Sunday, July 10, 2016

SID AND MARTY KROFFT’S LES POUPÉES DE PARIS: A CD Review

World’s Fair Original Cast Recording – 1964 / Music by James Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn
Starring: Annie Fargé, Janine Forman, Cyd Charisse, Bing Crosby, Crista Speck, Gene Kelly, Pearl Bailey, Joey Forman, Guy Marks, Loretta Young, Paul Frees, Milton Berle, Jane Kean, Liberace, Jayne Mansfield, Lance Legault, Edie Adams, Merry Wiiliams, Phil Silvers, Pop Com, Cotton Candy and the Balloons
Rate: 6 (from 1 to 10)

Review: I never heard of this show before, but when I saw the names attached to it I became very curious about it.

To begin with, this puppet musical revue is musically kind of strange. The numbers go from really good (“Love is a Bore”) to the weird (“A Night of Horror”), but the end result is quite entertaining. 

There’s Gene Kelly charming “Don’t Say Paris, Say Paree”. Pearl Bailey is great with “You Can’t Make It Anywhere” and “Love is a Bore”; two songs that deserve to have a life beyond this show and are reason enough to buy this recording. “It’s a Living” is a funny song and the melodious “The Ice Skater (On the Wings of Romance”) would easily fit on a soundtrack of a musical or comedy of the 50s.

Like I said before, “A Night of Horror” is kind of strange and the numbers “The Opera Singer” and “The Circus” aren’t my cup of tea. For me, the worst is the rock sound “Sadie Fats”, that seems to belong to some other score.


But, in the whole, I think lovers of the musical will enjoy this score and there’s more than a couple of good songs in it.


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