New Musical in Manhattan

Beat the Band (music by Johnny Green; book by George Marion Jr. & George Abbott; produced by Abbott) is a sort of bouncing and stentorian corpse. Always long on pep, Producer Abbott (Too Many Girls, Best Foot Forward) has this time loosed a regular stage blitz, with everyone in the cast seeming to chase a fire, and most of the dances doing everything but start one. With a nod from the plot Abbott has worked a blaring swing band, all traps and trumpets, into the proceedings. Even the costumes are loud as a St. Patrick's Day tie.

But for once the Abbott zip has outsmarted itself. When it makes with the feet, Beat the Band is enjoyable, but the general effect of the show is one of high-pressuring rather than high spirits. It suffers from too many vitamins and not enough food. The book, which tells of an explosive bandleader (Jack Whiting) who impersonates the godfather of a young thing (Susan Miller) with whom he falls in love, is silly, dull, and slower than a tightwad reaching for the check. The gags are frightful. The lyrics are forced. Composer Green (Body & Soul, I'm Yours) has turned out one or two lusty tunes, and gone to town with Steam Is on the Beam, but his score is on the whole unexciting. Finally, though pert, attractive Ingenue Miller is a promising newcomer to Broadway theater, the cast contains none of those accomplished showmen who can amiably bully the audience into thinking that pink is green.

* An exeption is Fleet Air Arm's Laurence Olivier, whose policy is "the war or the theater, but not both."

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