There’s a scene in the 1972 movie Sleuth, wherein eccentric millionaire crime writer Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) has invited his wife’s lover, Italian hairdresser Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), to his mansion, under false pretences, and proceeded to shoot him dead in what he believes to be the perfect murder. He struts self-assuredly around his kitchen, busying himself in preparation of a celebratory champagne-and-caviar supper to the strains of Cole Porter’s song You Do Something To Me piped in from a distant gramophone. Now, the movie itself deserves a blog all to itself, since it is a gripping and brilliantly-written piece of drama with bravura performances from the two aforementioned greats of the silver screen, but this is not about the movie but the song.
The song is typical of Cole Porter (1891-1964), American composer and songwriter noted for his witty, urbane lyrics and writer of many a song that would find success on Broadway in the 1920s and 30s, and become part of what we now call the Great American Songbook. His songs trip off the tongue: You’re The Top; Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love; Anything Goes; I Get A Kick Out Of You; Begin The Beguine; I’ve Got You Under My Skin; Let’s Misbehave; Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye; Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? et al. His songs have of course been covered by, well, everyone…and so I attempted to find out which artist had recorded the particular version that we hear in Sleuth (below)…
Surely a straightforward google-able task? But not so: having failed to find the identity of the artist from the obvious sources, I was led instead and circuitously to this forum of musical soundtrack enthusiasts (below). Starting in 2006, one “gloriotski” kicks off the thread with the same question that was on my lips, but “coma” sets the ensuing tone with “I’ve checked all available sources but nobody really seems to know”.
Other amateur musical sleuths, determined to crack the mystery, steam in, with the suggestions rolling in: Fred Astaire, Al Johnson, Mel Tormé, Al Bowlly, Pat O’Malley, Sam Browne (indeed, virtually everyone except Marlene Dietrich)? But the years tick by, and one by one each confident suggestion has been debunked, right up to 2021 when we seem to have got no further:
Perhaps we’ll never know…but I can live with that (in fact, I’m rather glad that the mystery has endured) because in the course of my research I came across this wonderful version recorded by Harry Reser’s Clicquot Club Eskimo Orchestra, with vocals by Harry “Scrappy” Lambert. Enjoy!
