by Laurence Maslon
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| "Ziegfeld Follies," and Ziegfeld girl Drucilla Strain. |
In the years between the world wars, nothing on Broadway catered to Manhattan nightlife like the revue. During the Roaring Twenties, nearly 150 revues opened on Broadway. Pioneered by Florenz Ziegfeld and his elegant "Follies," revues allowed for an ever-shifting variety of songs, dances, skits, and production numbers. Idiosyncratic comics, specialty dancers, emotive singers, and chorus girls all found a happy home for their particular talents -- and costume and scenic designers had a field day, too. Their flash, color, topicality, and brazenness caught the spirit of the age, but revues had their conveniences, too; unlike with later musical comedies, you could easily miss the first act and it wouldn't make any difference. Revues could be assembled easily, and there was always room for an additional investor, whether it was a newly minted Wall Street broker with a crush on a showgirl or a bootlegging gangster who wanted to see his girlfriend installed at the end of a chorus line.
What revues also provided in spades was opportunity. There were so many chances for a songwriter to get his number placed in a show that the revue became the greatest conservatory for popular music the country has ever seen. Composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz gave America some of its most memorable songs during this period: "Dancing in the Dark," "Alone Together," "Something to Remember You By." All were from revues, a form they mastered, and yet they failed to have any successful shows in the musical comedy format. Without the revue as a springboard for their talents, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, and DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson might have found their road to fame infinitely more arduous or downright impossible.
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| The Music Box Theater located on West 45th Street. |
Here, then, is a scorecard for the more important revues of the period, excepting the "Ziegfeld Follies," which are in a category of their own:
"George White's Scandals." Hoofer White irked his former employer Florenz Ziegfeld no end when he broke away from the "Follies" franchise in 1919 to start his own revue. White's sharp eye for sleek design and emerging hot talent made his "Scandals" the only real rival to the master's productions. He had the novel idea of using only one composer for each of his 13 editions, and his particular passion for the latest dance craze allowed his leading dancer, Ann Pennington, to introduce several popular new steps to Broadway, such as the "Black Bottom." Such future stars as Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, and Ray Bolger got their first big breaks with White.
"Music Box Revues." Irving Berlin got into the producing game in 1921 by building the jewel-like Music Box Theater as a showcase for his newest tunes. Before he tired of mounting an annual edition every season until 1924, Berlin placed such timeless songs as "Say It with Music," "What'll I Do?," and "All Alone" in his revues.
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