ANYTHING GOES (2021)

Fourth time’s not the charm for this Cole Porter musical.  A 1934 hit on stage at the height of the Great Depression, it’s one of the few shows from that era to be successfully revived on B’way (twice).  But it's always been a dud on screen.  Sadly, that includes this spiffy HD theatrical presentation of the 2011 staging.  (The 2021 date above presumably refers to its home release.)  In Hollywood, Paramount’s 1936 version (Bing Crosby & original stage star Ethel Merman) stays closest to the original book (Boy Chases Engaged Society Girl onto an ocean liner after telling all to the Lovesick Evangelist who’s also sailing.  Evangelist swallows her pride & helps Boy Get Girl).  But it dropped all but two songs from Porter’s score, and interpolated others from lesser tunesmiths.  A tv ‘spectacular' (Merman, Frank Sinatra, Bert Lahr) was cruelly chopped to under an hour.  Back at Paramount in ‘56, Crosby tried again; this time with Donald O’Connor aboard to share a couple of the original songs and the naughty title.  No one involved ever worked at Paramount again.  Keep in mind, Porter’s original score produced an astonishing four-and-a-half American Songbook Standards (I Get a Kick Out of You; Anything Goes; All Through the Night; You’re the Top and Blow, Gabriel, Blow).  Here, at least, the interpolations are real Porter (De’Lovely; Easy to Love; Friendship; Goodbye Little Dream, Goodbye).  But if the plot changes aren’t ruinous, they’re also not particularly funny.  (Or maybe they just die on-stage because this is one of those ‘captured live’ hybrids that only seem to work for opera, solo shows and boxing.)  Leading lady Sutton Foster comes across on screen as efficient rather than inspired, but taps to beat the band and her ‘Numbos’ all land.  Everyone else, not so much.  Though a British dope (Haydn Oakley?) who turns out to be a ‘right guy’ is a pleasant surprise.  And we get British song & dance man Robert Lindsay, in a role written originally for Victor Moore, picking up for vacationing Joel Grey.  A slight, but noticeable improvement.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Porter didn’t have a lot of luck with film adaptations.  And two bio pics (NIGHT AND DAY; DE’LOVELY) are crap.  One that’s actually an improvement on the stage show is SILK STOCKINGS/’57.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/silk-stockings-1957.html