Sing Along with Breakfast at Tiffany's

I figured this morning I needed a bit of respite from the swirl of news, so instead decided to head back 50 years into past of musical history.  Though the topic is still another disaster of a sort.

​This is another of those bizarrely-rare finds.  It’s about five minutes (alas without sound, sort of) of footage of the infamous 1966 flop musical, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  However – despite no synched sound, there is live audio recorded of the first two number that’s played over the color footage, starting about a minute in.  

The show is considered one of the biggest flops in Broadway history, in part because of the high-profile cast (even though neither had done a Broadway musical before), in part because of the creators behind it, in part because work its best on, and because it had a huge advance sale -- yet still closed during previews, before officially opening.

The stars were Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain.  The show had a score by Bob Merrill, who wrote the big musicals Carnival! and Take Me Along, among others, and only two years earlier had written the lyrics to Funny GIrl.  The book was written by Abe Burrows (who had written Guys and Dolls, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying), -- who got let go during tryouts and was replaced by the renowned writer, of all people Edward Albee.  (Famous indeed, though not quite known for musical comedy.)  And it was produced by the then-most successful Broadway producer David Merrick.

The show was originally titled Holly Golightly, but when it reached New York after touring, Merrick changed the name back to its source.  It had a huge advance sale.  A New York friend told me he and a friend of his were deciding on whether to see it one night, during previews, since they were curious if it was as bad as the word was, but figured they could wait until it opened, and went to see something else conflicting with that night.  Alas, the show closed after four preview performances.

After the minute or so of silent footage here, the first song you'll hear is the opening number, “Holly Golightly,” sung by Richard Chamberlain, and it's followed by the show's second number, the title song, sung by Mary Tyler Moore.  I have no way of knowing whether these two songs are indicative of the full score, but they're both fine, and at times charming.  Of course, all the songs may range widely, or the book adaptation might have been the bigger problem.

But here's what we have.