A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (book by Betty Smith & George Abbott; music by Arthur Schwartz; lyrics by Dorothy Fields; produced by Mr. Abbott in association with Robert Fryer) is a good musical until it becomes a bad movie. The Betty Smith bestseller has been given a kind of hurdy-gurdy stage treatment, mingling turn-the-crank emotions with turn-of-the-century nostalgia. So long as the tunes are lilting and rowdy and gay, and half the neighborhood is dancing in the street, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has real swing and the proper bang. But as, more...
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