“Well, did you evah?” February 11, 2007

In 1956, the subtle plotting and clever wordplay of the team of Edward Bernds, Jerome S. Gottler, Bert Lawrence and Elwood Ullman was rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for their work on High Society. There were just a few little problems, however …

1. The aforementioned team wrote a screenplay for the movie High Society that was released in 1955, but it was a Bowery Boys movie and not the musical version of The Philadelphia Story starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra;

2. Having shot themselves in the foot, the Academy initially reloaded and got ready to fire again by claiming the nomination was intentional;

3. A likely cause of the confusion was that the High Society musical should never have been considered for Original Screenplay in the first place since it was quite obviously based on The Philadelphia Story, whereas the Bowery Boys version, whatever its merits, was unquestionably original.

It’s really a shame that the Bowery Boys writers withdrew their names. I know I would have voted for them …

Anyway, here’s Bing and Frank performing a Cole Porter number that answers the trivia question “In what movie did Bing Crosby sing an excerpt from Johann Strauß’s Die Fledermaus?”. Meanwhile, Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are hiding under Grace Kelly’s bed …

Also from High Society, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong perform “Now You Has Jazz”:

Technorati tags: High Society, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter, Well, Did You Evah?, Bowery Boys, Academy Award, Johann Strauß, Die Fledermaus