The Greatest B-Movie Ever Told: Guys and... Dolls?

"A prize fighter who writes show tunes", proclaims the synopsis, "A body riddled with bullets…A couple embraces; Music soars… Fade Out". As an unabashed fan of schmaltzy, sexy films of the 1930s, I may be a biased candidate to review "The Greatest B-Movie Ever Told", a new play featured in the New York Fringe Festival. The show provides just under an hour of kitschy fun.

The plot is a crazy quilt of noir-flavored clichés. Knuckles Dugan, a tenement-born middleweight champ, quits the ring to make good on his promise to his dying mother: to become a Broadway composer. His devoted sweetheart, nightclub songbird Mona de Fay, has doubts about his future in show-biz. Enter the upper-class femme fatale, Isobel Van Buren, who wants to help out the struggling tunesmith, but has her own lurid motives. Throw in a "flamboyant" director, a gravel-voiced gangster, and a sassy, double jointed chorus gal, and you have the stuff that late-late-movies are made of.

The cast has clearly done their homework. From his first (and, blessedly, shirtless) entrance, Daniel Shafer is note-perfect as the sweet natured but lunk-headed Knuckles. He delivers even his most dated lines with winning sincerity. Kelly Ann Heaney plays conniving debutante Isobel with classic icy bitchiness (if only smoking were allowed in Fringe productions!), and Pauline Miller, playing Trixie, is the very model of the trusty gal-pal to our heroine…

Ah, our hero… ine. Playwright Todd Michael has done something which is far from unusual in a Fringe play: He's written himself a plum lead. What is only slightly less usual is that he's cast himself as the leading lady. There is no direct reference to the obvious fact that Mona is more drag-queen than chorine, but after the initial eye-brow raise, no one in the audience cares. Mr. Michael is hilarious and at times heartwarming, and creates a character that is equal parts Jean Harlow, Betty Boop, and Edward G. Robinson.

The show is not all skittles and beer, however. As Knuckles' Durante-esque corner man Snitz Scanlon, Neal Sims is working hard to be the comic relief, but the script should have provided Snitz with better bits. Matters are not helped by actors holding for laughs that aren't there. As Wildean Broadway director Oliver Kingsley, David L. Zweirs gets a few laughs, but his swanning about eventually becomes tiresome. Even in a period parody, few New York audiences will giggle more than once at a punch-line centering on the word "fairy". Zweirs does deserve kudos, however, for his work as costumer. The parade of satin gowns, snappy hats, and shimmery purses add a lot to the appeal of the show.

The ideal audience for "The Greatest B-Movie Ever Told" is one who will catch the references to George White, Walter Winchell, and "Little Caesar" (the classic gangster flick, not the sub-par pizza franchise). However, there is a zest and charm in this popcorn powderpuff that should win over the more modern-minded dames and fellas in the crowd.

Photos by Louis Lopardi. Top: Daniel Shafer, Neal Sims.

Bottom: Todd Michael, Kelly Ann Heaney

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