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By
NICK ZEGARAC
What should have been a
joyous celebration of Cole Porter's musical
prowess was transformed into a remake/update of
sorts in Robert Lewis' Anything Goes (1956); a
lavishly absurd little bobble, rewritten by
scenarists Guy Bolton and Sidney Sheldon to round
out Bing Crosby's tenure at Paramount Studios. It
was decidedly a sour note for Crosby who, as Bill
Benson, a Broadway legend departing for Europe in
search of a new leading lady for his next show --
was sideswiped by a cast of ham performers that
put Der Bingle in the backseat.
Before setting sail, Bill's agent and producer,
Victor Lawrence (Kurt Kasznar) finagles an awkward
introduction between Bill and new kid on the
block, Ted Adams (Donald O'Connor). The two
perform an impromptu soft shoe peppered in corny
bits of Vaudeville that probably should have
remained buried in that forgotten gem of the
American theatre. For in VistaVision and
Technicolor such campy homage was glaringly out of
time, place and step with the more popular fare of
the day.
The plot -- such as it is -- lumbers along, first
to England -- where Bill signs an American girl,
Patsy Blair (the flirtatious Mitzi Gaynor) to
headline the show, then to France where Ted
accidentally signs Gaby Duval (the strangely
asexual Jeanmarie) for the same part. The rest of
the tale basically unraveled along the lines of
this complicated foursome, further confused when
Ted falls for Patsy and Bill for Gaby. A subplot
involved Patsy's father, Steve (Phil Harris) and a
haplessly tacked on premise about tax evasion
catching up to him. But the old crime doesn't pay
scenario is thwarted in the end. Steve gets a
reprieve and is at the gala opening of the new
show.
In a threadbare plot wrought with possibilities,
director Lewis manages to make the least out of
what he's been given. There is something dismally
disturbing about the way the plot jettisoned the
skilled Kasznar after the first 15 min. of running
time, thereafter handing over what limited bits of
business he might have had to actress Alma
Macrorie, as a would-be French Baroness who keeps
turning up at the most inopportune moments to
rattle off a bit of fractured French before
shuffling off stage left. So too did director,
Lewis' constant need to interrupt his story
details with gross camp elements (such as the
reoccurring gag of two sailors arguing in front of
crucial bits of dialogue drowned out from the
principles) draw more groans than chuckles from
the audience.
Yet, if one could easily forgive the convolution
of plot points, which frankly balled up like yarn
beneath cat's paws, there was little to excuse the
claptrap renderings of what should have been
musical highlights. Crosby performed several
Porter standards -- most notable 'All Through The
Night' -- but strangely minus his usual laconic
way with a ballad. Nick Castle's over gregarious
zeal to transform even the most modest number into
a showstopper resulted in a rift between the
composer's charmingly sublime lyrics and Castle's
gaudy and heavy-handed staging from which the film
never recovered. Amidst this bombastic mélange,
Gaynor's rendition of the title track was drowned
out by a chorus of cavorting dancers, so rehearsed
in their movements that they clearly outweighed
both Gaynor and the song for subtle finesse,
tossing her about the scenery like a rag doll.
Jeanmarie's fracturing of the tender 'I Get A Kick
Out Of You' transformed the subtly erotic ditty
into ghoulish nightmare, complete with a chorus of
skinny and leering male dancers wearing topcoats
without any shirts beneath. The whole crazy affair
came to a crashing and painful finale with 'Blow
Gabriel' an uninspired bit of kitsch that unites
Crosby, O'Connor, Gaynor and Jeanmarie for a bit
of nimble footed, but flatly executed narcissism
against one of the ugliest impressionist backdrops
in memorable musical history. Ironically,
'Anything Goes' is a film where anything and
everything went -- including artistic
sensibilities in chic good taste.
Paramount's anamorphic DVD transfer of 'Anything
Goes' is a rather mixed bag as well. Though the
picture elements appear to be in reasonably good
shape, there's a curious tottering in image
quality between bright wide-eyed Technicolor and
some insert shots that are generally dark, under
exposed and poorly contrasted. For the most part,
colors are rich, vibrant and stable, if slightly
off center. For example, there are several
instances where reds register as gaudy orange --
particularly during the shipboard routine between
O'Connor and Gaynor to Porter's smoothly rendered,
'It's De-lovely.' There are also several instances
where the image appears overly soft and slightly
out of focus. Fine details are generally lost in
long shots, appearing all the more stunning in
close ups that seem to have been rendered from a
different camera negative. All in all, this isn't
VistaVision at its best or even adequate; the
Paramount patented widescreen process promises of
'motion picture hi-fidelity' are sadly lacking.
The audio has been remixed to 5.1 (the original
mono mix is also included). The 5.1 is dated, as
is to be expected. But one is decidedly more
disappointed by the fact that the songs are not
featured in true stereo (as they were on the
motion picture album), but rather in a
re-channeled audio that merely splits the same
signal into five separate feeds. There are no
extras. |
