We've been talking a lot here lately about Phil Silvers so my pal Bob Elisberg suggested I feature this video here. In 1967 — on a budget that looks like it was around $19.67 — a TV version of the musical Damn Yankees was produced for NBC. It starred Mr. Silvers as Mr. Applegate (aka The Devil) and Lee Remick as Lola, and the rest of the cast included Jerry Lanning, Jim Backus, Fran Allison, Ray Middleton, Fran Allison, Bob Dishy, Linda Lavin and not enough other actors.
Ray Middleton was a seasoned Broadway actor and he may have been the first person to ever dress up in a Superman costume. See here, here, here and here.
The original 1955 Broadway production of Damn Yankees had a cast of 40. This TV version had, by my count, fifteen. To make up for the shortfall, a lot of it was done with a technique some call "kinestasis" — a mix of still photos and limited animation that I don't think ever works in anything longer than a sixty-second commercial for chewing gum. What kinda/sorta makes this video kinda/sorta worth watching is that you have good orchestrations, Lee Remick being sexy and Phil Silvers being Phil Silvers. And of course, Jim Backus was never bad in anything.
Plus there's also a cameo appearance by Joe Garagiola. Can your heart take the excitement?
This aired as an episode of G.E. Theater on NBC on April 8, 1967. It was shot in New York and since there are no credits on this video, I'll tell you that it was directed by Kirk Browning with choreography by Ernie Flatt. No one was credited for adapting the Broadway script for television even though some fiddling was obviously done. I'm not recommending this; just putting it here in case you want to click and watch some of it. Some scenes with Phil Silvers will remind you of how good he could be…