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Rating:  -
There's only one reason to watch (or purchase) this dumb film: Mitzi Gaynor. Especially in her "Anything Goes" number. She's irresistably sexy, funny, feline: a supremely electrifying beauty, singing/dancing talent, and screen presence. And Miss Gaynor is one of very few film actresses who, wrapped to voluptuous form in a satiny strapless evening gown, can walk across a nightclub floor onscreen and absolutely take my/(your?) breath away.
Miss Gaynor's romantic pairing with Donald O'Connor in this film is less than convincing (or welcome). On the other hand, her simpatico sibling pairing with O'Connor in "There's No Business Like Show Business" (also available on DVD) works tremendously well.
Rating:  -
Anything Goes is a fabulous musical from the stage of the 1930s containing show girls, gangsters, and romance. However, this film version has very little of the above and therefore has only mild entertainment value.
Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor play stage stars, both enjoyable in their own right. They need a female lead for the show, so they split up in search of one. Crosby digs up Mitzi Gaynor and O'Connor finds Zizi Jeanmaire, neither of them expecting the other to find a girl. Herein lies the problem. Both girls believe they will be starring in the show. Steps are taken to let one of the girls down easily, but both men fall in love with the other man's choice of a star.
With songs from the original musical peppered throughout, the songs lose their meaning in a different context. The choreography is uninspiring and that singing is not all that great despite the major names featured. This one is a real bomb.
Rating:  -
Anything Goes boasts a great cast. Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor play two entertainers called Bill Benson and Ted Adams respectively; and Mitzi Gaynor and Zizi Jeanmarie play dancing actresses named Patsy Blair and Gaby Duval respectively.
The plot revolves around the world of entertainment. Bill and Ted are going to perform in a Broadway show together; and with their terribly fat egos both men simply assume that they have the exclusive prerogative to choose the leading lady for the show. On the bright side, both Bill and Ted choose very talented young ladies to play the leading female role. Bill chooses American dancer Patsy Blair; and Ted chooses the French starlet Gaby Duval. However, trouble heats up fast when neither man can get up the gumption to tell one of the two ladies that she is not needed for the show after all. When all four of them are on a ship headed from Europe to New York where the show will open things only become more complicated. How will Bill and Ted handle this sticky situation? Will they have a tug of war over which one has to do the dirty work of firing one of the ladies? Will each lady stay when they discover that only one of them is needed? No spoilers here, folks--you'll have to watch the movie to find out!
They all do a superlative job with the script that they're given which, by Hollywood musical standards, is still rather thin. The singing and dancing is what carries this movie, especially when Patsy (Mitzi Gaynor) and her male backup dancers perform "Anything Goes." I loved the panache with which Gaby Duval (Zizi Jeanmarie) and her backup dancers perform both "I Get A Kick Out Of You" as well as the extravagant and elegant "dream sequence" when Gaby imagines herself dancing with people in Times Square. Other musical numbers are more ordinary or even forgettable, especially the one in which Donald O'Connor as Ted Adams dances with some children on the ship to New York. Then again, the finale of the cast performing "Blow Gabriel Blow" has style and good taste; and "Blow Gabriel Blow" is a strong number to end this film.
The Technicolor still shines and the crystal clear sound will please you, too. The choreography of the dance scenes stuns you with its fastidious attention to detail and the cinematography frames the characters well in each frame. Excellent job on both counts!
The DVD offers nothing in the way of extras. You can view the whole movie straight through or just select scenes you wish to watch again; but that's the extent of it, I'm afraid. Sigh.
Nevertheless, Bing Crosby fans will delight in this version of Anything Goes. He sings and dances very, very well--and he makes it all look so easy. Of course, Donald O'Connor sparkles like the true champ that he always was in all his dancing scenes. Donald's energy, combined with the energy of Mitzi Gaynor and Zizi Jeanmarie, pops out at you and all three performers dance and sing to hold your attention well.
I must caution that the plot runs thin in this movie. However, many musicals of this era had this characteristic so perhaps you won't be surprised. I recommend this movie for fans of the great Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. In the final analysis, I give Anything Goes four stars instead of five because of the thin plot and a few numbers that just don't quite do the trick.
Rating: -
It's easy to understand why they took their time getting around to releasing a DVD of this one. As can be seen from other comments, the 1956 film version of "Anything Goes" will generally disappoint those who love the stage version. Other than some of Cole Porter's songs and a setting on a cruise ship there is no similarity between the two productions. The very entertaining (and still frequently performed) Cole Porter musical has been transformed into a pretty lame film, and three songs by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn have been inexplicably added to the production. Even worse is the loss of most of P.G. Wodehouse's clever script, which was rewritten by a Hollywood hack into this dumbed-down version.
This doesn't make "Anything Goes" unwatchable. The choreography is mostly first rate. Most of the musical numbers are entertaining and several are excellent. The performances are typical of each cast members material (both good and bad) and the film has some interesting film history aspects.
You know almost immediately that this will not be a rousing bit of entertainment, instead of a high-energy opening number the film begins with a back stage party scene that is about as lively as an abandoned railroad track.
Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor play Broadway co-stars who go to Europe to recruit a leading lady for their upcoming show. Each brings their discovery aboard a cruise ship for a transatlantic voyage. Mitzi Gaynor and Zizi Jeanmaire play the girls. Since there is only one role the remainder of the film is about determining which one will be featured and keeping it secret that both were already promised the role. There are two romances, with the two actors falling for each other's girl during the ocean crossing. Suspense and comedy are in short supply.
Gaynor manages a pretty good performance; she gets one very hot feature number (the title song-although Porter's original four letter word lyrics are toned down) and duets with O'Connor in the film's best number "It's De-lovely". O'Connor is also featured in a very original dance routine with children and a lot of bouncing balls. In this he dances to Van Heusen's "Bounce Right Back," not much of a song but a good excuse for using him in another unique routine.
Jeanmaire was a French ballet star ("Carmen") who briefly tried her stuff in mid-50's Hollywood. She was a Leslie Caron clone complete with the same hairstyle. Her two solo numbers "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "Dream Ballet" are surprisingly good, at least the dancing portions.
Bing Crosby of course is well known to old movie buffs but others will be somewhat puzzled by his popularity. Nothing he does in "Anything Goes" sheds light on this question. He was a "popular" extremely bland singer and a horrible actor with some comic ability. In "Anything Goes" even his comedy stuff is pretty awful. Paired with Bing, O'Connor has about the same chance for success as going through a balloon shop wearing a porcupine overcoat.
The Technicolor and VistaVision completely overpower the cheap production design as well as Sidney Sheldon's (the hack writer mentioned above) weak adaptation.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Rating:  -
Donald O'Connor was great in Singing in the Rain. Der Bingle. Mitzi Gaynor. A Cole Porter score. P.G. Wodehouse on the script. How can anything go wrong? The arrangements were too dull for a memorial service. O'Connor and Gaynor danced on the deck of a cruise ship, but they tried to copy Astaire and Rogers and failed. And the love scenes? They missed the part in the script where the protagonists interact in a way that is a prelude to romance. They are suddenly just in love. Then the two females get headaches, but they weren't the only ones. Don't try to make sense of this one. It is simply a footnote in movie history to show how and why musicals disappeared from production schedules by the 1960s.
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