The stage musical, "Thoroughly Modern Millie," is an adaptation of the 1967 Universal musical film of the same name. The musical play, currently at the Ahmanson, isn't simply a faithful reproduction of the movie. Made in more modern times, this musical had to be made more politically correct. After premiering at the La Jolla Playhouse, this new formula went on to Broadway and swept the 2002 Tony Awards.

The Movie

The film starred Julie Andrews as Millie Dillmount. Determined to escape her small town life, she arrives in New York City in 1922 and immediately bobs her hair, gets a shorter skirt and sets out to find a secretarial job with a rich, handsome and unmarried boss. Her career goal: marriage to her employer. Living at a women's hotel run by a mysterious Chinese woman, Mrs. Meers (Beatric Lillie), Millie meets the naive, but obviously well-brought up Dorothy (Mary Tyler Moore), who, like many of the other girls living there, is hoping to become an actress. Dorothy arrives just as a room handily becomes vacant and, like the former resident, Dorothy is an orphan.

Millie does land a job with the handsome Trevor Graydon (James Gavin) whose main concern is efficiency. He likes her so much that he calls her John, as in Johnny on the spot. Hardly a romantic nickname. When Dorothy happens along one day, Trevor immediately falls in love with her, much to Millie's despair.

Millie has attracted the eye of a certain Jimmy Smith (James Fox) who always seems to know where to have a good time, but never seems to be working. He does take Millie and Dorothy to the Long Island estate of a famous performer, Muzzy van Hossmere, (Carol Channing), who managed to marry well. And this is the life to which Millie aspires.

But Millie suspects that Jimmy and Dorothy are lovers. It's only when Dorothy disappears that Jimmy, Trevor and Millie get together to thwart Mrs. Meers and her Chinese henchmen (Pat Morita, Philip Ahn and Jack Soo).

Julie Andrews' Millie is a no-nonsense girl with prim and proper moral underpinnings. Moore is delightfully ditzy while Carol Channing is simply Carol Channing.

The movie featured shots of an imaginary New York Chinatown filled with an opium dens and cells of young girls being readied for sexual slavery. Directed by George Roy Hill this parody of 1920s movies was a throw-away cream puff confectionary.

The Stage Musical

Yet in today's politically correct times, when Dick Scanlan convinced Richard Morris to take his script and update it, this mock threat of Chinese slavers using their laundry business as a cover had to be dealt with. Additional songs (music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by Scanlan) and dance numbers (choreographed by Rob Ashford) fill out this musical.

In the road tour of this show, Darcie Roberts is Millie and her flirty dark brown haired bob and broad shoulders make this Millie seem a formidable foe--a small town tomboy but basically still the girl next-door. Yet, unlike the movie, she is very much a young bumpkin who quickly loses all her money and a shoe when a local thief steals her purse. She bumps into man-about-town Jimmy Smith (Joey Sorge) who advises her to wire home for enough money to buy a ticket back home. Naturally, she doesn't.