Anything Goes

A feast of color and music, lit by a dazzle of star-shine, is ready for you in Paramount’s “Anything Goes.” For Bing Crosby, Mitzi Gaynor and Donald O’Connor, the movie means a renewal of old friendships; for Jeanmaire, a welcome-back to Hollywood. Twenty years ago, Bing had his first go at the brilliant songs of the Cole Porter score, in a more modest version of “Anything Goes.” Popular classics by now, they ring out with their freshness unimpaired, in rhythms as modern as tomorrow. Added to them are three new numbers, by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen. In two of these, Bing’s teamed with Donald, who got his movie send-off eighteen years ago as Bing’s little brother in “Sing You Sinners.” Mitzi, too, can call Don brother; that was his role in the more recent hit “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” The typically American trio’s joined by enchantingly French Jeanmaire, who made her Hollywood bow in “Hans Christian Andersen.” With Bing and Don as a stage musical team, Mitzi and Jeanmaire vying for the leading-lady spot in the boys’ new show, the story of “Anything Goes” follows a gay course against lush backgrounds in VistaVision and Technicolor.

Who’s whose? Early scenes in “Anything Goes” find Donald O’Connor courting Jeanmaire, Bing Crosby on Mitzi Gaynor’s trail. But they wind up like this: Mitzi dancing with Don, Jeanmaire dating Bing. And each romantic moment echoes a famous song: “You’re the Top,” “It’s De Lovely,” “All Through the Night”

To Jeanmaire goes the unforgettable “I Get a Kick out of You.” Later, the voluptuous ballerina does this spectacular dream dance. Voyaging toward the U.S. on a luxury liner, she sees in her mind a picture of herself as a great Broadway success

Mitzi reverses the process, playing an American girl who scores a hit in a London night club. With real Gaynor gusto, she puts across the rousing title tune, “Anything Goes.” All four stars are called on to do double duty, both singing and dancing. So they’re a smash quartet in the finale, “Blow, Gabriel, Blow”

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE APRIL 1956