How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Deluxe Edition 1961 Original Broadway Cast
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Customer Reviews
Liberty Belle Said: Saw the original Broadway production. ( Aug. 3rd 2010 )
I saw the original Broadway production of How to Succeed in the early '60s with the original actors. (I still have the Playbill.) As a young secretary at that time, I could really relate to the storyline. This has always been one of my all-time favorite shows. I didn't see the later version, because nobody can replace Robert Morse as J. Pierpont Finch--nobody! One of the best Broadway scores ever. Young people who decide to see this show have to realize that the story took place in the 1960s, and women were treated and acted differently back then. It was definitely a man's world.
John Pitacciato Said: "How to Succeed", succeeds... ( Jun. 26th 2010 )
When I was a kid I stood in front of the stereo and sang along with Robert Morse and Charles Nelson Reilly. When I received the CD of "How to Succeed" I stood in front of my CD player and sang along with them again. It has the same charm and wit that it did in the early 60's. The interviews are a special extra added bonus. It really was one of the great Bway musicals. This recording brings it all back and adds some extra surprises..
Paul G. Sundling Said: gender and class roles in business ( Sep. 24th 2009 )
This soundtrack is witty and catchy, with themes that still resonate today. Since I wasn't an adult, much less born in 1961 I can't tell where in rise of feminism in the 60s/70s this play took play. However, it's clear that gender roles was one of the main themes. The track "a secretary is not a toy" is like a toungue in cheek way of pointing out the rampant sexism during the period. There is a through back to the traditional roles covered in "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm". She's told to expect a lot of lonely nights and talks about how he'll look through her and exhibit "perfectly understandable neglect". She plans to "wear her wifely uniform while he goes onward and upward". She seems to look forward to living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and getting pregnant while the company runs the man into the ground.
In "Cinderella, Darling", the secretaries implore the girl not to turn down the "Prince" and spoil their fairy tail. The most amusing line points out cinderalla is "the symbol of glamorized unemployment". Apparently the dream is to marry their boss who presumably is in higher social circles.
The most amusing song is "Paris Original" where she buys a dress to look sexy only to find that everyone else bought the same dress. Humor is throughout the soundtrack. In the earlier songs, the main character wants to get ahead in business by having great ideas and later comes into contact with a company veteran who survives by keeping his head down and following "The Company Way". I get the impression that blind obedience to the company proves to be pointless, but without seeing the play, it's just hinted at.
Enjoy this peek into the social mores of the past. It makes me interested in seeing the original play.
Jay Dickson Said: This irresistible New York original ( Sep. 14th 2009 )
By 1961 most successful Broadway musicals were adaptations of novels or stage plays, and the whole idea of a workable musical satire was something that had seemed to gone out with the Gershwins. Then out of almost nowhere came this Abe Burrows-Frank Loesser work based on Shephard Mead's satirical (and non-narrative) take on the post-War rat race, and the critics went wild: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING was considered the freshest breath of air on Broadway since MY FAIR LADY, and was a tremendous popular success, running through 1,417 performances. Its perennial cleverness, which is reminiscent of nothing quite so much as Gilbert and Sullivan's better satirical operettas, has been testified to by the success of the mid 90s Broadway revival (with Matthew Broderick), the innumerable high school and community theater productions since, and its tonal influence on the recent television critical hit MAD MEN. But this original Broadway recording has a special quality that deserves consideration all on its own, if only for the definitive rendition of its hero, J. Pierrepont Finch, by Robert Morse, its memorable performance in the heroine's part of Rosemary by Bonnie Scott (who did practically nothing else on Broadway), and its stunning orchestrations (which were successfully jazzily revamped for the 90s version, but which in their original form retain their own special form of charm).
There's no other very successful Broadway musical from the Golden Age of the genre quite like this in that not a single number from it became anything like a standard. The two catchiest numbers (the ballad "I Believe in You" and the showstopping finale "The Brotherhood of Man") are represented here in alternative form as extras on this disk by jazz recordings by J. J. Johnson and Woody Herman (respectively), but the former song is sung by the hero to his own reflection in a mirror, and the latter is a parody belying the truth of everything we've seen in the rest of the show. But as in Gilbert and Sullivan, many of the best songs cannot be lifted from the musical's context without being rendered almost nonsensical, yet for all that they retain their unforgettable qualities. It's great to hear this score sung by Morse, of course, but the revelation may be Bonnie Scott's Rosemary with her plangent voice, which brings out all kinds of unexpected qualities in "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm," "Paris Original" (the first-act comic showstopper, inexplicably left out of the 1967 film), and the charming and the scathingly biting "Cinderella, Darling" with its spectacularly tricky key changes (also omitted from the 1967 film and the 1995 Broadway revival). Other highlights of this recording include Ruth Kobart's hilarious prim Gospel riffs in "The Brotherhood of Man" and the brilliant arrangement for "A Secretary is Not a Toy." Extras include some of Walter Crokite's narration and the reprises of "Been a Long Day" and the title number for the 1995 revival, and some interviews with Robert Morse and Charels Nelson Reilly (the original Bud Frump, the villain of the piece.
Raymond Harrison Said: The Best Recording ( Jun. 27th 2008 )
The best. [period]
Robert Morse is J. Pierrpont Finch
I can see why this show won the Pulitzer Prize...one of only five to ever get it