Pal Joey

Pal Joey (1940), a musical comedy by John O'Hara (book), Richard Rodgers (music), Lorenz Hart (lyrics). [ Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 374 perf.] The handsome, small‐time dancer Joey Evans (Gene Kelly) arrives in Chicago and immediately begins his courtship of innocent Linda English (Leila Ernst), then drops her when he meets and beds Vera Simpson (Vivienne Segal), a rich, callous, past‐her‐prime matron. She sets Joey up in an apartment where they can meet, and even builds a nightclub for him. In time Joey's selfishness and egotism pall even for the tolerant Vera. Matters come to a head when some small‐time blackmailers threaten to tell Vera's husband about the sordid liaison. Vera dumps Joey, giving him back to Linda who, having wised up, refuses the offer. Having lost both women and his meal ticket, Joey sets out to find another lucrative romance. Notable songs: Bewitched; I Could Write a Book; Do It the Hard Way; Den of Iniquity; You Mustn't Kick It Around; Zip. Innovative in its no‐punches‐pulled look at bought love, this became a landmark American musical comedy. George Abbott produced and directed the hard‐as‐nails production that featured Kelly in his only starring role on Broadway. Not all critics accepted it at first. While Louis Kronenberger hailed it as “the most unhackneyed musical show since Of Thee I Sing,” Brooks Atkinson moaned, “If it is possible to make an entertaining musical comedy out of an odious story, ‘Pal Joey’ is it. . . [but] can you draw sweet water from a foul well?” Although its initial production was highly successful, an excellent 1952 revival, prompted by the popularity that year of “Bewitched” and an increasingly open moral climate, was more popular. Segal again headed the cast, with Harold Lang as Joey. There have been several subsequent revivals.

This article is about the John O'Hara novel. For the Frank Sinatra film, see Pal Joey (film). For the Broadway musical, see Pal Joey (musical).

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1st edition cover
(Duell, Sloan and Pearce)

Pal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart.

Pal Joey was written as a series of letters—or short stories—in the magazine The New Yorker in the late 1930s. O'Hara's stories tell of Joey Evans, a second-rate nightclub entertainer in 1930s Chicago, in which he meets and falls in love with the woman "Linda." In a series of letters to "dear Pal Ted" from "Pal Joey," he reveals himself to be an amoral, calculating heel whose venality is cloaked by an amiable persona. Joey's letters are written in literate but uneducated English:

Dear Friend Ted

That is if I can call you friend after the last two weeks for it is a hard thing to do considering. I do not know if you realize what has happen to me oweing to your lack of consideraton. Maybe it is not lack of consideraton. Maybe it is on purpose. Well if it is on purpose all I have to say is maybe you are the one that will be the loser and not me as I was going to do certan things for you but now it does not look like I will be able to do them....

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