Anything Goes: Never was a musical comedy so aptly named. From the very beginning, every producer of this classic show - has seen fit to wreak havoc with it. Yet no matter where or how it is presented. Anything Goes endures as one of the crowning achievements of the American Musical Theatre.
   Originally the plot involved a shipwreck, but a successful movie musical released that summer of 1934, We're Not Dressing with Ring Crosby and Ethel Merman, used that same idea. There was a real-life shipwreck that year, and the idea became a no-go. The book then became a zany romp involving heiresses, stowaways, public enemies, nightclub divas, sisters of salvation, and wacky sailors. Despite-or perhaps because of-the slapdash plot, the efforts of Cole Porter, and stars Ethel Merman, Victor Moore and William Gaxton made Anything Goes into one of biggest hits of the depression era.
   A year later, Paramount Pictures put their film version of Anything Goes into production. with Merman recreating her sensational role as "Reno Sweeney" opposite Bing Crosby. Paramount filled the score with a raft of new songs for Crosby from studio contract composers (the three songs from the film, which he recorded some months earlier for. Decca, are featured on this release.)
   Twenty years later, Porter was enjoying what amounted to a late career renaissance in the form of a string of new hit shows and films. including a successful TV version of Anything Goes in 1954 with Merman and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby's other film of 1956, High Society. Paramount still owned the movie rights to Anything Goes and the Porter score, and they decided to film it again with Crosby. In the 1936 version, they retained the story and played with the song line-up; in the remake, Paramount again messed around with the score, commissioning new songs from Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and an entirely new plot which retained the essential idea of Cole Porter hits on a ship.
   Though certainly a bit on the garish and kitschy side, the 1956 Anything Goes is great, colorful fun. It also represents the fullest manifestation of the famous "Crosby Clause" whereby the great singer-actor insisted on sharing his above-the-title billing with a couple of co-stars. Anything Goes features four other names up there with Der Bingle: Donald O'Connor (who had appeared with Crosby as a child performer 20 years earlier in Sing You Sinners), Mitzi Gaynor, the French ballerina Jeanmaire and Crosby's closest chum Phil Harris, the comic-singer-bandleader and radio star best known for his long association with Jack Benny.
   Of all the plots associated with Anything Goes, this is by far the thinnest, two male co-stars in a new musical comedy each have a different leading lady in mind. There is a clever switcherooney when each falls for the gal that the other one picked, but that's the whole plot.
   The story ain't much, but the Porter (and Cahn-Van Heusen) songs, which take up most of the screen time, are expertly served. "You're The Top" recruits all four principals in an ingeniously cross-cut quartet, making full use of the big VistaVision screen. "It's De-Lovely" (imported from the 1936 Red. Hot and Blue) serves as a Fred & Ginger like partner dance on the poop deck for O'Connor and Gaynor, romantic and yet athletic, culminating in an on-screen kiss involving a bit of Freudian symbolism. "All Through The Night” at last gives Crosby a chance to croon one of Porter's most haunting. minor key melodies, leading into a Leonard Bernstein-inspired dream ballet for Jeanmaire, with ballerinas and beatniks. Contrastingly. the French dancer's entry number, "I Get A Kick Out Of You” showcases Jeanmaire in a shiny, skin-tight leotard. "Blow Gabriel Blow" features Crosby at his most mellow and declamatory-capturing the spirit of Merman-while all four principals prance about in angelic helmets.
   This was hardly the end of the line for Anything Goes; six years after the. second Paramount film, the show was successfully revived Off-Broadway (in what must have been the last Porter show to open before his death two years later) and then again in 1987. Both major New York revivals added songs from other Porter shows-following the 1956 film's example of working in "It's Delovely." The songs continue to he heard in films. "I Get A Kick Out Of You” provided a politically wacko, comic highlight in Blazing Saddles, while the title song was performed in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom - in high Mandarin Chinese. Like the song says, anything, goes.