Be A Clown

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

So If Aurthur Freed Was Such A Great Song Writer, Why Did He Not Write His Own Song Instead Of Out And Out Stealing Someone Else’s Work??? I Don’t Care If He Was The Boss, Stealing Is Stealing And He Should Have Been Sued.

2

Stealing which song?
Is this relating to one of Cecil’s columns?
Which one?
Why are you capitalizing each word?

An inquiring mind wants to know!

3

If you write a whole post in capital letters, the board software converts it automatically to initial caps - I expect that’s what has happened here.

I don’t know about your other questions, or what the OP is on about.

4

Obligatory link to the column in question: Aren’t the show tunes “Be a Clown” and “Make 'Em Laugh” suspiciously similar?

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, MONCAIDO. We like to include a link in the initial post of a thread when commenting on one of Cecil’s columns so everyone knows what column you are discussing (forestalling questions like those posed by maggenpye. You can do that easily enough by cutting and pasting the url from your browser’s url address field into the post edit field. :slight_smile:

maggenpye, if you ever wonder what column a guest is discussing, you can always clone your browser window and navigate back to the main Straight Dope page. There, under the Straight Dope banner are some linked choices, including “Search”. You can use that link to search our archive of the Perfect Master’s prior columns, which is, admittedly, huge. :eek:

5

Interesting, according to IMDb ( http://imdb.com/title/tt0040694/trivia ), Be A Clown was cut from screenings of The Pirate in some states due to racist attitudes.

Maybe Cole Porter was happy to have the song re-used with a “White Face” disguise to get in to those same theaters?

According to David Niven’s autobiographies, there were plenty of back-room deals in Hollywood during the period to get around racism, morality laws and McCarthyism.

The only thing we know for sure was that the songs are so similar, Porter could have sued - and chose not to.

Though if anyone can come up with more info, I’d be very interested.