Word: melrod
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Maury Leiter as "Ozzie" the magician is too cute for his own good, not quite capturing the look-at-me-and-laugh-at-a-real-moron role he is given. But George Melrod--easily the star of the show--as "Nick, Sam Nick", the detective, is the quintessential Columbo parody, from that cultivated unshaven look to his rapid-fire delivery. Nicks' exchange with Natalie in the interrogation room is really the funniest scene in the show; it makes you forget that he can't sing. Jay Bacal as the broker is aggressively mediocre, weighed down by an insecure voice...
Presented with such a golden opportunity to go wild, only a troupe of embalmed corpses could fail to entertain, and the Winthrop players rise to the challenge with unabashed enthusiasm. Mike Herrmann as the out-of-work actor Diabetes, and George Melrod as Hepatitis both look uncannily like Groucho Marx and play their urban-Jewish-intellectual-neurotic characters to the hilt. Meanwhile, the supporting cast, led by the gum-cracking, orgasm-seeking Phil major from Brooklyn College and Great Neck, Doris Levine (played nicely by Jaleh Poorooshasb), camps and hams through Allen's inspired lunacy. Every new character who walks...
...madly around. Laurel Leslie, playing Susie, is consistently good, but is truly at her best here, switching costumes, rescuing her brother, dancing Charlestons and tangos, and looking rattled throughout. If, as her brother says, her mind is in her dancing shoes, then she clearly has lots of brains. George Melrod, as the lawyer, gets to display his comic talents to advantage in this act, and George W. Hunt, as Susie's hobo, makes the switch easily into hotel magnate, maintaining a boyish charm despite his three-piece suit, and eliciting as many chuckles as anyone in the cast...