Written for a production at Catholic University, "Count Me In" should have stayed there. On Broadway it falls flat and can hardly bear comparison with a Freedley, Wiman or Abbott musical. At any moment you expect someone to come out with a crack about the Dean of Women's red woolies, but you have to be satisfied with the humor of a Back Bay sitting room. Compensating for the poor dialogue is some top-notch dancing (Hal Leroy's tapping is the best thing in the show), an original story and a couple of good performances.

The fantastic story involves a timid map-maker, Charles Butterworth, who comes home one day to find his whole family engaged in war work of one kind or another. Trying to keep in step, he gets pushed around mercilessly until he conceives the idea of trapping the Jap fleet with a phoney map of Shangri-La. After an interlude in a Jap internment camp done with extremely poor taste, the map is found to be genuine; but Papa saves the day by informing the U. S. forces of some nearby islands that would rise above water on the next day.

Ann Ronell's score is decidedly undistinguished, and more than once shows the influence of Mother Goose. This is all probably just as well, for no one in the cast could do justice to a major scale. The lyrics become wittiest in a number called "Who Is General Staff?" The rest are considerably worse. In short, you can count me out.