BROADWAY AFTERLIFE
Film poster from 1957 - the play gets the MGM treatment during the decline of the studio system.
There’s a film version of The Little Hut, made at MGM’s studios in England and starring Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger, and David Niven. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert (author of the landmark sex comedy The Moon is Blue) is by and the whole story is told in flashback with a lengthy prologue and so bowdlerized it takes most of the naughty fun out of the piece, even with that cast. It has a catchy title song.
It had been originally purchased by Alexander Korda as a screen vehicle for Zsa Zsa Gabor opposite George Sanders (they were married then)—how’s that for tantalizing casting?
Like many of our Shows for Someday, The Little Hut went on to a long and happy life in regional and stock productions. Some of the other productions and stars:
1954 stock tour: Hiram Sherman, Barbara Bel Geddes (!), directed by Morton da Costa
Erlanger Theatre, Buffalo – Veronica Lake
1954 Drury Lane Theatre, Chicago – Marie Wilson and Melville Cooper
Original Los Angeles production – Marsha Hunt, Leon Ames (!), Patrick O’Neal
1955 – Kurt Kasznar, Lakewood Theatre, PA
1961 – Denise Darcel at Garden Center Theatre
1974 – major London revival with Geraldine McEwan
And also in 1961, it ran at the historic Pinehurst Playhouse, in the same town where Judson Theatre Company is…the playhouse is now a retail building in the center of the village.
The most recent larger-scale production is the limited-run 2010 London revival starring Janie Dee and Aden Gillett. Most critics note the charm in the script, and also the need to keep it in its period. The Little Hut could still work today, though the script could use a touch-up and some cutting. Check it out!