"The DuPont Show of the Month" (1957) [TV-Series 1957-1961]
Genre:
Drama / Comedy (more)
Seasons:
1
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2
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3
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4
(more)
User Comments:
Cole Porter's Aladdin: disappointingly mundane children's play with "adult" songs squeezed in
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User Rating:
awaiting 5 votes.
| (12 of 38) |  | James Valentine | .... | Fritz Von Tarlenheim / ... (5 episodes, 1959-1961) | | Hurd Hatfield | .... | Dr. Sanson Carrasco / ... (4 episodes, 1957-1959) | | Max Adrian | .... | Blind Man / ... (4 episodes, 1957-1960) | | Douglas Campbell | .... | King Henry VIII / ... (4 episodes, 1957-1960) | | John Colicos | .... | Hindley / ... (4 episodes, 1958-1960) | | Farley Granger | .... | Paul Burgess / ... (3 episodes, 1957-1961) | | Fritz Weaver | .... | Barsad / ... (3 episodes, 1957-1961) | | Douglas Campbell | | (3 episodes, 1957-1960) | 
| Rosemary Harris | .... | Cathy / ... (3 episodes, 1957-1958) | | Denholm Elliott | .... | Charles Darnay / ... (3 episodes, 1958) | | Tom Clancy | .... | Bill Sykes / ... (3 episodes, 1959-1960) | | Tim O'Connor | .... | Ames / ... (3 episodes, 1959-1960) | | (more) |
Runtime:
90 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Black and White
Sound Mix:
Mono / Mono
Awards:
Nominated for 12 Emmys.
Another 1 win
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User Comments:
0 out of 2 people found the following comment useful:-
Cole Porter's Aladdin: disappointingly mundane children's play with "adult" songs squeezed in, 30 May 2004
Author:
Robert Armstrong (elbob-o@webtv.net) from Chicago, Illinois USA
After more than forty years of owning and enjoying the record album of Cole
Porter's final musical Aladdin, I was finally given the opportunity to see
the show itself via the (apparently) live broadcast of February 1958. I must
say, even after due warnings of how the show was "summarily dismissed" by
critics at the time, that it is a tremendous entertainment
letdown.
Cyril Ritchard, probably most famous for his portrayal of Mr. Darling/Capt.
Hook in the Broadway and television productions of Peter Pan, is placed in
the unenviably silly role of narrator and villain Sui Generis (a pun on
"chop suey," I assume), who goes through the opening patter song Come to the
Supermarket (the show is a bit topheavy with comic novelty songs) in a
stereotypically Chinese attitude with hands hidden in sleeves and hopping up
and down to music's rythm. Other numerous celebrities in respective roles
(Dennis King, Basil Rathbone, Una Merkel and Howard Morris, plus Sal Mineo
in the title role, Anna Maria Alberghetti as his Princess and Geoffrey
Holder as the Genie) don't fare much better with the childlike level of
dialog provided by S J Perelman.
If it were a children's play, then fine, but the relative sophistication of
the Cole Porter songs make an uncomfortable transition to music. The
well-known story
of Aladdin and his magic lamp remains intact, if somewhat truncated, but
with nowhere near the musical and dramatic dimensions of Disney's (okay,
Eisner's) animated film of later years, nor even the contemporaneous Aladdin
film "starring" Mr. Magoo. Porter's own deteriorating involvement in the
show due to his increasingly painful leg problems and upcoming operation may
help to explain the so-so level of integration between songs and
plot.
I still strongly recommend the cast album from CBS, more recently rereleased
as a compact disc -- and in stereo -- but it seems that its performances and
arrangements are not at all representative of the show itself. I conclude
that Mr. Porter had arranged for this "concept album" to be produced with
the dramatic and musical continuity of a legit stage musical, on the
speculation that a remounting on Broadway might result from the positive
exposure. In fact there was a London stage production a few years later, for
which a record album was also released.
To be fair, I must say that Aladdin's songs are not equally admired by all
listeners, although a few consistently stand out, such as the aforementioned
Come to the Supermarket (covered by Streisand in her '63 solo album), and
two other comic numbers for Ritchard.
Dennis King gets two reprises of a pretty-nice Trust Your Destiny to Your
Star, and Mineo's love song I Adore You has a catchy simplicity I like to
compare to Rodgers' and Hammerstein's last song together, Edelweiss (others
may find the Porter song a bit __too__ simple). By the way, Porter's own
last song ever written, Wouldn't it Be Fun, is only on the album and not in
the show itself.
I was aware, from the rather pessimistic account given in the liner notes of
the CD release, that Aladdin was either genuinely bad or simply considered
unworthy by critics because of the wholesale quality and production values
attributed to television; nevertheless I'd had hopes that Cole Porter's
Aladdin would show potential as a musical on a level with other shows of
that period. I will always like it to a fair extent, and I think others will
too, but will never again attach to it the youthful wonder that I'd once had
for the show as I thought I'd known it.
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