"Dream a Little Dream of Me"

From his 1957 album Bing with a Beat, here is Bing Crosby's version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me." According to this source, Yoko Ono gave John Lennon an old-fashioned jukebox as a gift which Lennon "stocked" with Crosby records. This is one of the songs John played repeatedly:

"You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me"

"You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me" was written by Harry Warren in 1932, with lyrics by Al Dubin. It appears in the 1933 musical 42nd Street, and is sung by Bebe Daniels:


The song was inspired by one of the women working at the Warner Brothers studio, who when asked why she was still dating a certain man, said that he was getting to be a habit with her (source). So I suppose Warren or Dubin were within earshot.

Here are Frankie Avalon and Vikki Carr doing a respectable job of it on a 1965 episode of the short-lived sitcom The Bing Crosby Show:


Frankie is clearly channeling another version, by another Frankie, my favorite recording of "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me," the one on Sinatra's 1956 classic album, Songs for Swingin' Lovers!.

This is one of those fantastic Sinatra/Nelson Riddle collaborations. I just love Riddle's cool, breezy arrangement, with its lush strings, vibes, those "Riddle flutes," and the playing of trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison. I've read somewhere Sinatra mandated that Edison should have his own microphone during the recording of Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, and it's easy to hear why on tracks such as this one. Longtime fans would have a hard time imagining many of Sinatra's recordings without Edison's playing.

"Moonlight Becomes You"

"You're all dressed up to go dreaming..."

"Moonlight Becomes You" was written by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics by Johnny Burke. It was written for the 1942 film Road to Morocco. The tune is used quite effectively in a scene in which Bing Crosby serenades the lovely Lamour (Dorothy). Bob Hope didn't stand a chance!


"Moonlight Becomes You" was also chosen for the opening track on Sinatra's collection of moon songs, one of my favorites, Moonlight Sinatra (1966).

Fancy Meeting You Here

Come Fly with Me it ain't (although, it does feature "Brazil" and "Isle of Capri," also on the Sinatra album), but I'm sort of enchanted by it. Some of it is very good. My current favorite is "Say 'Si Si' (Para Vigo Me Voy)," near the end of side two, which features a great example of Billy May and Orchestra's "big, brassy sound," and Crosby and Clooney's voices sound really great together. The concept of the album came from Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, two guys who wrote several of Sinatra's best known songs, including "Come Fly with Me."


back cover detail
Fancy Meeting You Here was conceived as a project for Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, and was recorded in 1958. The arranger/conductor was Billy May, who just so happened to have also done Sinatra's Come Fly with Me (1957), as well as Come Dance with Me! (1959), Swing Along with Me (1961), and Come Swing with Me! (1961).

According to the Wikipedia entry:

In its review, Time magazine called this album, "An infectious musical dialogue between two of the sassiest fancy talkers in the business. C. & C. give slick and witty readings to a selection of retreads — 'On a Slow Boat to China,' 'You Came a Long Way from St. Louis' — and introduce a punchy, potential hit named 'Calcutta.' One of the most intriguing vocal entertainments since Noel Coward had his famous chat with Mary Martin."

"Cheek to Cheek"

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Cheek to Cheek" is a song written by Irving Berlin, and first performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Top Hat (1935).

The song is probably most famous for its opening lines, "Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak..." and was featured in the Astaire-Rogers movie, soon becoming a standard sung by many other artists, including Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Eva Cassidy, Doris Day, Jane Monheit and Frank Sinatra.

The song, as sung by Astaire and Fitzgerald, is featured in the movie The English Patient. It is sung by Kenneth Branagh in Love's Labour's Lost. It is also shown being performed in The Green Mile, Rain Man and The Purple Rose of Cairo when Top Hat is being viewed.

"Now You Has Jazz"

The lily-white album cover
From High Society (1956), here are Bing Crosby with Louis Armstrong and his All Stars (Edmond Hall, Trummy Young, Billy Kyle, Arvell Shaw, and Barrett Deems) doing one the film's many Cole Porter tunes, "Now You Has Jazz":

"Swinging on a Star"

Bing Crosby and The Robert Mitchell Boy Choir

"Swinging on a Star" was recorded in 1944 by singer Bing Crosby. His song writer, Jimmy Van Heusen (later Sinatra's), was at Crosby’s house one evening for dinner to discuss a song for the movie Going My Way.

