A Musical Version of 'Junior Miss'

Fellow blogger Ernie Haynes inspired me to bring back this post from 16 years ago with songs from a Christmas production that has been forgotten. What follows is an updated version of my commentary from back then with a link to a newly remastered version of the original four-song EP.

The musical programming that was presented on US commercial television in the late 1950s was remarkable. It  included an original Cole Porter musical, Aladdin, that was sponsored by DuPont, which only a few months earlier had mounted yet another original musical from a famous composer, Burton Lane, and lyricist, Dorothy Fields.

Unlike the score for Aladdin, which is still remembered today, Lane's music for Junior Miss is largely forgotten, as is the program that evoked it. Perhaps even more surprising, the Junior Miss stories themselves are no longer remembered.

Those once-popular Sally Benson stories, originally published in the New Yorker, were collected into book form in 1941, and then became a play, film and radio show - and finally this televised musical. Set at Christmas in New York, the superb 1945 film once made occasional appearances on television but hasn't been seen lately (at least by me). Its disappearance is very strange - the film is both delightful and touching, with wonderful performances by Peggy Ann Garner in the title role and Allyn Joslyn as her father.

Don Ameche and Joan Bennett

The TV musical featured 15-year-old Carol Lynley as Judy Graves (our protagonist), Don Ameche and Joan Bennett as her father and mother, and the 17-year-old Jill St. John as her sister. Also in the cast were Paul Ford, an unrecognizable (to me) Diana Lynn, and David Wayne. You can see the first part of the program via a kinescope on YouTube.

Carol Lynley and Suzanne Sydney

Unlike other more famous TV musicals, such as Aladdin and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, there was no soundtrack recording to keep Junior Miss' memory alive - only this EP of performances by Columbia artists Vic Damone, Jo Stafford and Norman Luboff. I would have to assume this was issued in advance of the program, which aired on December 20, 1957. (This site says there is a poor quality bootleg of the performances by the TV cast, but I have never encountered it.)

The performances on the EP are as good as you would expect, and the recording as reverberant as you might expect if you are familiar with Columbia's 50s pop output. The songs themselves are quite enjoyable, even if the lyrics of "Junior Miss" are reminiscent of "Gigi" and if "I'll Buy It" brings to mind "I'll Buy That Dream." Also, "Let's Make It Christmas All Year 'Round" is not the most original concept.

It's fascinating to look through the listings for the DuPont Show of the Month in 1957-58. As I mentioned, Junior Miss came just two months before Aladdin. And two months after the latter show, DuPont and CBS mounted a version of The Red Mill with the following cast: Shirley Jones, Harpo Marx, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Donald O'Connor, Elaine Stritch and Edward Andrews. It was a different time.

LINK to December 2025 remaster

A Musical Version of Junior Miss

In recent weeks, we have been exploring some of the remarkable programming that was presented on US commercial television in the late 1950s, including an original Cole Porter musical, Aladdin. The sponsor of the Porter production was DuPont, which only a few months earlier had mounted yet another original musical from a famous composer, Burton Lane, and lyricist, Dorothy Fields.

Unlike the score for Aladdin, which is still remembered today, Lane's music for Junior Miss is largely forgotten, as is the program that evoked it. Perhaps even more surprising, the Junior Miss stories themselves are no longer remembered.

Those Sally Benson stories, originally published in the New Yorker, were collected into book form in 1941, and then became a play, film and radio show - and finally this televised musical. Set at Christmas in New York, the superb 1945 film once made occasional appearances on television but hasn't been seen lately (at least by me). Its disappearance is very strange - the film is both delightful and touching, with wonderful performances by Peggy Ann Garner in the title role and Allyn Joslyn as her father.

The TV musical featured Carol Lynley as Judy Graves, our protagonist, and Don Ameche as her father. Unlike other more famous TV musicals, such as Aladdin and Cinderella, there was no soundtrack recording to keep its memory alive - only this EP of performances by Columbia artists Vic Damone, Jo Stafford and Norman Luboff. I would have to assume this was issued in advance of the program, which aired on December 20, 1957. (This site says there is a poor quality bootleg of the performances by the TV cast, but I have never encountered it.)

The performances on the EP are as good as you would expect, and the recording as hollow as you might expect if you are familiar with Columbia's 50s pop output. The songs themselves are quite enjoyable, even if the lyrics of "Junior Miss" are reminiscent of "Gigi" and if "I'll Buy It" brings to mind "I'll Buy That Dream." "Let's Make It Christmas All Year 'Round" also is not the most original concept.

It's fascinating to look through the listings for the DuPont Show of the Month in 1957-58. As I mentioned, Junior Miss came just two months before Aladdin. And two months after the latter show, DuPont and CBS mounted a version of The Red Mill with the following cast: Shirley Jones, Harpo Marx, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Donald O'Connor, Elaine Stritch, Evelyn Rudie and Edward Andrews. It was a different time.

LINK to December 2025 remaster