No Trouble at All
This is a wonderful treat that is much to brief at 10 minutes, cut from what is clearly a longer TV appearance. It’s described on YouTube as being from what appears may be a local New York City TV series on CBS about Broadway, perhaps syndicated, called Broadway I Love You. But I believe it’s actually an offshoot of that show (which may have been a one-time special), and instead is actually a Sunday afternoon series on CBS called The American Musical Theatre. That ran for three years and won an Emmy for its host Earl Wrightson (who appeared on Broadway I Love You). Wrightson conducted interviews with (for the most part, it seems) the writers of musicals, but much of the show also includes those writers at the piano, and an excellent studio orchestra on occasion, performing songs from the shows, and numbers that were cuts, talking about how the writing developed.
(I may be wrong, the history of the show or shows, is convoluted. But I do have other segments and full episodes from The American Musical Theatre which I'll post later.)
Whatever it is, this episode comes from around 1964 and features Meredith Willson talking enthusiastically to a small studio audience about how he writes songs. And gives several examples, including two with assistance from his wife Rini about contrapuntal songs (two different songs sung over each other at the same time) that got cut from a couple of his shows, in this case The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown. His reference to Here’s Love is his adaptation of the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, which opened in 1963.
Wilson’s enthusiasm almost burst through the screen. It’s hard not to see where maybe just a little of Harold Hill’s fast-talking was inspired from. Anyway, perhaps more of the material will show up, but just having this 10 minutes is a joy.
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