Now Chicago's Porchlight Music Theatre has given the original 1940 version a lively small-scale revival that proves the creators of "Pal Joey" knew exactly what they were doing.
"Pal Joey" is one of the all-time great Broadway musicals, a portrait of life on the bottom rungs of showbiz in which Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart teamed up to immensely potent effect with John O'Hara ("Appointment in Samarra"), who wrote the book.
Though Mr. O'Hara's once-popular novels and short stories are no longer widely read, he was famous in 1940 for his well-tuned ear, and the characters in "Pal Joey" sound like they stepped out of a real-life alley after throwing a couple of punches.