This
"Sweetheart of a Musical" opens with eight girls complaining about the
doldrums---they're just not getting enough telephone calls. The solution
is simple announces an advertisement for Susan Answer Phone, a telephone
answering service. Before the days of answering machines and high
technology, the only choice was to hire a service to answer your phone
when you weren't home.
This
particular answering service is owned and run by Sue, who employs her
cousin Ella to answer the phones. Ella has a deplorable tendency to get
involved in customers' lives as she takes and delivers their messages.
She even falls in love with one of the customers who she has never even
met. In It's A Perfect Relationship Ella describes her feelings for Jeff
Moss, this unknowing customer. Now, Jeff is a writer who is having
trouble getting to work on his next play, and Ella is determined to help
him. Whether you call it curiosity or eavesdropping, one thing's for
certain, Ella's busybody personality is entertaining!
A subplot
involving Sue and Sandor unravels at the same time. Sue falls in love
with Sandor, who runs a company called Titanic Records. Conveniently the
record company sets up a branch office in Sue's office space. The record
company turns out to be a book-making concern, with an ingenious code
which Sandor describes to his assistants in It's A Simple Little System.
Unknown to anyone, the police are already monitoring Susansweringphone,
suspecting that it's a front for a vice ring. Ella takes on a new
identity, goes to Jeff's apartment, and convinces him to rework his new
play. In the number Hello, Hello There! she teaches him about
friendliness. Jeff invites Ella out for the evening, and a friend
teaches her the cha-cha in the sizzling Mu-Cha-Cha dance. Eventually
Jeff meets her in Central Park and explains that he has grown to love
her. He takes her to a party where Ella sings Drop That Name when she
finds herself at a loss for conversation. She doesn't think that she's
up to Jeff's social status, and sadly slips away as she sings the great
ballad The Party's Over. Jeff still doesn't know who Ella really is.
Meanwhile,
Sue and Sandor plan a trip abroad, as he tries to borrow money from her
to cover some racing debts. Two other answering service subscribers who
Ella has also befriended coincidently meet the despondent Jeff in a
nightclub. The songs in the club's floor show are written by one of the
subscribers who is a musical dentist. The three men discover that Ella's
good deeds have helped them all, but not one of them realizes she is the
answering service girl. As the police close in on the bookies from the
"record company," the three men set off to find Ella. Just as she
decides to run away, she is reunited with Jeff. We have a classic happy
ending.