I’m pretty sure I posted this a long while ago, but can’t find it. And it’s so wonderful, it deserves being posted again, so that it doesn’t slip through the cracks. It’s from the old “Bell Telephone Hour,” and I think they were doing a tribute to Alan Jay Lerner. The host is Cyril Ritchard (who of course famously played ‘Captain Hook” in Peter Pan opposite Mary Martin). The first video is a joyous 14-minutes selection of five songs from On a Clear Day You Can See Forever – with the original Broadway cast, Barbara Harris and John Cullum. He’s wonderful – though as good as he is (and he’s very good), she is utterly standout. Fantastic. All the songs are terrific, but (for me) best of all is that they use my three favorite songs from the score. The charming “Hurry, It’s Lovely Here,” “The S.S. Bernard Cohen” (I love the song, though in part for its silliness, tho also clever rhymes, but I’m surprised they included it -- it's very light and frothy -- but happy they did so), and the great “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” By the way, when watching this video, I saw another one I watched that was William Daniels (who was in the show talking about On a Clear Day… What I never knew was that Louis Jordan (notably in Lerner and Lowe’s Gigi, which came before this) was the original male lead. I think he’d have been great in the acting part, but don’t think he could have handled the songs even close to as well as Cullum. If I had to guess, that’s why they parted ways. Though I've also been told by someone who follows these things closely that Jourdan thought the show would be a two-person lead, and he saw that Barbara Harris was stealing the show and it was becoming hers. So, it could be a few reasons overlapping. Ah, what a time when they did a TV program like this. And devoted 14 minutes to just one show.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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