The Marx Brothers
Marxology - I'LL SAY SHE IS

Mikael Uhlin's Marxology @ marx-brothers.org

In the 1920s, the Marx Brothers were stars of the vaudeville but hadn't made it yet with a big show and Broadway seemed even further away. In 1923, Chico chanced to meet an independent producer by the name of Joseph M. Gaites, who was looking for talent to put in front of some expensive scenery left over from several flops. His backer was James P. Beury, a Pennsylvanian millionaire who had just bought the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and needed something to play there during the summer of 1923. "J.P. Beury was in the coal business", Groucho says, "and he was laying one of the chorus girls. So was Harpo, but he didn't know that. He put up the money". The Marx Brothers hastily put together what amounted to a gigantic musical tabloid. It was based nominally on an unsuccessful musical comedy by Will and Tom Johnstone, originally written for British actress Kitty Gordon as Love For Sale. Both this and a hastily revamped successor, Give Me a Thrill, had expired quickly. Some of the songs and the basic idea, that of a millionairess looking for thrills, were kept, while mostly new material, suitable for the Marx Brothers, was added. Some of it, like the audition scene later filmed by Paramount in 1931, came from On The Balcony while other bits (like the celebrated Napoleon's First Waterloo) was written by Groucho and Will B. Johnstone. Joseph M. Gaites favored four titled words and had previously produced shows named Take It From Me and Up In The Clouds, both written by the Johnstones. After considering the name You Must Come Over, the marxified version of Love For Sale/Give Me a Thrill were named I'll Say She Is!, the second half of a popular expression that began Isn't she a beauty?. An interesting note is that Al Jolson's 1918-show Sinbad contained a tune named I'll Say She Does, written by Gus Kahn (see Street Cinderella) together with Al Jolson and Bud DeSylva and published by Jerome H. Remick & Co. The lyrics of the song seem to have been in the same vein as the Marxes' show and may have served as a source of inspiration:

"Does she make everybody stare? I'll say she does
Was she happy to get the ring? You bet she was
And can she dance? Can she twist?
Does she do a lot of things I can't resist?"

Tryouts in Allentown, Pennsylvania, gave no indication that a Broadway hit was gestating. Then, on June 4, 1923, I'll Say She Is opened in the Walnut Street Theatre as "Philadelphia's first annual summer revue." Although the critics immediately recognized it as an elaboration of Gimme a Thrill, which had already played itself out over the Shubert circuit, they were impressed. So were the audiences. Waters wrote in Variety: "The thread of plot concerns the efforts of eight men to give to a young and beautiful heiress a thrill in return for which she will bestow her hand and fortune on the lucky man. Among the thrills are those of gambling, of underworld crime, or riches, of poverty and of love. Quite naturally, these give opportunities for varied and attractive settings". Groucho later claimed that I'll Say She Is didn't have one piece of scenery that really belonged to the show. In his autobiography Groucho and Me, he adds some more info that gives an idea of the visual appearance of the show;
"There was hardly a show that had been on Broadway in the preceding twenty years that wasn't represented in the assortment of leftovers. There were pieces of scenery from The Girl of the Golden West, The Squaw Man, Way Down East, Turn to the Right and many others. If memory doesn't play me false (ah there, Mr. Woollcott), I'm sure we even had a piece of the river scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin, where Liza crosses the ice".

With the Philadelphia success of I'll Say She Is, the Marx Brothers started to feel more secure about their future in show business. When it ended its run the day after Thanksgiving, the show was taken on the road, where it played the rest of the year and into 1924 (see On Stage). On May 19, 1924, I'll Say She Is opened on Broadway, at the Shuberts' Casino Theatre. There's an old stage superstition that forbids anyone to wish an actor good luck before an opening. Instead, one is supposed to say "break a leg". It actually happened to Marx mother Minnie just before the New York opening of I'll Say She Is. While standing on a chair during a fitting for her gown, she fell and fractured her ankle, and had to be carried in her box in the Casino Theatre on opening night. Another show that was supposed to open the same night had been postponed, so first-string critics like Alexander Woollcott and Franklin P. Adams appeared at the Casino Theatre. Led by Woollcott, the critics raved unanimously; "Julius H. (Cracking) Marx and Arthur (Harpo) Marx had the house in an uproar, not once, but a number of times. Harpo was introduced as "Sir Joseph Ginzburg", a spark that set the audience laughing. Julius, with his painted mustache, and always smoking a rope of some kind, flashed in and out with humorous comment" (Variety, 28 May 1924). "Beauty", the Leading Lady, was originally played by Muriel Hudson, but when the show reached Broadway, Carlotta (Lotta) Miles got the part. Born Florence Reutti, Lotta Miles adopted her stagename as a punning contribution to an advertising campaign by the Kelly Tyre company. Research by Dave O'Malley shows that she was known as the Kelly Tyre-girl as early as 1919. Lotta Miles appeared in one movie, Waterfront Lady in 1935, a film which also featured Robert Emmett O'Connor and Purnell Pratt, i.e. Detective Henderson and the Mayor in A Night At The Opera. Ms Reutti/Miles died of a heart attack in Hollywood on July 25, 1937. Here's an obituary from Hamilton Journal - The Daily News, provided by Robert Moulton. I'll Say She Is ran for almost two years on Broadway. "We were the toast of town", Groucho said, "which is a lot better than being in a breadline". On this site you'll find the complete script of I'll Say She Is, including some variations. It has been pieced together from various sources but most of it is available thanks to Peter Sprenkle, who provided me with a copy of the script from the Library of Congress, stamped 10 November 1924.

A newspaper add depicting Lotta Miles, provided by Noah Diamond