Customer Reviews

I Got The Show Right Here: The Amazing, True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman

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Reading Cy Feuer's memoir is like sitting at the feet of a beloved uncle as he recounts fabulous tales of a fabulous time on Broadway; the time when the Broadway Musical was a capital-letters phrase. And, make no mistake, Cy Feuer and partner Ernest Martin were THE musical producers of that era! Guys & Dolls, How to Succeed...; Can-Can, The Boyfriend! To anyone "of a certain age", these were the musicals of their lives. Sure, there are some factual errors (he confuses Victor Young with Vincent Youmans, for example), but I blame that on co-author Ken Gross. I don't know that it's his fault, mind, I just want to blame him and just revel in Cy Feuer! If you love musicals, Broadway, Hollywood, gossip, and/or great story-telling, you will, too!

What a kick in the pants Cy Feuer must be in person. You can almost hear his tongue smacking in his cheek as he spills little tidbits about show biz icons while regaling you with stories of his and his peers' latest exploits.

What I really enjoyed about this book, other than the obvious, is that the man wasn't afraid to: 1.) Tell on himself, showing us some of his real blunders, and 2.) Tell on others honestly, showing some understanding of where they were coming from, rather than just stepping on their memory.

This is a fun, easy ride through the heyday of Broadway and a touch of musical Hollywood.

The first show I saw in NYC, as an impressionable young teenager, was Feuer & Martin's production of "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying". Those rosy memories, combined with the positive reviews of the book, made reading it irresistable.

It is a light, enjoyable read. The reviewer who wrote "is like sitting at the feet of a beloved uncle as he recounts fabulous tales" was absolutely right -- that's just how I felt. [And it must have been the style Feuer was trying for, with his repeated use of "kinda" "sorta" "hadda"]. But while that is fun, it was also frustrating: the stories were told because they were humorous, not because they provided any insight. Don't we read biographies to learn more about what makes a specific individual "tick", and by transferance, more about what makes all of us "tick"? There was no learning here, little insight. Just stories.

Feuer insisted frequently that he was not an artist, merely a ditchdigger, albeit a good one. But he didn't do enough digging here. Read it for fun, but don't expect to know the man.