During the meal, one of the Crosby's kids complained about how he didn’t want to go to school the next day. The singer said to him, “If you don’t go to school, you might grow up to be a mule. Do you wanna do that?” Van Heusen thought that this would make a perfect song for the film. He envisioned Bing, playing a priest, talking to a group of children. When he took his idea to his partner, Johnny Burke, Burke was quick to approve, and they wrote the song. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1944.

While I like the version Crosby does in the film, I find Sinatra's version (all roads lead back to Frank) from Sinatra Sings Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River and Other Academy Award Winners (1964) to have a few more...teeth. He and conductor/arranger Nelson Riddle managed to maximize the swing quotient quite a bit. Here's a little taste. It's one of those rare circumstances where the Chairman wasn't singing about affairs of the heart.

"Style"

From the Sinatra/Rat Pack movie Robin and the 7 Hoods, here are Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Sinatra performing "Style," by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen:


plus Sammy Davis, Jr.

1957 Sinatra Christmas TV special

From YouTuber 1132ken comes this great footage of Ol' Blue Eyes and Der Bingle singing Bing's old chestnut, "White Christmas." It is the 1957 Christmas special from Sinatra's ABC television series, "The Frank Sinatra Show." I love this scenario, and marvel at how it could only be taken seriously in the 1950s. I mean, two middle-aged men, dressed in coat and tie, having a formal dinner at a swingin' bachelor pad, just the two of them? How often does that ever happen? Only on TV. Only in 1957. You gotta' love it.



This entire episode of Sinatra's 1957 TV series is now available on a DVD titled, "Happy Holidays With Bing & Frank". This site has an interesting and humorous history and description of the show:

Sinatra was lured back to television in 1957 by ABC. With his film career in full swing, Sinatra decided that his new "The Frank Sinatra Show" would follow a loose format. Some weeks it would be a variety show, other weeks a dramatic show, and some weeks he would simply introduce episodes in which he would not appear. This show, too, was a failure, and was canceled after one season.

In 2001, Sinatra's daughter Nancy, herself a pop veteran with the variety special "Movin' with Nancy" under her belt, began to examine old film canisters as part of her role as family archivist. While trying to determine which parts of the family's large film library were in danger of decomposition, she stumbled upon a theretofore unknown color print of "Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank," the 1957 series' Christmas special. "Happy Holidays" was broadcast for the first time in over forty years on the cable channel Trio in December of 2001, and now it is available on DVD.

The show begins with Sinatra decorating a Christmas tree and singing Christmas tunes in his cool bachelor pad. Or trying to, anyway - he drops one of his decorations and merely shrugs it off. No second takes for Frank Sinatra! Soon Leon, Sinatra's Polynesian manservant, is showing in Bing Crosby. Sinatra and Crosby exchange drinks, Christmas presents - each gives the other a copy of the giver's Christmas album - and hep cat banter before launching into a swinging version of "Jingle Bells."

Before you can say "kitsch," the two are interrupted by the doorbell. On the doorstep they discover a group of carolers performing "Deck the Halls" in front of what looks like a giant Christmas card depicting a bucolic snow-filled scene. Inexplicably, all of the carolers are dressed in ye olde English costumes. The crooners join the carolers, which causes a rift in the time/space continuum, sending Frank and Bing back in time, complete with ye olde English costumes of their own. While singing such chestnuts as "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "O Come All Ye Faithful," the group wanders around an extraordinarily fake Victorian England set, much to the delight of two old crones who watch from second story windows and who can barely muster the energy to clap. Frank and Bing seem more concerned with getting sloshed than singing - each peasant seems to be holding a drink from them.

Back home in groovy pad, the men sing to each other between drinks - Frank takes on "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" while Bing interprets "Away in a Manger." Then they duet on "Little Town of Bethlehem" before it's time for a round of secular songs - "Rudolph" for Bing and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for Frank. Afterwards, they duet on "The Christmas Song" while sitting around the fireplace-cum-barbeque pit.

Bing begins to sing "White Christmas" while staring contemplatively out of the window. Frank, of course, is fetching more booze. When both safely have their scotches in hand, Frank joins Bing for the rest of the song. Once the song is over, they wish us a merry Christmas and walk away just as - thanks to the miracle of a stagehand and a broom - it begins to snow.

As the credits begin to roll, we then learn the kookiest thing about the show - it was directed by none other than Francis Albert Sinatra!

Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), part 2

To review: Little John (Deano) has joined up with Robbo (Sinatra) and his hoods. Little John learns of the threat of a takeover by Chicago's new crime boss, Guy Gisborne (Peter Falk). Little John suggests a premeditated attack--hit him before he can hit them.

"When your opponent is sitting there holding all of the aces, there's only one thing left to do: kick over the table."

Problem is, Gisborne hits Robbo's gambling establishment just as they're hitting his.


Robbo and gang tear up Gisborne's place a little more...elegantly, with Will (Sammy Davis, Jr.) doing a song and dance to "Bang Bang".





I like the fun of reaching for a gun and going "bang, bang"

I come alive each time a .45 begins to "bang, bang"

My kind of prank is going in a bank and going "bang, bang"

Now, both Robbo's and newly, self-appointed crime boss, Gisborne's, clubs have been destroyed.

Back at his place, Robbo meets Marian, played by Barbara Rush. She also appeared in the Sinatra movie Come Blow Your Horn. Marian is Big Jim's (recently murdered crime boss, much beloved by Robbo) daughter. She wants Robbo to avenge her father's murder.


Robbo tells her his job is to "make people happy with gambling and bootleg beer," not bumping people off. But Big Jim's murderer is killed, by one of Gisborne's thugs. Marian thinks Robbo is responsible, and she sends him $50,000. Robbo tells his guys to give it to an orphanage.

This leads to the secretary of the orphanage, Allen A. Dale, doing a write up for the paper in which he compares Robbo to Robin Hood. Robbo is completely surprised by it all, yet somehow, the newspapers manage to produce a picture of Robbo completely decked out in Robin Hood gear. Strange.





Bing Crosby plays Allen A. Dale. Of course, without Crosby, there would not have been a Sinatra. Sinatra idolized Crosby, and became a singer after seeing him in a movie.

Dreams do come true.

Robin and the 7 Hoods was not the first movie to star both Sinatra and Crosby. That "historic" moment had already occured in High Society (a movie I may recap), eight years earlier (1956).

Town folk gather around to hear this very important bulletin on the radio:

"The new Robin Hood's method of taking from the rich differs slightly from his predecessor. He uses the gambling tables and the Chicagoan's thirst for bootleg beer to give to underprivaledged oprhans. All the world loves a scoundrel, it seems, and its newest hero is Robbo."


The problem is, you give 'em an inch, they'll take a freakin' mile. Robbo begins to receive stacks and stacks of letters requesting assistance in one form or another (typically monetary) from people with all kinds of problems.


Allen A. Dale shows up and offers to help Robbo in his new incarnation as a charitible, upstanding citizen. Watch Bing Crosby become a "hood":

My favorite part of that are the pained expressions on the faces of Robbo and his guys as they attempt to understand Allen Dale's erudite and intellectual manner of speaking.




Dere's sumpin' wrong wit his troat!


Note Dean and Sam.







Dale gets to work, setting up various "Robbo Foundation" charities.





They put up a portrait of Robbo in the orphanage. Movie buffs might recognize the little boy to the right. He is Manuel Padilla, Jr., who I remember best as "Jai" in reruns of the Ron Ely Tarzan series. Looking over his IMDb page, it appears his acting career never really took off. As recently as Scarface (1983), he was still getting parts like "Kid #2".


Robbo's club is redone following Gisborne's destruction of it, with the proceeds of the opening night going to the now named "Robin Hood Foundation".


Robbo tells Allen Dale to go home and get dressed for the "classy opening". Here now is Frank, Dean, and Bing Crosby singing "Style". Yes, it's corny, it's cheesey, but they don't make 'em like this anymore! Of course, there are no longer "stars" such as Sinatra and Crosby.

Meanwhile, at the opening, sexy (for 1964) dames in silvery, metallic hula thingies do their flapper dancing...



Could that be Toni Basil?

She isn't credited anywhere I could find, but it sure looks like her. She is the lead dancer in this performance, leading me to believe whoever the dancer is, she choreographed it. I wonder if she was embarassed about an association with Sinatra, seeing as he was torn down and demonized throughout the 1980s, when Basil's career hit is peak. It wasn't "cool" to be associated with Frank Sinatra.


The cocktail waitresses add to the club's new, "Sherwood Forest-like" ambiance.


Robbo quite likes this charity thing. He is happy with how the re-opening of his club turns out. We haven't heard from crime boss Gisborne in a while. Might he turn the blue skies into grey? Part three, coming up, hopefully with less words.

part 3