Radio: The Week in Review

  • Share
  • Read Later

(2 of 2)

Swell Party. But if nostalgic viewers missed the old principals, they were at least treated to some of the best Porter tunes, in a strikingly natty showcase: Dolores Gray belted out I Get a Kick Out of You and Just One of Those Things. George Sanders suavely suggested that he was singing C'est Magnifique. Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy provided the comic element, with some mild stabs of wit. Bing Crosby merely contributed a tune clipped from High Society (Now You Has Jazz), sung with Louis ("Satch-mo") Armstrong, whose galvanic Blow, Gabriel, Blow undoubtedly jazzed up CBS's ratings. Best numbers: You Do Something to Me, ravishingly sung by Dorothy Dandridge: Sanders and bosomy Dolores Gray seductively sighing Let's Do It; and a bit of frail Cole Porter himself singing in clipped, patrician tones a few bars of Well, Did You Evah? ("What a swell party this is"). Though obviously pleased with his swell party, Porter himself seemed to feel the absence of his oldtime stars. Offstage, he sighed wistfully: "I miss them."

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next Page