Track Listing

1. Overture
2. Oh, Those Thirties - Jack Cassidy
3. It's Good to Be Back Home - Carol Burnett
4. Fear - Jack Cassidy, , Nephews, Dick Patterson
5. Call Me Savage - Carol Burnett, Dick Patterson
6. Usher from the Mezzanine - Carol Burnett
7. I'm With You - Carol Burnett, Jack Cassidy
8. My Fortune Is My Face - Jack Cassidy
9. Lila Tremaine - Carol Burnett
10. Go Home Train - Carol Burnett
11. Close Harmony - Jack Cassidy, Lou Jacobi, Tina Louise, Nephews
12. You Mustn't Be Discouraged - Carol Burnett, Tiger Haynes
13. Dangerous Age/L.Z. in Quest of His Youth - Lou Jacobi
14. My Heart Is Like a Violin/The Fiddler and the Fighter - Jack Cassidy
15. Fade Out - Fade In - Dick Patterson
16. Finale

Product Details

• Released on: 2003-05-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Import, Cast Recording
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

From Amazon.com
In the 1950s, lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green tackled Hollywood's transition from silent movies to talkies in Singin' in the Rain; a few years later, they teamed up with composer Jule Styne to revisit Tinseltown with Fade Out Fade In, a musical set in the '30s. While that 1964 show isn't the creative team's best, a second-rate effort by Comden, Green, and Styne is still a fabulous treat. And of course this one also starred Carol Burnett, back on Broadway four years after Once Upon a Mattress. To say that she steals the show (and the cast album) is an understatement. She makes all her numbers memorable, infusing them with unparalleled timing and the ability to wring the last comic drop from every line--her turns on "Call Me Savage" and "Lila Tremaine" should be required listening for every aspiring comedienne. The cast recording also includes Tina Louise, who left the show in the middle to star on Gilligan's Island. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

AT LAST!
FADE OUT-FADE IN is the most-requested cast-album in the Decca catalogue. Finally, after years and years of legal problems and copyright issues, it has finally been released!...and it has been well worth the wait.

Carol Burnett stars as aspiring movie actress Hope Springfield, whose dreams of Hollywood stardom start to come true when she is discovered by big-wig Hollywood moguls who change her name to Lila Tremaine.

The score by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green has a few gems, including "The Usher From the Mezzanine", "Lila Tremaine", "Go Home Train" and "It's Good to Be Back Home", all sung and belted to perfection by Carol Burnett. Jack Cassidy plays a prissy Hollywood rake who sings the comical "My Fortune is My Face", while the supporting cast includes Lou Jacobi, Dick Patterson, Tiger Haynes, Mitchell Jason and a pre-GILLIGAN'S ISLAND Tina Louise.

The musical is perhaps best-known for all the events that happened off-stage. Carol Burnett was involved in a nasty car-accident, sidelining her for several weeks in the hospital, with producers bringing in Betty Hutton to cover the role in her absence. When Burnett did eventually return to the tuner she was involved in her husband's television show THE ENTERTAINERS and quickly left again, with producers threatening legal action if she did not honor her legal obligations to FADE OUT-FADE IN's run. The show later closed and re-opened, again with Burnett, but closed again soon after when the box-office took a major slide.

And so FADE OUT-FADE IN slipped into Broadway history...

Die-hard cast album collectors have been waiting patiently for many years for this classic musical...snap up your copy today!

I Feel My Pulse Beat Quickening
Musical theatre fanatics can rejoice - "Fade Out Fade In" has FINALLY arrived on CD. Few shows are as legendary as this one; the star (Carol Burnett) was great, the director (George Abbott) was great, and the writers (Jule Styne, Betty Comden & Adolph Green) were great. The reviews were generally enthusiastic, box office records previously set by "My Fair Lady" were broken, and for a while it was outgrossing two other new shows down the block - "Hello Dolly!" and "Funny Girl." But somewhere along the way it turned into one of the biggest financial disasters of the 1960s. Huh? How did that happen?

All the travails, mishaps, and lawsuits involving "Fade Out Fade In" became the stuff of Broadway legend, and though we may never know the entire story, the liner notes by Peter Filichia give you a fairly good idea of what went down; you can glance at them while you're listening to this (for the most part) wonderful score, which begins with one of the best overtures Jule Styne ever composed (right up there with "Gypsy" and "Funny Girl"). The plot involves Hope Springfield (Carol Burnett) and her unexpected leap into 1930's Hollywood stardom - OK, it's little more than a frothy spoof, and some of the material is pretty standard, but the songs are well-crafted, clever, and frequently inspired. Listening to "It's Good To Be Back Home," "The Usher From The Mezzanine," "Go Home Train," "Call Me Savage," and "Fade Out Fade In" is to be reminded once again of Carol Burnett's tremendous talents as a singer AND an actress (in the latter two numbers she is ably assisted by the gifted Dick Patterson). Looking for comic genius? Look no further than "My Fortune Is My Face," Jack Cassidy's side-splitting paean to movie-star self-absorption. Most critics, however, singled out "You Musn't Be Discouraged" as the show's undisputed showstopper, and when you hear Carol Burnett and Tiger Haynes doing their hilarious salute to Shirley Temple & Bill "Bojangles" Robinson - well, they're stopping the show all over again.

"Fade Out Fade In" may have had a troubled history, but this CD goes a long way toward focusing our attention where it belongs - on some great performers singing some terrific material. Ultimately, that's the only way "Fade Out Fade In" should be remembered.

Brassy Burnett !
Perhaps not the best Comden/Green/Styne effort, but a lot of campy fun, sending up the Hollywood of the 30s. Ms. Burnett is at her best vocally, belting out her great, glitzy numbers.