Anything Goes starring Sinatra and Merman on dvd 3/29/11

[tazber]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 1:43pm

I never even knew this existed. Amazon has it for pre-order now.

From 1950 to 1955, every Sunday night NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour presented live musical variety television featuring the top names in vaudeville, theater, radio and film. In this 1954 production of the famed Cole Porter musical comedy “Anything Goes,” Frank Sinatra and Ethel Mermen made their television debuts, belting out classic tunes in this blockbuster song and dance production. Set on a luxurious ocean liner, a nightclub singer helps a fellow American woo an English heiress while flappers and gangsters run amok in this spectacular tale of jazz age madness.



Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

In 1954, Ethel Merman, at the age of fifty, reprised her role as Reno in a specially adapted television version of the musical, co-starring Frank Sinatra as the hero, now renamed Harry Dane, and Merman's good friend Bert Lahr (who had co-starred with her on Broadway in DuBarry Was a Lady) as Moonface Martin. This version was shown as an episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour, and has been preserved on kinescope. This version used five of the original songs plus several other Porter numbers, retained the shipboard setting, but had a somewhat different plot. It has been reported that Merman and Sinatra did not get along well; this was the only time they worked together.

So it's kind of a quasi-Anything Goes. But still, looks like fun!
Wiki

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 1:48pm

Holy crap!

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 2:23pm

I have a copy of that. It's black and white and the show is heavily truncated, with the above-noted changes. Merman just looks too old for Sinatra, although she can belt the hell out of the songs. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't Merman's television debut, as she did the Ford special with Mary Martin in 1953. And I believe Sinatra had his own TV show several years earlier (it wasn't successful).

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 2:42pm

I have a copy, too. It's rather inane, but it's a fun artifact of its time.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 3:44pm

So are you Phyllis.
X

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 4:11pm

LOL!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 4:11pm

Inane or not, it's still very FUN! Looking forward to getting this.

Posted: 2/15/11 at 4:53pm

It definitely was NOT either of their "television debut."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 7:33pm

I actually love this version. I hope that this DVD release actually improves the quality of the kinescope. If they just distribute what's been out there, there will be no reason to pay money for it.

They got along perfectly well, as you can see in this clip of them singing "You're the Top" together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd-R52P_aPc


Here's them duetting on "You Do Something to Me," which was interpolated with a lovely quodlibet for Ethel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIgwrJ_JozM


Here's the finale, with them duetting on "I Get a Kick Out of You"--and Bert gets to be funny on the final line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgDWtaIyOl0

[Dollypop]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 7:45pm

I may be wrong, but I have a vague memory that this was shown on late-nite TV under a different title--maybe "You're The Top".

I have a recollection of Merman singing "I Get a Kick Out of You" in some sort of swing over a curving bar, while people drank beneath her.

Updated On: 2/15/11 at 07:45 PM

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 8:07pm

Dolly, I think u may be referring to the first movie version, made in 1936 which had Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman and was shown on TV as Tops is the Limit. It's not a very good movie and just as bad, in its way, as the 1956 remake, also with Bing Crosby.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 9:42pm

You may very well be right, Ed. The movie I'm thinking of was in B&W. Right?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 10:28pm

They're both b&w, but the one you're thinking about is a Paramount film from 1936, starring Ethel and Bing Crosby.

The one this thread is about in this thread is a 1954 live television broadcast that exists only on kinescope.

You can see the change in Ethel from the 1930s goofy kid of Girl Crazy and Anything Goes to the 1950s tough broad of Call Me Madam and Gypsy.

Here she is with Bing in the 1936 movie, singing "You're the Top":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCfqIXiLxSE


And here she is in the 1954 TV broadcast with Bert Lahr, who played Moonface Martin. They interpolated "Friendship" into the TV version, because Merman and Lahr had introduced the song in Cole Porter's DuBarry Was a Lady in 1939:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_t82ir4REQ

Updated On: 2/16/11 at 10:28 PM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/15/11 at 11:21pm

Of course they didn't get along, arguing over who's the Bottom.
Leave it to Cole to write a hit song about Tops and Bottoms.

And joey, Ethel did have a lovely quodlibet. Updated On: 2/15/11 at 11:21 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/16/11 at 7:47am

Links are up now.

Here are some pics of the TV production: