Gurgled a Tommy: "You'd think sentiment like that would turn your stomach. But blimey, it's marvelous." Beamed the Daily Mail: "Riotously amusing." Even the thunderous Times felt that it offered "valuable lessons to the English music hall." Overnight Irving Berlin's This Is The Army was a London smash.
With flashbulbs exploding, Lady Louis Mountbatten and Ambassadors Winant and Biddle in a flag-draped box, and Noel Coward, Bea Lillie and mobs of servicemen packing the house, it was a gala opening. It was also a demonstrative one: time after time cascading applause stopped the show. Loudest thunder was for Composer Berlin, who followed...
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