomkin with title, “I’ve a run in my stocking,” written in the left margin.
It was one of five works Dimitri Tiomkin copyrighted on February 6, 1931, as follows: “Beauty, You’re Too Beautiful for Me,” “High on Your Toes,” “I’ve Run in My Stocking,” “One and One Are Two,” and “Wall Street.” Each copyrighted entry contains an unaccompanied melody line. By date and titular theme the songs appear to be related; however, since they pre-date A Little Racketeer, they were probably written for some other purpose, either a stage show, musical, or operetta. (Too late for an announced Nell Gwynne operetta and too early for Aha!) One of these five works, “I’ve a Run in My Stocking,” first appears in the Majestic Theatre production of A Little Racketeer; however, it is dropped during the first week on Broadway.
The review in the Brooklyn Standard Union was largely positive, “‘A Little Racketeer,’ the new musical comedy on view this week at the Majestic Theater prior to its Broadway showing, is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying entertainments of its kind we have seen in a long time. It has good spirits, it has pace, it has a pretty good story, it has really beautiful girls in its choruses, and it has a number of quite enjoyable musical and dance numbers and specialties. And it has the adorable Queenie Smith.”
All That Jazz and a Paul Cadieux Cameo
A rival paper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, did not think as highly of the music: “The music is the poorest end of the entertainment. It is principally of the jazz order.”
Newspaper clipping, “The Evening Review,” East Liverpool, Ohio, January 4, 1930
That sentiment came on the heels of a 1930 public debate between Dimitri Tiomkin and classical composer William Wakefield Cadman who declared jazz “a shallow and soulless mode of musical expression.” Tiomkin countered that jazz reflects the spiritual and mental life of the people. When Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman combined Viennese waltzes and American fox trots in his controversial operetta mentioned earlier, Die Herzogin von Chicago, the Viennese expressed alarm at the inroads American jazz was making into European operetta. Critics feared American jazz would “conquer us and force into oblivion” old-school operetta forms developed over the past half century.
Aside from the music, another change transpired with the staging by William Caryl, in place of Edward Royce. And in the cast, British film actor John Garrick, described by Miles Kreuger as a dashing leading man, replaced John Price Jones in the principal part of Richard Barrison, now more familiarly called Dick, the moneyed gambler who falls for Dixie. Songs added specifically for Garrick to sing include “Dou Dou,” “My Big Adventure,” and Tiomkin’s “Starry Skies.”
The romantic tenor, Paul Cadieux, a member of the Metropolitan Opera in the 1930s, makes an unusual cameo in the “Brazilian, Rio De Janeiro” number by Dimitri Tiomkin, here, and through New Haven, but not after. Cadieux is unbilled and identified by his given name alongside others identified by character name within the program. Later programs list the movements of the Rio De Janeiro/Brazilian Suite, including a tango, gitana, and Brazilian dance. Cadieux’s vocal contribution to this dance suite became apparent after the discovery of a lyric sheet in the Shubert Archive in New York for “RIO DE JANEIRO,” with lyrics in both Spanish and English by Eliscu, a sentimental love song voiced by an exile to the marvelous city, the “City of song and laughter.”
Could the idea of employing Cadieux been influenced by the nascent film work in Hollywood of Dimitri Tiomkin and Albertina Rasch and their experience with another Met opera singer, Lawrence Tibbets, in the popular 1930 romantic and musical film Rogue Song?
Only four musical numbers written by Henry Sullivan and Edward Eliscu for tryouts of The Little Racketeer made it into A Little Racketeer at the Majestic Theatre. The four, “You and I Could Be Just Like That,” “Finaletto,” “You’ve Got to Sell Yourself,” and “What Great Big Eyes You Have,” along with the Javanese dance “SRIMPI,” are also the only musical numbers that apparently were heard in every performance, from the first through the last, of the revue.
After the Brooklyn premiere, the show would split the week of January 11 between Hartford and New Haven.
Parsons Theatre, Hartford, Connecticut, January 12-13, 1932
When it finally arrives in Hartford three months after it was first scheduled to open in the Connecticut capital, the music bears little resemblance to the production that would have been mounted there in the fall of 1931, with music by Henry Sullivan and lyrics by Edward Eliscu.
Here is where the story begins to get a little confusing. After tryouts in five cities taking place over 32 days, a week before the show opens on Broadway, the name Haskell Brown appears in print for the first time in association with A Little Racketeer in the New York Times on January 11, 1932. Brown is credited with lyrics in the following context: music by Dimitri Tiomkin and Lew Alter and lyrics by Edward Eliscu and Haskell Brown. (In this context it would appear that Haskell Brown could not be Henry Sullivan, since Sullivan was not the author of the lyrics for the songs he wrote and Haskell Brown could not be Lew Alter because what would be the point of using a real name and a pseudonym simultaneously?) A review of the opening performance in Hartford the following day lacks Haskell Brown’s name and only cites Tiomkin, Alter, and Eliscu.
