Shows · Leave It to Me!
Leave It to Me!
Opened 1938
291 performances
Musical, Early
With a book distantly related to their own play, Clear All Wires, Bella and Samuel Spewack came up with a spoof of Communism and U.S. diplomacy that offered comedian Victor Moore one of his meatiest roles as mild-mannered Alonzo P. “Stinky” Goodhue. Goodhue is unwillingly named Ambassador to the Soviet Union because his ambitious wife (Sophie Tucker) has contributed generously to President Roosevelt’s re-election campaign. Aided by foreign correspondent Buckley Joyce Thomas (William Gaxton), the Ambassador does everything he can to be recalled, but each blunder only succeeds in making him a bigger hero. Finally, he introduces a plan to ensure world peace — which, of course, no one wants — and Stinky is soon happily on his way back to Kansas. Mary Martin made a notable Broadway debut in Leave It to Me!, singing and coyly stripping to “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” while being stranded on a Siberian railroad station with a male quartet that included Gene Kelly. Two months after the musical closed it paid a two-week return visit to New York. The Boys from Syracuse. Marcy Wescott, Wynn Murray, and Muriel Angelus singing “Sing for Your Supper.” (Vandamm) The Boys from Syracuse. Betty Bruce, Teddy Hart, and Eddie Albert. (Vandamm)
"The Cyclonic Musical Hit": the show's own period marketing line.
- Music
- Cole Porter
- Lyrics
- Cole Porter
- Book
- Bella & Samuel Spewack
Productions1 on Broadway
Songs5 songs
Get Out of Town, From Now On, Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, I Want to Go Home
Licensing 2 entries
| US | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| UK | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
Leave It to Me! is a 1938 musical produced by Vinton Freedley with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The book was a collaborative effort by Samuel and Bella Spewack, the former of whom also directed the Broadway production. The musical was based on the play Clear All Wires by the Spewacks, which was performed on Broadway for 93 performances in 1932, and which was filmed in 1933, starring Lee Tracy, Benita Hume, Una Merkel and James Gleason. It was set in Stalinist Russia in the 1930s, with Stalin himself appearing at the end. But its comic treatment of Soviets and Nazis seemed misplaced during the Cold War, and the show was not revived until the late 1980s. Mary Martin made her Broadway debut…
Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.