Yesterday I posted the history of the lyric of Irving Berlin’s immortal ‘Putting On The Ritz’. Written in 1929, the original lyric had strong racist overtones which were removed when Berlin rewrote the song for the Fred Astaire vehicle ‘Blue Skies’ (1946). Before that, though, Clark Gable performed the song
‘Putting On The Ritz’ was written by Irving Berlin in May 1927 and first published on December 2, 1929. It was introduced by Harry Richman and chorus in the musical film ‘Putting On The Ritz’ (1930). I’ve posted a clip of that notoriously awful musical performance above–more about that in a minute. According to The
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X9UEu1qJRo To my intense frustration, some self-important copyright upholder has removed all traces of the musical numbers from The Marx Brothers maiden cinematic effort ‘The Cocoanuts’ (1929) from the wilds of YouTube. Why? Why why why? Is it an Irving Berlin estate kind of thing? (Possibly). A DVD reissue kind
This past week I’ve discovered a terrific podcast about the Marx Brothers called ‘The Marx Brothers Council Podcast’. Each episode is a witty, deep dive into one of their movies as well as other topics covered (such as the infamous ‘Marx Brothers Scrapbook’ as conceived and edited by the late Richard J. Anobile).