A Big Ben Birthday
A big, happy 313th birth today to Benjamin Franklin, born on this day, January 17, in 1706. In honor of the celebration -- and I trust you all have parties planned -- we'll have a bunch of appropriate videos for the occasion throughout the day.
Staring off, we have two songs from the Broadway musical, Ben Franklin in Paris, which opened in late 1964 and had a modest run of 215 performances. It starred Robert Preston, who was of course the big draw, and Ulla Sallert, with a mediocre but passable score by Sidney Michaels.
These are my two favorite songs from the show, and fortunately there is a video for one of them, "Half the Battle," which I suspect is from when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. All the better, it begins with a 2-minute scene leading into the number.
The second is "Look for Small Pleasures," which actually a bit of a life outside the show with a variety of other recordings. But here is Robert Preston and Ulla Sallert, with a lovely pleasure.
Comments