The Red Mill (1906) was Victor Herbert's biggest success. it was the smash hit of its season and ran longer than any other Victor Herbert operetta produced in his lifetime. Revived on Broadway in 1945 with Eddie Foy, it enjoyed a run nearly twice as long as that of the original production.
   With its satirical, Americans-abroad plot and its abundance of Tin Pan Alley-style songs, The Red Mill was actually closer to the nascent form of musical comedy than to operetta. It was designed as a showcase for its stars, the popular comics David Montgomery and Fred Stone. Montgomery and Stone played Kid Conner and Con Kidder, two wisecracking American tourists on a trip through Europe who find themselves broke and stranded in the tiny Dutch town of Katwyk-ann-Zee. The town's stern burgomaster has promised his daughter Gretchen to the governer of Zeeland, although Gretchen's heart belongs to a handsome sea captain. Kid and Con devise a plan to help Gretchen escape from the arranged marriage, but when the burgomaster overhears this, he locks his daughter up in the town mill. Eventually the boys are able to free Gretchen by perching her on one of the arms of the windmill and lowering her to the ground. The burgomaster finally relents and allows Gretchen to marry her sea captain who, it turns out, is about to inherit a huge fortune and make them all rich.        
   The Red Mill's producer, Charles Dillingham, was a true Broadway showman who decorated the facade of the Knickbocker Theater with a huge, revolving windmill, powered and lit by electricity. It immediately took its place in history as Broadway's first moving illuminated sign.