"The Colgate Comedy Hour" Anything Goes (TV Episode 1954) Poster

(TV Series)

(1954)

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6/10
To Fit the Frame
bkoganbing20 February 2012
Probably this version of Anything Goes would be far better remembered if it had been the actual Broadway show done with the whole score. As it is to fit the frame of the hour long Colgate Comedy Hour with commercials the script for the show becomes completely incoherent. And I do wonder how Cole Porter must have taken one of his biggest Broadway hits with commercials for the sponsor.

But the music which was taken from many Porter shows is what you want to hear and stars Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra, and Bert Lahr deliver it with gusto. Saying that about Ethel Merman is almost an oxymoron, when did that woman ever do anything subtly? Songs that were actually in Anything Goes that made it to this production are You're The Top, Blow Gabriel Blow, All Through The Night, and of course the title song. Other Porter productions supply the rest, in fact there are so many numbers they crowd out a semblance of a story.

As it was live television all we see his a photographed stage play, but the songs and the performers are immortal.
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7/10
This TV version of "Anything Goes" was pretty entertaining during it's less-than-hour length
tavm20 February 2019
Having previously seen the 1936 filmed version with Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman and the 1956 version (with different plot but same cruise setting) with Crosby and Donald O'Connor, I've now just seen the live-aired TV version from 1954 with Merman, Frank Sinatra, and Bert Lahr. Running less than an hour without the commercials this show was originally presented with on air, the original Broadway book gets shortened in order to showcase the famous Cole Porter songs like "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", and "Friendship" among other songs. The three leads are mostly good with the material given them with Lahr quite funny with some of his exaggerated readings. Sheree North also has her moments when she's dancing. The kinescope print I saw was clear enough that part of me could imagine it being live. Not a great presentation but pretty good for what it was. So that's a recommendation of this version of "Anything Goes".
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6/10
It may not be the tops, but it's certainly not near the bottom.
mark.waltz23 January 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Certainly, the pairing of Ethel Merman and Frank Sinatra is an odd one, their age difference quite noticeable, and their lack of chemistry more of the fact that they seem to be pals, not star crossed lovers. That was the point of the original "Anything Goes", with former nightclub singer Reno Sweeney now an evangelist (a la Aimee Semple McPherson) and Billy Crocker her old flame who falls in love with a beautiful debutante and aided in his pursuit by the hapless Reno who falls for the stuffy Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, engaged to Hope Harcourt, the deb whom Billy loves. That whole plot has been snuffed out, and while Reno's still Ms. Sweeney and a nightclub singer, she's already engaged to Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (an overly droll Arthur Gould-Porter) while pursued by Sinatra's Harry (name changed), stowing away aboard this ship bound for England. Also aboard is Public Enemy Moonface (Bert Lahr) whose machine gun probably shoots raspberry's rather than bullets. Sinatra, determined to get Merman's attention, pretends to be Public Enemy #1, but all he gets is stuck in the brig. This production doesn't seem to know what decade its supposed to be in with some of the arrangements sounding very 50's, some of the costumes looking very 1920's, yet some of the dances seeming straight out of the 1930's or 40's. I guess this is "Anything Goes" for an alternate universe, because it represents too many eras to make you feel you've gone back in a time capsule a certain one.

