In this centenary of Cole Porter's birth, it is sobering to realize that if any members of the video generation want to explore his life, they might believe it was lived as portrayed in the film Night and Day. [The advent of another inaccurate film about Porter's life, the 2004 De-Lovely, makes all this even more confusing.]

The filmed lives of famous men of music range from the pretentious to the ridiculous. The 'biopic' became nearly everything except biographical. Hollywood, in its endless quest for the source of genius, decided that no composer ever composed without, or in spite of, the woman he loved. The creative process is invariably viewed in terms of a one-woman relationship. If there wasn't one, Hollywood invented her. These women were pursued, agonized over, worshiped, loathed, and generally played by Yvonne De Carlo or Alexis Smith.

And, if the composer had any other problems, they were invariably glossed over or ignored. Thus alcohol, pedophilia, drugs, sadism, bestiality, insanity, etc., disappeared from the films about composers until the mid- sixties.

Each film is truly a valuable reflection of the time it was made; many of them were popular when they were released, a lot of them were turkeys then and now, and some have become classics.

Night and Day (Warner Bros., 1946) was the most unintentionally hilarious of the musical biopics, bearing only a faint resemblance to Cole Porter's life and especially his career, since the dates of the shows and songs in it are wrong and he is seen writing 1930s' lyrics in 1915. The dignified and private Porter loved the film because it revealed so little of himself. Cary Grant looks uncomfortable and Alexis Smith plays the woman behind the man.

'It's a dream,' Cole Porter said of his 1946 film 'biography' Night and Day. When pressed by reporters as to what kind of a dream it was, Porter wouldn't say, He really didn't have to.

Ironically, the idea for the film came from another distinguished songwriter, Irving Berlin, who thought the story of Porter's partial recovery from a crippling double-leg injury in 1938 might inspire wounded servicemen returning from World War II. Jack Warner loved the idea, and in 1945 offered Porter $300,000 for the rights to his life story. That sum is particularly impressive when one considers how little of Porter's life Warner actually used.

Despite his reputation as a globe-hopping playboy and the master of the lyric double entendre, Cole Porter was a private, reserved man who disliked publicity about his personal life. Not surprisingly, after reading the 120-page hokum Hollywood's screenwriters had concocted for the picture, Porter told Jack L. Warner he liked it 'fine.' To a friend Porter added, 'It was the strangest feeling--as if reading about someone I knew slightly.' And to a reporter: 'It ought to be good. None of it is true.'

The casting of Cary Grant as Porter may justly be considered one of Hollywood's most fanciful botches (Fred Astaire was much more like the lithe, aristocratic Porter), but the suggestion of Grant came from Porter himself--sarcastically. One wonders whether the brothers Warner might have cast Groucho Marx (Margaret Mitchell's suggestion) as Rhett Butler if they'd produced Gone with the Wind.

Linda Porter also chose her cinema alter-ego, Alexis Smith, whose performance--despite the fascinating woman it allegedly depicts--might be described as vague. In the film, Linda aimlessly wanders from battlegrounds in France to nursery schools in London--anyplace, apparently, so long as she can wear a uniform. (Do we detect further influences of WW II?) Since at least one allusion is made in the film to Linda's considerable wealth, the audience must speculate as to why our heroine isn't out spending it, rather than tending after flocks of unruly brats and gangrened soldiers in Europe.

The blame for all this romanticized rubbish was apparently not only Hollywood, but Porter himself. He just didn't face enough obstacles in his life or career. 'No struggles anywhere all the way down the line,' complained one screenwriter before quitting. That screenwriter just wasn't thinking properly. He was trying to stick to the facts. (Orson Welles echoed the writer's dilemma: 'What will they use for a climax?' he wondered. 'The only suspense is--will he or won't he accumulate ten million dollars?')

The final screenplay was the brainchild of three undistinguished Hollywood writers, Charles Hoffman, Leo Townsend and William Bowers (though two would go on to greater things), with an additional screen credit to Jack Moffitt for 'adaptation.' (Safety in numbers.) Michael Curtiz, the volatile, erratic director whose screen triumphs included Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood, was assigned to the film, and in no time at all, was living up to his reputation as an exacting tyrant. 'If I'm ever stupid enough to be caught working with you,' Grant told Curtiz one day during shooting, 'you'll know I'm either broke or I've lost my mind.'

Although he was in Los Angeles at the time, Porter himself steered clear of the production after convincing Jack Warner to hire his old college chum Monty Woolley as the film's 'technical director.' Woolley also appeared in the film as himself, but played the part rather badly; at least, according to those who knew him, there was more of The Man Who Came to Dinner on the screen than The Man Who Knew Cole Porter.

Originally, Curtiz and company planned to use such stars as Ethel Merman, Fred Astaire, Bert Lahr and Jimmy Durante (all based in Hollywood at the time) to re-create their performances from famous Porter shows. Then someone calculated the budget. The plan was scrapped. Only one original star, Mary Martin, made it to the big screen, re-creating her stage rendition of 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy.' Unfortunately, about half of Porter's risqué lyrics were tossed out. But 'Daddy's' performance was a masterpiece compared to Leroy Prinz' hilariously inept staging of such standards as 'I've Got You Under My Skin' (see below) and 'Just One of Those Things.' These and other classics were performed by the little-known Ginny Simms. Her voice and personality were in equal parts pleasing and uninteresting, a combination which cancelled itself out nicely. She made no other major musicals.

Jack Warner was certainly pleased with the final results, however, and sent Porter this cable on November 20, 1945:

HAVE FINALLY COMPLETED PICTURE
GOING ON RECORD WITH YOU THE MOST
IMPORTANT MUSICAL EVER PRODUCED.

When audiences saw the film the following spring, they loved it. Filled with familiar songs and famous (if ill-used) performers, Night and Day was unquestionably responsible for a resurgence of interest in Porter's work that climaxed in 1948 with Cole's last hit show, Kiss Me, Kate.

Pleased that his privacy remained inviolate, Porter sent the following cable in spring 1946 to Michael Curtiz:

BELOVED MIKE, LINDA AND I SAW NIGHT AND DAY PICTURE
FRIDAY NIGHT AND YOU HAVE OUR ETERNAL GRATITUDE FOR
TREATING US SO BEAUTIFULLY. WHAT A GREAT DIRECTOR YOU
ARE AND HOW LUCKY WE WERE TO HAVE BEEN PUT IN YOUR HANDS.

In later years, Cole said he never missed the film on television. It never failed to provide a good laugh.