Night and Day

I'm totally addicted to old movie classics and tonight while channel surfing landed on one I'd somehow missed, "Night and Day," with the one and only Cary Grant. The "loosely" written story of composer, Cole Porter, it is, if not true to Porter's story it is filled with his music and of course, Grant.

Porter is one of the greats along with the Gershwins, Irving Berlin ("God Bless America" and "White Christmas"), George M. Cohan ("Give My Regards to Broadway"), Scott Joplin, Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer of Tin Pan Alley and other contemporaries such as Oscar and Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Learning is something that will ever be part of my blood so I had to research Wikipedia to see about Cole's works. With that came the discovery of interesting facts -

• Cole's musical comedies include "Kiss Me, Kate" based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," "Anything Goes" and "Silk Stockings." His hit songs include "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "I've Got You Under My Skin."
• In the 1930's he wrote (for a movie, but not used) "Don't Fence Me In" which did not become a hit until sung by Roy Rogers (and later Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters).
• Mary Martin (later in Peter Pan and the mother of actor, Larry Hagman of "Dallas" fame) sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in "Leave It To Me."
• He wrote the music for the Gene Kelly/Judy Garland show "The Pirate" which included "Be A Clown" later plagerized in "Singing in the Rain" by Donald O'Connor as "Make "Em Laugh." That is absolutely pure art performed by Donald O'Connor.
• In the 1956, "High Society" with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly (the remake of The Philadelphia Story starring Cary Grant, James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn) contained Porter's last great hit, "True Love." This musical version was Grace Kelly's last role before becoming part of nobility as Princess Grace of Monoco and she was given the part after it was turned down by Elizabeth Taylor. It was also the first pairing of Crosby and Sinatra that become a great musical relationship. I actually loved Celeste Holm's role as Sinatra's photographer and faithful friend.
• His final score was in 1958 for CBS' "Alladin."

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK:

Jo Dee Messina's "These Are the Days" (written by Holley Lamar and Stephanie Bentley) references a "homeless man singin' an old Cole Porter song."

"Lovesick Blues" was written by Cliff Friend and Irving Mills (two other Tin Pan Alley composers) in 1922. The "Georgia Crackers" which included the Dorsey brothers recorded it in 1928, but it is most known by the Hank Williams country rendition of 1948. Just proves how a song can have a life of its own! The list of artists who have covered it is extensive including Arlo Guthrie, Linda Rondstadt, Don McClean, Charley Pride, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Glen Campbell and the one and only George Strait took his version to #24 in 1992