Colgate Comedy Hour had little faith in the original book, just like the producers of the 1936 movie which starred Bing Crosby and wasted Ethel Merman, and the soon to be made Crosby version with Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor and Jeanmaire which only kept some of the songs and the shipboard setting. "Anything Goes" has been revived three times in New York (an extremely successful 1962 revisal and later on Broadway in 1987 and 2011), yet no TV or movie version has done it faithfully. Community theaters love this show, and even if the book gets a re-write and other Cole Porter songs are added, at least the essence of the show remains. So you get to see and hear Merman (with a very high 1950's bouffant) sing the title song and "Blow Gabriel Blow", and a few of the other standards along with Sinatra, Lahr and up and coming Sheree North (as Lahr's flapper moll), and that's enough entertainment for a 1950's TV special, but something seems to be missing. It's been restored from the fading public domain prints that have circulated for years, so it looks as fresh as an episode of "I Love Lucy", but a classic it is not. Merman, Sinatra and Lahr do their best to instill some fun, but at times, it seems like they are trying to out-ham each other, especially Lahr who goes really overboard in the last note of the last song. I guess anything did go in this quickly filmed TV show where the camera lingered on Merman for far too long after her introduction where she almost did become "Miss Birdseye" with her face frozen in a "Let's get on with the show!" demanding smile.
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Good Points & Bad Points
Bilko-322 August 2001
Bad Points:

1. Truncated script, impossible to follow. 2. Merman and Sinatra are HIGHLY uncomfortable sharing the stage. Sinatra is trying to act with Merman, but she puts up this wall you can almost see. When they kiss, she is so obviously NOT kissing him back that you feel sorry for the poor shmoe. A matinee idol and he can't get *Ethel Merman* to kiss him believably? 3. Merman is past her physical prime and shouldn't be in tight sexy outfits. However, she blows the roof off with "Blow Gabriel Blow," so who cares about the dress?

Good Points: 1. The Cole Porter music is beautifully delivered. 2. Bert Lahr. Still in his prime. 3. Sinatra and Merman working with Lahr. They can't stand each other on stage, but put either of them with Lahr and they come alive. Merman in particular seems overjoyed to be singing "Friendship" with Lahr, which they introduced fifteen years earlier in "DuBarry Was a Lady." Twenty years drops off of her for this one number.

This is very definitely worth seeing at least once, just for Sinatra singing Cole Porter music live, and to see Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman in the kind of Broadway show for which they became famous.

ALSO: Lahr tries to break Merman up onstage. As Reno, she is supposed to marry a Lord Oakleigh. Merman played Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun" eight years earlier. Lahr says, "He just wanted to make sure that you became Annie Oak... uh Lady Oakleigh." She doesn't break.
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4/10
What can you do in one hour?
yanogator17 August 2001
I recently acquired a recording of this television special, and am glad I have it just for the songs. Ethel Merman was quite a bit older than when she originated the part of Reno Sweeney, so that aspect of the show failed. Frank Sinatra got to sing some of the standards that are now associated with his name. The story progresses so quickly that it is pretty much impossible to follow. Sheree North did most of the acting, and everyone lives happily ever after. It is a piece of television history, but hardly worth the effort it took to produce it. At least it has mostly the same score as the play (unlike the film versions), with some changes to the lyrics.
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10/10
I loved Ethel
BuddyBregman19 November 2007
My Uncle Jule Styne hired me to do all of Ethele Merman's orchestrations/arrangements whenever she appeared on TV - this show - COLE PORTER'S ANYTHING GOES - was not an exception. It went smoothly until band call and the band ran down the music. Frank Sinatra's Just One Of Those Things arrangement by Nelson Riddle - which I grew up on - was rehearsed - and Exec-producer Leland Hayward leaned back in his seat in the NBC theatre on Vine St. and said - "I hate that arrangement Buddy re-do it!" YIKES! And Nelson was sitting in front of me and I was very disturbed about it but ran back into a "closet" - scribbled a flurry of notes - had the copyist picking up every page as I finished my every-music-page scribbles. And we got it to the band and they played my "Broadway" version of the song and Leland leaned back in his chair once again and yelled out "I LOVE IT!" Well I did not know how to feel as it was soooo mundane but more in keeping with the show and not the Top 40! Nelson and I met during a lunch break a few days later - he asked me to sit down with he and his wife for lunch and smiled as I tried to apologize - and he just waved it off - "It's fine Buddy - I understand and it happens all the time - and from then on as my recording career zoomed and before I became a producer-director - Nelson was always very nice to me. BUDDY BREGMAN
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4/10
Only an hour, but pretty harmless
HotToastyRag13 September 2017
Anyone, even a musical lover, will tell you that Anything Goes is a pretty silly story. A bunch of colorful characters are stuck on a boat together, and while he loves her and she loves someone else, and she's marrying that guy, and he's pretending to be someone else—well, it's a hodge podge of musical comedy interrupted by Cole Porter standards and some tap dancing.

