In the 1950s, instead of voice mail, there were answering services. Callers gave messages to real people who conveyed them to subscribers. Comden and Green, inspired by such a woman handling their messages from a dingy brownstone basement, replicated her fictionally as Ella working for Susanswerphone. They tailored Ella to fit the talents of old friend Judy Holliday. Both star and situation rang true in the NYC of their day, accounting for a long Broadway success and subsequent transfer to film.
The central plot involves Ella falling in love with Jeff, a playwright left without a co-author and confidence to write on without him. Having assumed a motherly role in exchanges with him, Ella knows only his voice. The same is true regarding a dentist who's crazy to write songs and a Brando imitator who wants to be an actor. When she goes out to meet and point all toward success, her excursions arouse a vice inspector's suspicions. The real crime being run from Susanswerphone, though, is a bookie operation by a Germanic sharpie who woos Sue and pretends to be filling orders for records. Everything moves too s-l-o-w but just or lovey-dovey conclusions.
Far away from the time and circumstances of its creation, Bells Are Ringing tends merely to tinkle. With a mild cha cha as choreographer Charlene Clark's major contribution, for example, it's hard to imagine that Jerome Robbins did the original dances and had Bob Fosse assist. Further, Kyle Ennis Turoff's looks and personality contrast almost completely with Holliday's. Short on vulnerability, Kyle Turoff makes Ella come to life when she defies the Inspector (properly hammy Roy Johns) with a clearly trilled "Is It a Crime?" She's characteristically best when at her brassiest, burlesquing "I'm Going Back" (to a brassiere factory). A handsome-enough Jeff, Joe Gately generally needs more volume except for his excited "I Met a Girl." Mostly, he's phlegmatic - disastrous in Jeff's interactions with Ella. Mild to a fault proclaiming they met "Just in Time," Gately hardly looks at Turoff and stiffly dances. Strangely, neither that song nor "The Party's Over" -- which survived outside the play as pop singles - score as strongly as two plot-dependent songs. "Drop that Name" typifies lyricists Comden and Green's topical cleverness.
For the comic show-stopper, bookie Sandor (old smoothie Michael Bajjaly) persuades Sue (likeable Catherine Randazzo) to go off to a geographical travesty, "Salzburg" (by the sea). Otherwise, humor is either stretched, as exemplified by the dentist-song writer (though Michael Dayton gets an occasional laugh) or predictable, as in Ella assuming different voices answering from a French restaurant, a Duchess' residence, and the North Pole.
Brad Wages effectively doubles as the aspiring actor and a deli delivery man who unwittingly foils gambler Sandor. Steven Flaa's timing as the inspector's photographer-assistant is excellent.
In general, the rest of the cast, as well as the technical staff and musicians, hold up - to paraphrase a familiar commercial - even when what they're supporting doesn't.
