Damn Yankees

A nearly perfect movie musical with one flaw that brings my rating down to an 8. Several songs were omitted or shortened from the Broadway version, mostly because they were too long for a movie or too risque for a 1950's audience. One number, however was dropped because it was out of Tab Hunter's vocal range: "A Man Doesn't Know." In my opinion this was the best song in the Broadway musical. The reprise was a powerful closer for the show. Sheldon Harnick wrote the replacement, "There's Something About an empty Chair," solo (collaborator Jerry Bock had died a few years earlier), and the difference was painfully obvious. Abbot, Donen and the producers made a grave mistake in not retaining the original song for the reprise which would have been sung by Robert Shafer, not Tab Hunter.

Whenever "Damn Yankees" is staged these days (it's less dated than most musicals of its day) "A Man Doesn't Know" is in its proper place and "Empty Chair" is justifiably and mercifully forgotten.