In the week leading up to the Broadway premiere the name Haskell Brown continues to appear in news items; however, the name does not appear in reviews or the Shubert Theatre program. The program for the Broadway premiere is the first to credit the music to Brown and from that point forward he is given sole billing as the composer (while some composers are credited with individual songs).
Lacking a Parsons Theatre program for confirmation, it appears from a review in the Hartford Daily Courant that the show was the same as the Majestic production; however, at least one account notes the music was still being tweaked.
“‘The Little Racketeer’ was being rehearsed in some new forms all over the theatre during the play’s engagement here—one scout informed me that there was one rehearsal right after an evening performance, which is something the players don’t care much about.”
Shubert Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, January 14-16, 1932
A program for “A Little Racketeer” preserved in the Belknap Playbills and Programs Collection, housed in Special and Area Studies Collections at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida in Gainesville sheds light on the music performed in the production immediately preceding the Broadway opening of the musical revue.
The music is credited to Dimitri Tiomkin and Lew Alter and the lyrics to Edward Eliscu. Tiomkin contributed two songs, “Ballyhoo” and “Starry Skies” and a musical ballet, “Brazilian, Rio De Janeiro.”
Letter from the Director General of SACEM, the performing rights organization in Paris, France, regarding two songs from “A Little Racketeer,” July, 12, 1935
Among the other attributed songs in the program are “Mr. Moon” (Lee Wainer, Lupin Feine, Moe Jaffe); “All I Can Do Is Hope” (Lee Wainer, Lupin Feine, Moe Jaffe); “Flesh and the Devil” (Manny Sherwin, Milton Pascal, Arthur Lippman); “Spring Tra La” (C: Lee Wainer; L: Lupin Feine, Moe Jaffe); “Loveable You” (Gus Kahn and Harry Aroody); and “Thanks to You” (Bernece Kazounoff and Earle Cooker).
One might therefore conclude that the remaining handful of unattributed songs are by Lew Alter, with lyrics by Edward Eliscu: “Night Club Nights,” “Thrills,” “Dou Dou,” “You’ve Got to Eat,” “My Big Adventure,” and “Or Anything.” (There is no evidence in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library, that any of these songs are by Tiomkin.)
Illustrations of short jackets worn by Queenie Smith in “A Little Racketeer”
The music and dance numbers in the revue were accentuated by the evening wear fashions emphasizing white, with a splash of sparkling embroidery, short wraps and jackets, back strap décolletages, and lots of lace. The chorus girls sport diminutive black velvet jackets tied at the center with sleek little bows with white fox elbow cuffs worn over pink satin frocks. Matching sleeve-length black gloves are set off with wide rhinestone bracelets on the left wrist. Grace Hayes dons a white crepe gown, embroidered with rhinestones. Her little jacket was fashioned from crepe and ermine. All from the creative minds of wardrobe designers Ernest Schrapps and Allison McLellan Hunter.
As the Broadway premiere nears, the press begins to pick up on the fact that a creative collaborating couple are now associated with the Shubert musical. “When ‘The Little Racketeer’ opens on Monday it will be the second [New York] production in which Albertina Rasch and her husband, Dimitri Tiomkin, pianist and composer, have collaborated on the dances and music. Their earlier efforts were the ‘Illusion in White’ and ‘Fandango-Bolero’ ballets in the ‘Follies.’ The collaboration of Mme. Rasch and Mr. Tiomkin dates back to their concert and vaudeville appearances some six years ago at the Palace and at the Hippodrome.”
“This, however, will be its first opportunity to hear some of his [Tiomkin’s] vocal compositions. There are six [counting individual numbers that make up the ballet] in the score of ‘A Little Racketeer,’ songs for Queenie Smith, John Garrick, Carl Randall and Barbara Newberry, and two ballets for the ubiquitous Albertina Rasch dancers. The numbers are ‘I’ve a Run in My Stocking,’ ‘Rio de Janeiro,’ ‘Bally-hoo-You,’ ‘Starry Sky,’ Gitana,’ and ‘Brazilian Dance’.”
Scenes from “A Little Racketeer,” drawn by Chamberlain, “New York Herald Tribune,” January 17, 1932
Continue reading: Who Wrote the Music for A Little Racketeer (part 2)
A performance history, list of music by Dimitri Tiomkin in A Little Racketeer, acknowledgments, and sources can be found at the conclusion of Part 2.