While Ethel Merman starred in the original Anything Goes on Broadway in 1934, she reprised her role for Hollywood in 1936, with Bing Crosby by her side. Almost twenty years later, she made a live television adaptation, this time with Frank Sinatra. Two years after that, in 1956, Hollywood ditched Ethel but kept Bing and made another filmed version! Anyway, the 1954 version was severely condensed to fit into a television event on Colgate Comedy Hour. While the plot is pretty truncated, I don't think anyone is really watching it for the dialogue. They're watching it to see Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman sing live versions of "Anything Goes", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "You're the Top", and "Blow Gabriel Blow". The two stars didn't get along, and it's pretty obvious when you watch it that they have zero chemistry together, but if you'd like to see them performing live, you can give it a watch. It's only an hour long.
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It's the top
earlytalkie29 January 2012
Ethel Merman and Frank Sinatra make for a strange romantic coupling indeed, and they reportedly did not get along during this live television presentation, but they do make for some really good music. Ms. Merman was in her late forties when this was done, but her stage magic is in full view in this Colgate Comedy Hour production. There have been two Paramount films of this show made, in 1936 and 1956. I have seen neither of them, but the general consensus is that neither are entirely satisfactory, with the nod being given to the earlier film. This TV version has been cut to fit a one-hour time slot with commercials, but it gives you a (shortened) version of the original book. Bert Lahr is wonderful as usual as "Public Enemy 13". You can also see Sherrie North as a flapper, and TV stalwarts Lou Krugman and Barbara Morrison in small parts. The kinescope recording came from Ethel Merman's private collection and looks and sounds as reasonably good as can be expected.
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I love Ethel but OH MAN this is hard to watch!
fiveknottys18 July 2015
She won't even look Sinatra IN THE EYE! He's supposed to LOVE HER? She's like 20 years older than him, a cold fish, and stiff as a board. Doesn't work. Her hair and costumes are modern (1950s) but the rest of the costumes are 1920s. YUCK! She is so fragmented that nothing really works unless she's just singing. Too bad!!!They should have just done an "Ethel & Frank sing Anything Goes". It would have been twice the quality and NONE of the weird... Also the description is wrong... BUT WATCH THE COMMERICALS!!!! THEY ARE THE BEST PART!!!!Except when the singers sing and Bert Lahr is on. I would ONLY recommend this to a die-hard fan of nostalgia, Porter, Merman, Sinatra, or campy TV that is painful to watch and I LOVE ALL OF THE ABOVE!!! But it takes it to get through this...sadly.
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Three Great Stars
drednm22 October 2020
Ethel Merman had starred in ANYTHING GOES on Broadway back in 1934 and the film version with Bing Crosby in 1936. The indestructible star had recently starred in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and was hot in films again with CALL ME MADAM and THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS.

Frank Sinatra had just finished a little number called FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and a few months after this show aired would win his Oscar for that great film. Bert Lahr was winding down his legendary career and even though he was only 59 here, he looked a decade older.

Highlights of this live TV show are Sinatra's "All Through the Night" and Merman's "Blow, Gabriel, Blow." Both of these songs were cut from the 1936 film version. And yes that's Sheree North as the blonde flapper.

In 1956 another film ANYTHING GOES would be released with almost all the original songs but they totally scuttled the plot and characters.

So in many ways this 1954 TV show was the last real version of Cole Porter's great show to be filmed. Sinatra and Lahr blow a few lines here and there, but Merman is unstoppable. And to think she still had GYPSY ahead of her!
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