New Musical in Manhattan

Leave It to Me! (book by Bella & Samuel Spewack; music & lyrics by Cole Porter; produced by Vinton Freedley) is big-name, big-scale, big-town musicomedy: the season's first show to fetch $6.60 on opening night. It tells of simple-souled Alonzo P. Goodhue (Victor Moore), snatched from happy hours of horseshoe-pitching in Topeka, Kans. to be ambassador to Soviet Russia. His one desire is to get fired. He kicks the Nazi ambassador in the belly and the world cheers. He takes a potshot at a stranger who turns out to be a dangerous counter-revolutionary assassin, and the Soviet Union goes hysterical with gratitude. Only when Alonzo tries to do a good deed is he promptly booted out.

A smash hit overnight. Leave It to Me! is a good show, but far from a knockout. Dripping with fat moments, it too often relaxes that festive, madcap spirit, that no-slowing-down-for-curves tempo, that kettle-boiling-over excitement that mark the top-notch farce musical. But it has fast dancing and pretty girls. It has some beguiling, insouciant Cole Porter tunes, some pert cafe society Cole Porter lyrics. It has Sophie Tucker, who can make ambassadorial high-life so low-life that even her pearls seem to leer.

It has also Victor Moore, the uncheerful cherub, the chubby Caspar Milquetoast, the Chamber-of-Commerce Charlie Chaplin, the Cupid of clowns who shoots straight for the heart. Victor Moore is the best reason why Leave It to Me! is a hit. Victor Moore is wonderful.

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