She Loves Me

I have been spending my evenings with my violin in the local theater pit rehearsing She Loves Me, a 1963 Broadway show with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. The show came right before Fiddler on the Roof in their chronology as a writing team.

It is a delightful adaptation by Joe Masteroff of Miklós László's Parfumerie (1937). Film adaptations of László's play include The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch 1940), In the Good Old Summertime (Robert Z. Leonard 1949), and You've Got Mail (Nora Ephron 1988).

I laughed at the first rehearsal when I noticed that one of the motivic germs of the show is Buffalo Gals, made quite famous in the 1946 Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life (the link above goes to a setting of the song in the film). But why is it there? I didn't think that it had anything to do with the song's history.

To quote from a song in The Pajama Game (mentioned below), "I figured it out."

The male lead in It's a Wonderful Life is named George Bailey, and he is played by James Stewart. James Stewart plays the male lead in the Lubitsch film.

The female lead in that film, played by Margaret Sullavan is named Klara Novak, and the name of the Jimmy Stewart character in She Loves Me is Georg Nowack.

In It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey sings  “Buffalo Gals” on his first date with Mary. It becomes “their song.” It is an important and distinct reference to the character of Georg Nowack in She Loves Me. Needless to say, both characters are named George. 

Here are some other references I noticed: In "I Don't Know His Name" there is a distinct resemblance to the song "Matchmaker" in Fiddler on the Roof  (a song yet to be written), In “A Romantic Atmosphere” there  is a snippet from Ochi Chyornye (Очи черные or Dark Eyes) in one of the violin solos, and the "Tango Tragique" makes strong reference to "Hernando's Hideaway" from the 1954 Jerry Ross and Richard Adler show The Pajama Game.

We open tonight.