Television Reviews : Loewe’s Recent Death Adds Sad Note to Show

“Lerner and Loewe: Broadway’s Last Romantics” (Channel 28, tonight at 9:05 p.m.) was completed prior to the death of Frederick Loewe on Feb. 14; the tape I previewed still referred to Loewe as living in seclusion in Palm Springs. Presumably this will have been fixed prior to tonight’s broadcast.

At any rate, Loewe’s death adds a sad note of pertinence to this pledge-period scrapbook about the great musical-writing team.

Most of the show is a lively documentation of the process that put together the duo’s major hits: “Brigadoon,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “My Fair Lady,” “Gigi” and “Camelot,” as well as the film version of “The Little Prince,” which wasn’t such a hit. Richard Kiley narrates the beginning and end, while Audrey Hepburn is our guide to the making of “My Fair Lady.”

We get many an excerpt from film and television versions of the musicals. But the most unfamiliar--and therefore most remarkable--footage is from the rehearsals of the original stage productions of “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.”

We see a dialect coach working with Julie Andrews on her Cockney, and we watch as Rex Harrison asks a tuba player, in the orchestra pit, to help him assess the audibility of his singing.

Present-day interviews include one with Andrews, who’s oh-so-gracious about the casting of Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in the movie version. But it’s even more interesting to see some of the now-forgotten stars of the early musicals. Remember Olga San Juan?

It’s too bad, though, that film makers Ann G. Young and John Musilli didn’t include any interviews with Lerner and Loewe themselves. It’s an odd hole in an otherwise enlightening and entertaining package.