Judy, Judy, Judy . . . ‘Bells’ Still Rings True

Throughout the 1950s in the movies and on Broadway, Judy Holliday served as an alternate-universe version of Marilyn Monroe--less in some ways, the obvious ones, but far more when it came to the business of beautiful and funny. Not to mention sharp-witted, even when playing someone of limited wattage.

“Born Yesterday,” which Holliday originated on stage before winning an Oscar for the 1950 film version, confirmed her status as a pooh-bah among dumb/smart blonds. The stereotype by now is so hoarily retrograde, it’s easy to wish it had never been typed in the first place. Yet Holliday rang such wonderful, zingy variations on it, well . . . there you have it. A P.C. conundrum. A clash of dubious sexual politics and indubitable comic skill.

Here’s another conundrum: Carolee Carmello isn’t quite right for the Judy Holliday role in the Reprise! “Bells Are Ringing.” Though costumed and coiffed like Lucille Ball, she’s not automatically funny in the way certain performers are. Her presence is more grave and intense than that. (Carmello recently got a Tony nomination for her excellent work in “Parade,” about the Leo Frank lynching in 1915.)

Yet by the end of the current semi-staged edition of the 1956 musical comedy, “Bells Are Ringing,” the official opener of this season’s Reprise! Broadway’s Best in Concert series, you’re glad to have spent time with Carmello. Her musical theater instincts see her through. She wins you over, while tiding you over the show’s less-diverting contrivances.

This production was originally earmarked for Jean Smart, best known for “Designing Women” on television. Smart’s encounter with Jason Alexander in the Reprise! edition of “Promises, Promises” was 10 minutes of musical-comedy heaven. When she canceled on “Bells,” in stepped a game Carmello.

Carmello works hard at the comedy--too hard. (She does, however, do a great thing with her lower lip on the line, “I wonder what he looks like”; it takes an immediate turn toward the southwest after the line itself.) But this Jule Styne-Betty Comden-Adolph Green score, full of charm, sounds lovely here. Carmello and co-star Stephen Bogardus, playing an answering-service whiz and a self-doubting playwright, respectively, make up in romantic sincerity for what they lack in the art of the verbal top-spin.

Ella Peterson (Carmello) works for Susanswerphone, a Manhattan answering service. Her pet client is Jeffrey Moss (Bogardus), a high-living writer with low self-esteem, faced with a deadline for his new play, “The Midas Touch.”

Incognito, Ella enters Moss’ life, turns him around and bingo-bango, it’s love. (“Just in Time,” that simple, sublime standard, comes in right about here.) Moss has an intriguing melancholic streak; he’s like the Gene Kelly character in the film “It’s Always Fair Weather” (1955), Comden and Green’s script from the year before. “Bells Are Ringing” shares with that movie various hoodlum types, as well as a general, unabashed crush on New York City.

The sole directorial goof arrives in “Just in Time”: For expediency’s sake, director Don Amendolia forgoes the ensemble interaction, so that Ella and Jeff perform their little soft-shoe for no one but themselves. (It doesn’t quite wash.) Technical quibbles? Since you asked: The audience shouldn’t have to put up with this much amplification feedback--or really, given the modest 12-piece orchestra (wonderfully conducted by Peter Matz), this much amplification, period. Overmiking can turn even a savvy performer into a shrill one. A ballad along the lines of “The Party’s Over” doesn’t need the electronic “help.”

Nor does Carmello, whose plummy, well-controlled vocal instrument sounds especially fine on that song, along with the Act 1 duet, “It’s Better Than a Dream” (added late in the original Broadway run). Judy Holliday is the reason “Bells Are Ringing” ran nearly three years, in the age of “My Fair Lady” and “West Side Story.” Even if Carmello and Bogardus sweat through some of the book scenes--this material needs speed and offhandedness, in equal measure--they manage to make you care about the love story. The show’s minor, but done well, padding and all, its pleasures aren’t.

* “Bells Are Ringing,” UCLA Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, UCLA, Westwood (adjacent parking in UCLA Lot 3; enter on Hilgard, south of Sunset Boulevard). Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. (also 7 p.m. May 16). Ends May 23. $45-$50. (310) 825-2101. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

Bells Are Ringing

Carolee Carmello: Ella Peterson

Stephen Bogardus: Jeff Moss

Brooks Almy: Sue

Gary Beach: Sandor

Steve Vinovich: Inspector Barnes

Stephanie J. BlockGwynne

David Engel: Carl

Larry Raben: Francis

Terry Rhoads: Larry Hastings

Joe Joyce: Dr. Kitchell

Troy Britton Johnson: Blake Barton

Lise Simms: Olga

Book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Music by Jule Styne. Directed by Don Amendolia. Musical director Peter Matz. Choreographer Kevin Carlisle. Set by Bradley Kaye. Costumes by David R. Zyla. Lighting by Tom Ruzika. Sound by John Feinstein. Stage manager Larry Baker.