Sundays with Sullivan: The July Edstravaganza

 
For the moment, unless I find any more, we come to the end of our year-long 12 monthly compilations of Broadway performances with the original casts that were on the 23 years of The Ed Sullivan Show, archived for the record, most of which would otherwise have been lost.  And as always, to give full credit, these videos were compiled by Jim Berg,
 
We start with a continuation of Do Re Mi, which the Sullivan show remarkably presented the first 26 minutes of the show.  The previous compilation had eight of those minutes, here are the final 18, filled with three full scenes and four songs.  The show starred Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker, with music and lyrics by Jule Styne and Comden & Green, and ran for a year, 400 performances.  It had the big hit, “Make Somewhat Happy,” which I posted in Compilation #2, sung by Nancy Dussault, as well as  the comedy classic “Adventure,” and one of Broadway’s most famous “11 o’clock numbers”, the soul-bearing “All of My Life.”  In this video, we have the second scene that takes place on the main couple's 10th anniversary, as Silvers' character talks about his dream of making a big score, just needing an angle – now focused on the new juke box industry -- which becomes the duet, “Get a Job.”  And that leads into the following scene with one of my favorite numbers in the musical, the wonderful production number “It’s Legitimate.”
 
(By the way, as a sort of bonus intermission, here from the original cast album is Phil Silvers singing the aforementioned, legendary and un-Phil Silvers-like number, “All of My Life.”  It’s not video, of course, but after the first 26 minutes of the show here, I think it’s only proper to complete the circle, with the last number and finale.   You can find it here.)
 
And now, back to things at hand:
 
Which first is George Gobel, not in costume, but as himself introducing a song he persons in the little-known 1961 musical, Let It Ride, that only ran for 69 performances.  It’s based on the huge hit stageplay, Three Men on a Horse, that ran for almost two years, 815 performances, and starred Sam Levene – who recreated his role in this musical, 26 years later.  The score is by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, best known for their three Oscar-winning Best Songs, “Buttons and Bows,” “Mona Lisa” and “Que Sera, Sera.”  Though Gobel was best known as a comedian, he did sing on occasion and has a very nice voice -- and gets to sing to lovely song here, which had some success outside the musical, “His Own Little Island.”
 
Diahann Carroll sings two songs from No Strings, though this is just a medley she sings as a guest, not in costume from the show.  No Strings is the only musical for which Richard Rodgers wrote both the music and lyrics, which came after the death of Oscar Hammerstein.  Also worth noting, that one of the conceits of No Strings is that in the show’s orchestrations there were, in fact, no strings.  However, for this performance, you not only can hear the strings, but they eventually cut to a shot where you can see them.
 
And we end with a young Anthony Newley singing “What Kind of Fool Am I?" from Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.  He is not in costume or clown mime make-up, but rather a tuxedo.  However, we get to see his performance at the time of the show and with what is surely the same interpretation in character.