Sly Ways & Subways

This one-cylinder Barnum, this tower of sneers in tasseled shoes, this Shubert Alley Catiline, this mustachioed thane of the sceptered aisle, this Greek god, this other Edam, this papier-mache genius, this blessed plotter, this doozer producer, this publicity addict who would send his cocker spaniel to Cape Canaveral if he thought it would get into space, this man, this David Merrick has done it again.

Last week, with a full-page ad that managed to run in an early edition of the New York Herald Tribune, he perpetrated one of Broadway's most brazen jokes.

Borrowed Luster. To advertise his new musical, Subways Are for Sleeping, Merrick stacked up one above another the names of Manhattan's seven daily-newspaper critics, and in huge block letters proclaimed that 7 OUT OF 7 ARE ECSTATICALLY UNANIMOUS ABOUT "SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING." Beside each name was a quote. Walter Kerr, for example: "What a show! What a hit! What a solid hit! If you want to be overjoyed, spend an evening with Subways Are for Sleeping. A triumph." Howard Taubman: "One of the few great musical comedies of the last 30 years, one of the best of our time. It lends luster to this or any other Broadway season."

Some startled readers remembered that the seven critics, on the average, had been considerably less than ecstatic about Merrick's show. But what ho? Beside each name there was a photograph. The seven faces were somewhat unfamiliar. The man pictured beside the name of Howard Taubman bore little resemblance to the

Howard Taubman who writes dramatic criticism for the New York Times. But he was Howard Taubman all right--an audio-equipment salesman on Lexington Avenue. Next came a rather handsome likeness of Walter Kerr, not Walter F. Kerr of the Herald Tribune, of course, but Walter J. Kerr, a manufacturers' representative. So on down the line, Merrick's version of Richard Watts, the ever smiling cherub of the New York Post, was a Negro who works as a printing supervisor with the Blue Cross. Merrick explained later that he had selected this particular Richard Watts because "there isn't one critic who is a Negro, which I consider a violation of the Fair Employment Practices laws. My group is more representative." Since the Post is New York's most aggressively liberal newspaper, Merrick thought that "the real Dick Watts" would enjoy the gesture.

Limp Spirit. To round up his personal critics' circle, Merrick and Pressagent Harvey Sabinson used telephone directories and similar sources. They took the shadow critics to the show, and Merrick claimed that all of them liked it. The shades were fed and pampered at Sardi's and the Plaza. "We all worked on their statements," says Pressagent Sabinson.

Merrick submitted the ad to five of the seven newspapers, and all but the Trib turned it down. The Trib would have, too, but its advertising department was apparently asleep in the subways. When the Trib finally woke up, the ad was thrown out. Although New York's Better Business Bureau squarely opposed Merrick's antic, the real critics themselves thought it was funny. Said John Chapman of the Daily News: "Hilarious."

The actual score among the daily critics when they reviewed Subways Are for Sleeping was three negatives (Kerr, Taubman, and John McClain of the Journal-American) against three positives (Watts, Chapman, and Robert Coleman of the Mirror), with the World-Telegram's Norman Nadel hanging in the air. Said the real Kerr: "Limp." Quoth the real Taubman: "Stumbles as if suffering from somnambulism...dull and vapid."

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