Continuing our Labor Day Fest of little-known labor songs from Broadway musical, this is the song "7-1/2 Cents" from the movie version of the musical, The Pajama Game. The Broadway show was a huge hit and had a very long run of 1,063 performances, around 2-1/2 years. The score was by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, who also wrote a show that ran almost as long (1,019 performances) and has had a memorable shelf-life, Damn Yankees.
In fact, The Pajama Game has had two revivals on Broadway, most recently in 2006, starring Harry Connick, Jr., and Kelli O'Hara. And two London West End revivals.
The musical is based on the novel, 7-1/2 Cents, by Richard Bissell, who co-wrote the book of the musical with director George Abbott. It's a romance about labor unrest at a pajama factory.
(As a side note, it also plays a part in what I've long felt was the oddest credit of a musical, the show Say, Darling. That production had a score by Betty Comden & Adolph Green and Jule Styne, and had a respectable run of 332 performances. Say, Darling was based on a novel also by Richard Bissell, who loosely fictionalized his experiences adapting his book 7-1/2 Cents into The Pajama Game. The Broadway adaptation of that book, Say, Darling," was never officially called a musical, but rather "A Play About a Musical." But to me, I've always thought that the actual, properly-described credit is far better -- one of the great credentials ever -- because it's really "a play about a musical based on a book about a musical based on a musical based on a book".)
Anyway, here are Doris Day, Jack Shaw and the company with "7-1/2 Cents" from The Pajama Game -- based on the novel 7-1/2 Cents.
