Slaughter on 10th Avenue

“Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” was a top-40 hit for the Ventures in 1964.

However, the music was originally a ballet with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by George Balanchine. It occurs near the end of Rodgers and Hart’s 1936 Broadway musical comedy “On Your Toes” and is the story of a hoofer who falls in love with a dance hall girl who is then shot and killed by her jealous boyfriend.

In “Words and Music”, the 1948 Technicolor film biography of Rodgers and Hart, the ballet was danced by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen.