Anything is Still Going
I’ve posted several videos of Sutton Foster in the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes, which has been revived often on Broadway, most recently that 2011 version.
But it first played on Broadway in 1934, and was one of Ethel Merman early, huge hits. Twenty years later, in 1954, she recreated the role in a TV production on the Colgate Comedy Hour – and it’s a treat to have a few clips from it around. Among others in the cast, it co-starred Frank Sinatra. (More on that soon.) The 1950s were a great era for TV musicals, and this is just one example. By the way, Merman had played her same role in the 1936 movie version, but given the relative unavailability of that, this becomes a treat. Especially since, unlike a movie, it was done live.
The title song here is a trimmed down version, though the clip includes the lead-in scene that builds up to it. One other thing of note – apparently for tender ears at the time, Cole Porter’s line, “But now, God knows, Anything Goes…” has been changed here to “But heaven knows...”
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