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Hart’s Revenge

November 2023
1min read

I much enjoyed Wilfrid Sheed’s entertaining story about Broadway songwriters among the Philistines of Hollywood during the early 1930s (October). Reading it, I suddenly realized the full, score-settling import of a lyric that Lorenz Hart wrote in 1940, long after he had fled back to his beloved New York.

Near the end of Pal Joey , the title character’s two girlfriends, each having just found out about the other, tell each other why they are dumping the bum. One explains:


His thoughts Are seldom consecutive. He just can’t write. I know a movie executive Who’s twice as bright.

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