Princess of Tap

CF-- excellent observation Bobby Darin certainly belongs in the category with all the people I mentioned previously like Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis. Mack the Knife is an absolute standard and his version is Simply the Best. Bobby Darin was very unusual in that he was accepted as a rock and roll singer and at the same time was accepted as a legitimate American pop singer. That's very unusual. Before his death ironically he reinvented himself as a folk singer.

Spence-- don't understand the question? Let me ask you a question - - Who's the better singer Pavarotti or Frank Sinatra? Who's the better singer Barbra Streisand or Madonna? Who's the better singer James Brown or Herman of Herman's Hermits? When you asked to compare singers outside of their own genre style of music it doesn't make a lot of sense to me anyway. Frank Sinatra sings a certain repertoire. It's a repertoire that's composed by people like Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Cahn and Van Heusen, and George and Ira Gershwin. Elvis Presley sings songs that have primarily been written by Leiber and Stoller. If you're going to compare Frank Sinatra to anyone it has to be someone who's singing in the same repertoire, and has the same demands put up on him or her. But if you're just doing this for kicks and you obviously are not serious about judging Frank Sinatra then I could say this about Elvis Presley-' If Elvis had studied the same repertoire and had the same parameters and had followed the same kind of career as a Frank Sinatra, and Andy Williams, or Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, or a Jack Jones, Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Sammy Davis jr.ect. per se-- I believe Elvis would have been as great as any of those singers. Outside of that there's nothing else you can really say. I think Frank Sinatra is arguably the greatest singer of the American pop song. However, there are people who would disagree with me and say maybe it was Nat King Cole or Mel Torme or Ella Fitzgerald, or Tony Bennett or Barbra Streisand. But it wouldn't really be very fair to put Elvis in that position.

Nip-- it's all a matter of geography. I bet you can hear Elvis singing on New Year's Eve in Memphis every year. Where I live on New Year's Day all you can hear are gunshots.

I also cited Something, as well, on this thread. But I came on to say that Ray Charles made a number of derogatory comments about Beatle music and he recorded Eleanor Rigby. And it was an unbelievably fabulous recording. 2 things you've got to realize that in those days if they were hit records out there, people just did their own cover versions because they wanted to sell their albums. That's just the way it was--the record companies demanded it, the fans demanded it. It was no big deal. After Tony Bennett had a hit with I Left My Heart in San Francisco, there must have been 50 people who recorded it. My favorite version of it was Andy Williams' on his Days of Wine and Roses album. However, I'm not saying that they could force Ray Charles or Frank Sinatra to record what they didn't want to record, but most people recorded whatever was popular at the time-- that's what was expected of all pop vocal artists.

Sinatra recorded everything before Methuselah was born.

During the 1964 Hard Day's Night summer, Dean Martin had arguments with his son Dino of Dino Desi & Billy. Dean hated rock and roll and he told his son that he was going to knock his blank blank English rock group off the blank blank number one spot on the blank blank Top 40. Dean went out and recorded an old song called Everybody Loves Somebody (sometime)and he did exactly that--he knocked the Beatles off the number one spot--Aug 15, 1964. I guess, my father wasn't the only father who hated The Beatles.LOL

Jakeem-- And thank you for posting this special. It's just the way I remember it. Those are two of my favorite singers. It's terrific to hear them sing together!

Disdain for Rock n Roll maybe - - I vividly recall watching a TV special when Frank welcomed backed Elvis Presley to the states after his military service in Germany. The highlight of the special was Frank Sinatra singing Elvis Presley songs and Elvis Presley singing Frank Sinatra songs. Then Nancy Jr came and swept Elvis off his feet or was it vice versa? I can remember that Elvis sang Witchcraft - - but I can't remember what Frank sang. I wonder why that is? Also Frank had a lovely recording of George Harrison's song from Abbey Road called Something.

