Search - Victor Young & His Orchestra, Don Coster Orchestra, Seventh Heaven Pit Orchestra :: Seventh Heaven (1955 Original Broadway Cast)

Average score, average recording

Byron Kolln | the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood | 03/03/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"SEVENTH HEAVEN was a Broadway musical flop which shuttered after 44 performances at the ANTA Theatre. The score by Victor Young and Stella Unger is average at best. The show is really only noteworthy for being the big debut for a dancer called Chita Rivera...Chita Rivera played one of the three streetwalkers in the show (the others were played by Gerrianne Raphael and Patricia Hammerlee). The main romantic couple was played by Gloria De Haven and Ricardo Montalban, with fine support from Kurt Kasznar.Standout numbers in the score include the streetwalkers' anthem "Camille, Collette, Fifi", as well as "If It's a Dream" and "Where Is That Someone For Me", two lovely ballads for Gloria De Haven.Sound quality is quite tinny. Decca Broadway has reissued the cast album complete with 2 bonus tracks - "Blessings", cut from the score during tryouts (performed by Marian Caruso), and a studio cut of "Where Is That Someone For Me" again performed by Gloria De Haven, accompanied by Victor Young's orchestra."

Worth having

Byron Kolln | 05/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The failure of this show broke Victor Young's heart. Based on a classic silent film from the late '20s starring Janet Gaynor and Chalres Farrell, the show tried to float a story which by the '50s was out of time and place. Fresh-faced and apple-pie-personality Gloria DeHaven was miscast in the role of a street waif who'd seen the seamy side of life, though she drew on her considerable show biz experience to do the best she could with the material. The score includes numerous highlights but failed to make an impression. That all could have changed had the recording of "Where Is That Someone For Me" by Joni James on M-G-M Records been a big hit. James took the song and transformed it entirely into a production ballad with a fabulous orchestration. But as so often happened with Joni James records she put an equally terrific recording on the flip side ("The Moment I Saw You," written for her by the writers of "My One and Only Love," which she also recorded at the session for "Where Is That Someone For Me" but which did not get released as a single though an earlier version is on her album "When I Fall in Love") and that is the side the disc jockeys began playing. Had James' record gone top 10 "Seventh Heaven" probably would have survived at the box office. James' version of "Someone" is still available on her C.D. "Little Girl Blue." DeHaven's pretty original cast and single versions are on this C.D. and the song gets a great moment in the overture.
There's some great pastiche numbers here and some noteworthy cast members. But it ain't heaven. The show is a misfire but far from dismal. It's a dream that didn't come true."