When Darryl F. Zanuck virtually forced exhibitors and most of his fellow studio mogul rivals to adopt CinemaScope as a panacea for TV's devastation of Hollywood's weekly box office bonanza, he dictated that virtually all of Twentieth's output was to be filmed in that eye-stretching process. "There's No Business Like Show Business," directed by that old pro, Walter Lang, seems to be the prime example of Darryl's minions saying to their boss: "You want wide? We'll give you W-I-D-E!!"
Everything about it was designed and lensed to emphasize the original ratio of the CinemaScope process and viewing it on a video that isn't letterboxed must look like what a one-eyed person must experience in everyday life. I never did see it in a theater but I have seen it on a TV broadcast which more-or-less recreated its widescreen ratio. It's a glorious mish-mash. Every Berlin tune that could be stuffed into it is given at least one run-through; John de Cuir's production design must have occupied every inch of several of Twentieth's West Los Angeles soundstages; Ethel Merman, after her terrific movie repeat of her Broadway success in "Call Me Madam" for Fox (and now, as of 2005, available on video), trumpets away in number after number (Must have been an ear-rending experience over those original four-track stereophonic sound systems.); Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor and Mitzi Gaynor give it their energetic best; and then there's Marilyn. What can we say, with all that so sadly, in her personal life, came after she reluctantly fulfilled her contractual obligation in this one? She dazzles in, let's face it, a rather vulgar way, and seems shoehorned in to boost the potential box office. And they even added Johnnie Ray, a huge jukebox success at the time (and, due to his hearing deficiency, performing his songs at an even greater volume than La Merman.)
All in all this one shouldn't be missed if you want to view an example of Hollywood at its brassiest, in a production fairly bulging with elements that may not coalesce very harmoniously but which was, no doubt, worth the price of admission to those movie palaces before they were carved up to become the precursors of today's sterile multiplexes.