I have a record called Sinatra's Sinatra-- his favorite songs that he recorded. So I'll pick some songs from his favorite songs that are also my favorite songs: I've Got You Under My Skin Nancy Young at Heart Witchcraft All the Way Additionally I would add-- Love and Marriage The Tender Trap Come Fly with Me Hey, Jealous Lover My Way I always heard Frank preferred these female singers - - Ella Fitzgerald, Eydie Gormé and Barbra Streisand. And Eydie's husband, Steve Lawrence was his male favorite.

MGM's Platinum Blonde Jean Harlow never wore underwear. She said it was too constraining, or constricting or confining--something like that-- anyway she never wore it. So I suppose we won't be Googling an image of "The Baby" on this thread.

Tom-- I love this movie and you really have done Justice to it and to its star Dick Powell. In addition to this movie, I really like the way you talked about how important he was to the Golden Age of television. Along with Desi Arnaz, George Burns and a handful of others, he helped create American television. His Zane Grey Theater was a mainstay of classic TV. Several years before he died, he had just started a new anthology series called The Dick Powell Show with the marvelous Pete Rugolo Jazz theme "Nervous". With all the success that he had in Reinventing himself, he was not afraid to revisit his versatility and his facility with light comedy. Susan Slept here was the last movie that Dick Powell made at RKO. It was a screwball semi musical co-starring Debbie Reynolds that was a delightful piece of entertainment fluff. But watching this film you could see just how great he was in comedy-- how easy he made it look and in the fantasy interlude, he even does a little dancing one last time. When they write about the top creative artists in the entertainment history books for the twentieth century they will have to have 3 sections for Dick Powell: in the 1930s with the groundbreaking Busby Berkeley Warner Brothers 42nd Street musicals; 1n the 1940s with his hardcore Film Noir classics, starting with Murder, My Sweet and finally in the 1950s and early 60s, as a Pioneer in American television. Very few Golden Age movie stars can top that.

Annie Oakley

Ryan, Robert

This is hilarious - you've got real talent; you got to tell me what movie your satire is in reference to because I would love to see it. Is it on IMDb? Your poetry is also very funny. Keep up the good work!

God has a special place in heaven for Clark Gable fans like you-- My entire life I've never heard anybody mention Clark Gable's cameo in Callaway Went Thataway. I've had a still photo of that cameo appearance since I was in high school. I never counted it as one of his movies, but I always wanted to see it. GOOD SHOW!

Asta-- Bringing Up Baby and The Awful Truth

Eric Blore buttled for Edward Everett Horton in Top Hat.

Katharine Hepburn-- Sylvia Scarlett and the Philadelphia Story Ingrid Bergman - - Notorious and Indiscreet Deborah Kerr - - An Affair to Remember, Dream Wife and The Grass is Greener Sophia Loren-- The Pride and the Passion and Houseboat Mae West - - I'm No Angel and She Done Him Wrong And Joan Fontaine - - Gunga DIN and Suspicion

This is really a hard one - - but Ethel could tell me all about the Barrymores, especially Jack. Next-- Tony Randall or Jack Klugman

Selena Royle Ray Teal Ben Carter

It was so cool that former actress Gail Patrick, who was the executive producer of The Perry Mason show, gave veteran actor George E Stone a permanent job on that show as a bailiff.

The List of Adrian Messenger

Kris Kringle, Edmund Gwenn Next: Barry Fitzgerald or his brother actor Arthur Shields( real family name)

It is amazing that MGM got away with masking the 42nd Street plot and giving it to their tap dancer Eleanor Powell. By the way the nasty Star in Born to Dance is MGM's Virginia Bruce. Understandably you got her mixed up with Clark Gable's girlfriend and MGM Starlet Virginia Grey. Believe it or not there's a Virginia Gregg and that completely confuses me.LOL One time they were both on Perry Mason at the same time and I really freaked out. Speaking of Gable and Perry Mason - - I saw Judy Lewis on a Perry Mason a while back and immediately she looked familiar to me and I had no idea why until the credits. Star turn--

RJ was Natalie Woods' first husband.