Oh, Jake, it isn’t a question of…of…what kind of a car?

From the 1959 James Cagney/Shirley Jones musical comedy “Never Steal Anything Small” comes the classic “I’m Sorry, I Want a Ferrari.” With music by Allie Wrubel and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, the tune was sung by Cagney and Cara Williams as they hoofed their way through a new-car showroom. The setup, if this needs one, is that Cagney’s character, mobster Jake MacIllaney, is trying to gain control of a union, and needs to coerce Williams’s character into doing something underhanded for him. As Cagney says, “I’ll spring for an MG or a Jag, or sumthin’ like that, but a Ferrari? Wassa madda wichya?!”