"Golden Rainbow": In Mufti at the York

A Mix of the Adorably Old-Fashioned and the Incredibly Hip

Sep 29, 2023

Golden Rainbow

Music and Lyrics by Walter Marks
Book by Ernest Kinnoy
The York Theatre at St. Jean’s, 150 East 76th Street
Through Sunday Oct 1
Directed & Choreographed by Stuart Ross

In the 1968 musical Golden Rainbow, which is playing through Sunday at the York Theater as part of their “Musicals In Mufti” series, there’s one number that’s presented as a diegetic show-within-a-show, as part of the larger plot. It’s a Las Vegas spectacle depicting an hysterically goofy tableau set in ancient Babylon. On watching this number, “Carmine Malatesta” (Robert Cucioli) the lovable gangster who owns the “Tower of Babel” hotel-casino, rejects the whole magilla, declaring “it’s too old-fashioned!.”

Golden Rainbow, on the other hand, is adorably old-fashioned in certain aspects, but incredibly hip and sharp in others. The story itself is old-school family entertainment, about a lovable ne’er-do-well of a widower as he struggles to keep his business - a shabby motel in Las Vegas - afloat and not lose custody of his young son. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s taken from Frank Capra’s classic 1959 comedy A Hole in the Head, starring and essentially produced by Sinatra, which itself is based on a 1957 Broadway play by Arnold Schulman—and that, in turn, originated as a live TV drama titled The Heart’s a Forgotten Hotel in 1955.

Golden Rainbow - at the Shubert, 1968 - starring Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme.

If the story is unabashedly sentimental, the score by Broadway veteran Walter Marks, by contrast, was remarkably up-to-date for 1968. As theater historian Charles Wright observes in his prescient program notes, the show has a remarkably modern sound that clearly anticipates what Burt Bacharach achieved a year later with his more substantial hit, Promises, Promises.

Heard today, the original 1968 Rainbow cast album, starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, sounds like one of the absolute best pop records of the period, but completely unlike any previous Broadway show. (Cy Coleman’s Sweet Charity also, arguably, nods in that direction.) And, as both Laurence Maslon and I have independently observed, Promises, Promises would be a major influence on Stephen Sondheim’s classic, Company (1970). All three shows - Golden Rainbow, Promises, Promises, and Company - have a very discotech-y, power-pop sound, and underscore that Bacharach exuded an influence on Broadway music much bigger than his one show. At the York, the Rainbow score is excellently realized by musical director David Hancock Turner and his highly capable quartet.

The York production is a good argument for why these shows—not necessarily the infamous flops (as Mr. Marks’s 1964 Bajour is often described) but works that were lesser hits, returned at least a small profit, but were never filmed by Hollywood or revived on Broadway—deserve a second look. The 1968 original cast recording of Golden Rainbow is essentially a Steve & Eydie album, and many numbers that didn’t involve either of them didn’t make it onto the LP or subsequent CD.

That album is a wonderful listen - frankly, that’s the main reason I was anxious to see the Mufti production - but I was delighted to learn that the score has even more to offer. Not surprisingly, many of the non Steve & Eydie songs didn’t make the album, including two Las Vegas spectacle / parody numbers. The second of these, “Dr. Thunderfinger,” is a very funny James Bond spoof, which doesn’t appear to have been in the original 1968 production but was added later by Mr. Marks, who turns 90 in January. The song title is a collage of the first three major Bond villains, showcasing dancer Gina Milo as superspy “Jane Blonde” who wriggles for all she’s worth in go-go boots and a leotard. Alas, the Mufti production omits one of Mr. Marks’s best parodies, which was also one of Lawrence & Gorme’s key duets: “Desert Moon,” a sendup of The Desert Song and other tres sheik operettas.

The York cast is aces: Max Von Essen lives up to his status as one one of today’s major leading men as “Larry Davis” (called “Tony Manetta” in the Sinatra movie). Mari Davi sings gloriously and makes the most of “Judy Sherman,” a role that seems somewhat underrealized in Ernest Kinoy’s original book, cobbled together from three characters in A Hole in the Head in order to create a sufficient part for Gorme. Tween prodigy Benjamin Pajek is just as winning as “Ally” he was in the title role of Oliver! and “Winthrop” in The Music Man. Mr. Pajek was so overwhelmingly professional that the other actors seemed to be continually trying to break him up, much to the delight of the Thursday night house.

Just as A Hole in the Head gave us the 1959 Academy Award-winning song, “High Hopes,” Golden Rainbow offered several standout numbers. “We Got Us” recycles a title that Steve & Eydie had already used for a 1960 album (that earlier song was by Moose Charlap, father of the great 21st-century jazz pianist Bill Charlap), while “How Could I Be So Wrong,” which Gorme also recorded as a single, is a first class torch song of “The Man That Got Away” variety. The title song has also had an amazing afterlife. At the climax of Act II, it serves exactly the same part in the story as “Luck Be a Lady” in Guys and Dolls. Today, anyone who’s ever heard the marvelous Marilyn Maye will be familiar with the song “Golden Rainbow.”

Golden Rainbow (2023) at the York: Max Von Essen, Benjamin Pajek, Mara Davi, Robert Cuccioli, Gina Milo. Photos: Rider R. Foster

But the major legacy of Golden Rainbow is the Act 1 closer, “I Gotta Be Me.” It was a substantial tune for Steve Lawrence, who generously gifted it to his friend Sammy Davis Jr. For Davis, it became a signature song, not only an aria of self-affirmation but, in Davis’s hands, an anthem of social justice and racial equality. Perhaps that also reflects on the show itself: the work is eminently worthy of a full-on Broadway revival, as long as future producers out there don’t try to modernize it, even as Kinoy and Mr. Marks updated the story from swinging 1950s Miami to even more swinging 1960s Vegas. Like the song says, Golden Rainbow has gotta be what it is.

{for more info and tickets, please click here.}

Alfred Drake the cast of Golden Rainbow at the 1968 Tony awards. They sing the opening number, “24 Hours a Day.” You have to wonder why they didn’t bring in Steve & Eydie for the occasion.

“The Hollywood Palace. November 14, 1967. Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence sing two songs from their upcoming Broadway show GOLDEN RAINBOW. Eydie sings "How Could I Be So Wrong" and Steve sings "I've Gotta Be Me," introduced by Steve but made famous by Frank Sinatra.” (He means Sammy Davis, Jr., of course.)

Steve Lawrence "I've Gotta Be Me" on The Ed Sullivan Show, March 30, 1969. Subscribe now to never miss an update: (from the official SULLIVAN SHOW youTube account)

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