New Musical in Manhattan

Ankles Aweigh (music & lyrics by Sammy Fain & Dan Shapiro; book by Guy Bolton & Eddie Davis) made a few miscalculations. It used a thoroughly uninspired score. It settled for extremely commonplace lyrics. It paid little attention to the dancing. Its book floats, on a rusty keel, all over the Mediterranean and unloads benumbing wheezes at every port of call. Nor are Betty and Jane Kean among Broadway's leading leading ladies. Betty can be funny, and both at moments are fun, but theirs is distinctly a rationed, or nightclub, charm.

With what is left, Ankles Aweigh cannot easily become the big popular Broadway musical it plainly hoped to be. In one thing it can take real pride: its luscious chorus line. It has also a sort of faded pep and dated breeziness, but these links with the past make it frightfully reminiscent yet not the least bit nostalgic.

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