Back in the 1980s, Sylvia Fine wrote and hosted three PBS specials on musical comedy, Musical Comedy Tonight. (For accuracy's sake, the first was actually 1979.) They were wonderful, and happily you don’t have to take my word for it because they won a Peabody Award and got two Emmy nominations. Fine was the wife of Danny Kaye and wrote much of his specialty material, and is credited for having a major impact on his career. (He appeared in the second of of the three specials.) She also had two Oscar nominations for Best Original Song, “The Five Pennies” and “The Moon is Blue.” The specials were somewhat adapted from a class she taught at USC, but with the significant bonus of using major stars to help make her points. So, as hugely entertaining as they were, there was actually scholarly aspect to them. At least one of the specials was done in a small theater in Los Angeles, which I know because I went there with a friend to watch it recorded. I have some vague recollections of it, and checking the iMDB, that appears to have been the first one. If so, that's where this clip is from. This is a round-about way to continue our Ethel Merman Anything Goes, folderol, but from another angle, because this comes from the first of those specials. It’s medley of three classic songs from Anything Goes, beginning with Ethel Merman performaing a solo version of “I Get a Kick Out of You” and then, after a interesting conversation with Fine about the creation of the Cole Porter show, they're joined by, of all people, Rock Hudson who sings a duet with Merman of “You’re the Top,” accompanied by Sylvia Fine at the piano. It's then followed by Merman in a production number re-creation of the title song. By the way, Anything Goes had quite a remarkable score by Cole Porter. Written in 1934, it had five songs that became standards -- the aforementioned "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the Top" and "Anything Goes," along with "Friendship" and the ballad "All Through the Night. That's seriously impressive.
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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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