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Spring Song (by Bella and Samuel Spewack; Max Gordon, producer) shows the misfortunes which overtake the Solomon family, Ma (Helen Zelinskaya), Tillie (Frieda Altaian) and Florrie (Francine Larrimore) when Ma refuses to give Florrie $10 to go to Asbury Park. Deprived of a chance to see her own beau, Florrie goes out with Tillie's. The result of this excursion is a baby and a shotgun wedding. By the time the baby arrives, it is plain that in trying to make her daughters do the right thing, Ma Solomon has made bad matters worse. Florrie's beau marries a wench. Tillie is embittered by her disappointment. Florrie dies despondently in childbirth. Only Ma's old friend, the Butcher Freiberg (Joseph Greenwald) maintains his customary calm, wagging his head as he reads Hebrew prayers in the Solomon parlor.
The fact that Spring Song belies its gay title does not indicate that its intent is fraudulent. It is a sad, but honest anecdote, wisely acted and quietly written, in which Francine Larrimore, tending the Solomon sidewalk cigar stand with puzzled petulance, gives her best performance since Brief Moment. No less genuine than Florrie as self-respecting tenement dwellers are Ma Solomon, and Butcher Freiberg who, when asked for an explanation of the Solomons' misfortunes, voices the dry, dialectic theme of Spring Song: "When you are young, you expect everything from life. When you get older, you expect nothing, and you get it."