W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

W. C. Fields ous stunts he gives us a real and complete portrait of as merry a rascal as the stage has seen in years. "Poppy marks the debut of Miss Madge Kennedy in musical comedy, and it is a charming performance, although we have here nothing which is not along pretty well-established lines. As an adventure Miss Kennedy's dash into songs and dancing and such like is good fun, but we trust this does not indicate a permanent vocation. Musical comedy is almost certain to be wasteful of a player who is one of the two or three best light-comedy actresses in America and the best jarceuse of them all. We like her enormously in Poppy, but when she goes home at the end of the evening there remain in her equipment of charms and excellences at least a hundred and twenty-one things which she has had no opportunity to use. "The music of Poppy, which was written by Steven Jones and Arthur Samuels, is agreeable, but with one exception not difficult to forget. However, there is one outstanding song hit which we imagine it will be quite impossible to ignore within a month or so. The song is called 'Mary5 and it has that ingratiating persistence which will make it insinuate itself deeper and deeper into the sounds of our daily life. Two months from today we feel sure we shall hate it, but last night it was a rousing tune. There is also a good although less infectious number called 'Alibi Baby' and both songs fall to Miss Luella Gear. Now Miss Gear doesn't seem to sing very much, but she has a way with her and she, too, belongs very definitely among the hits of the show. "We were also amused by Jimmy Barry, Robert Woolsey, and Emma Janvier. Alan Edwards is the young man who marries the girl in the last act, and for once the conventional happy ending didn't seem a tragedy for the heroine. "The first-night audience was enthusiastic about Poppy and it should have been." 184