Funny Face

Funny Face (1927), a musical comedy by Fred Thompson, Paul Gerard Smith (book), George Gershwin (music), Ira Gershwin (lyrics). [Alvin Theatre, 250 perf.] When the straitlaced guardian Jimmie Reeves ( Fred Astaire) refuses to allow Frankie ( Adele Astaire) to have her jewels, she arranges with her friend Peter Thurston ( Allen Kearns) to steal them. Two comic burglars, Herbert ( Victor Moore) and Dugsie ( William Kent), are also after the jewels but they have a falling out, although Herbert is unable to shoot Dugsie since he has forgotten to get a shooting license. So everything ends happily, with Frankie keeping both her jewels and her man. Notable songs: The Babbitt and the Bromide; Funny Face; He Loves and She Loves; 'S Wonderful. Originally, the Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley production was titled Smarty with a libretto by Thompson and Robert Benchley. But Benchley bowed out when the show was drastically rewritten and renamed. Applauded by Brooks Atkinson as “uncommonly rollicking entertainment,” the musical was blessed with a rare melange of melody, comedy, and superb dancing. It was in this show that Fred Astaire first danced in evening clothes and a top hat. Some of the songs (but little else) remained when a revival of the show opened at the St. James Theatre in 1983 as MY ONE AND ONLY and ran a profitable 767 performances. Peter Stone and Timothy Meyer were credited with the book that concerned a barnstorming aviator ( Tommy Tune) who romances a swimming star ( Twiggy), the two of them getting mixed up with a bootlegger‐turned‐minister ( Roscoe Lee Browne), some Russian spies, and a tap dancing philosopher ( Charles “Honi” Coles). A few Gershwin songs from other musicals were used to fill out the score, and Tune's ingenious direction and dancing turned the slight piece into a stylish art deco entertainment.