anything goes.

seriously blogger is killing me! just right now it deleted the intro for this post. and now i have to start over! (i just looked and there is an update to fix this so got that taken care of!)

my friends and i recently saw "anything goes" at the ahmanson (we are season ticket holders) and i fell in love with it! rachel york's performance was stellar, the storyline was cute and the dialogue was witty! and of course, since cole porter wrote the music, the music was amazing!!!! i absolute love cole porter and was delightfully surprised because i did not know that "i get a kick out of you" and "de-lovely" were in this musical. i also learned that "friendship" was a cole porter song! i only knew of it because it was a song on this disney sing-a-long video i had as a kid, though they cleaned it up to make it kid-friendly. "friendship" was my favorite number of the night but all the music was so good that we were singing songs as we left the theater (my friend danny said that back in the day if the audience left singing the numbers it was an indication that the show would be successful). danny and i were singing them the next day too, so it was super successful in our eyes. also if you are reading this and are not familiar with cole
porter go google him! i love his songs because they are so well-written and clever. his little ditties are so witty and adorable.

i was so excited about the show that i decided to check out the DVD from the library so i could listen/watch the songs over again. sadly i had my hopes up too high, the movie version was horrible compared to the the stage production. even bing crosby added to its horribleness, my grandma told me she always thought he was wrongly casted and i have to agree with her. though crosby had a voice, they needed a dancer. i love donald o'connor and enjoyed his performance. however, would have liked him in the lead role from the stage than the one played. mitzi gaynor was adorable in her role. i also like jennmarie though i loved her wardrobe more! the polka dot dress she wears during "all through the night" was de-lovely and delightful!

but the actors couldn't save it. i disliked the movie because the book from the musical was not used in the movie. the stage storyline was a lot more entertaining, it had stowaways, public enemies, sex fiends, secret lovers, gamblers and ended with a wedding! the movie verison not as exciting. crosby played a broadway star putting together a new show with an upcoming television star who was also kinda rude (which broke my heart). they both head to europe and they each (without the others' knowledge) sign a girl to play the lead. they both try to convince the other to fire the girl the other signed but end up falling in love with that girl. in the end, they ended up changing their production storyline so that everyone can live happily ever after. basically they change the storyline to what happens them so it's one of those weird musical in a movie thing, though we don't see them reinact their story. but in contrast to the stage production it was boring! not even gabriel blowing his horn could have helped it. (85 actually didn't as its closing number.)

sadly they did not use all of the songs from the stage production. it broke
my heart because there was no "friendship" which as i mentioned before was my favorite. also they didn't use my favorite songs as part of the storyline (meaning they didn't break into songs randomly to express their innermost thoughts) but rather use them
as production numbers within the movie kinda like a show within a show. for example, "i get a kick out of you" was sang to a lover in the play but was a nightclub number for the french singer. and they kinda killed "you're the top" which was a cute ditty between two friends but instead in the movie was a used as a number they were practicing to prove which leading lady was the best. and i think this is what made the difference and resulted in my dislike of the movie. the musical numbers were not the words of lovers but actors playing lovers. "all through the night" and "de-lovely" were sweet because they were sang to their girls versus an audience. by making the songs productions within the movie, it resulted in the songs losing their sincerity. in this case, using the songs like this did not work, anything did not go.

though i love the songs, the storyliruined too weak especially in contrast to what i saw on the stage. so skip the movie but if you get a chance to see the stage production, go see it!