Maybe not in the top twenty of worst films of all time but certainly one of the worst films Bing appeared in.

Aaron Tickner wrote:

Say One For Me is not Bing's best. However, it does not deserve to be on the list of top 20 worst films. Not when you consider the B shock films of the 1950s and 60s along with the straight to VHS rubbish  from the 1980s. There'd be thousands of contenders for the list long before Say One For Me should ever got a look in. 

I have that book, too, along with three other similar others its authors (the Medved brothers) wrote. I have to say I find them very, very funny and beautifully observed - including their review of "Say One For Me" which for me still remains an unseen curiosity. Yes, I would imagine there will be loads and loads of other films far worthier of being included in the book (and far worse) than this one but I do find there is humour and fun to be gained by having ambitious, main attraction, theatrically released films featuring top rated stars then deemed officially terrible. 

Wow! I'll have to take care with my words. I meant the ICC online meetings, Ian.

However, I hope you do get to Australia one day (if you haven't akready done so).
 

Aaron Tickner wrote:

Wow! I'll have to take care with my words. I meant the ICC online meetings, Ian.

However, I hope you do get to Australia one day (if you haven't akready done so).
 

Lol! Just cheekily reintepreting your accidental semi-opening there. Aaron. 
I need to be more gentle with our newer forum members. 
I now have both David and Jeremy to moderate me, now!

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (14/9/2026 11:06 pm)

Ian Kerstein wrote:

Pantelis Kavouras wrote:

I would think that naming it a bad picture is objectively a bit too much. 

It is not a masterpiece and it might be in the lower quarter of the Crosby films ranked, and justifiably unfavorably compared with his other Priest films (both masterpieces of much higher quality than Say One for Me) yet it has some nice songs, the dialogues are clever, some jokes are funny, Bing is giving warmth to his character, it has a nice opening scene, he works nicely with Debbie Reynolds.
Frank Tashlin is a good director in the light comedy genre, also director of films like Lemon Drop Kid, and my all time favorite Martin and Lewis film Hollywood or Bust.

The critics were mixed to negative but the hard to please critic Bosley Crowther gave it a mostly positive review calling it "pleasant show-world entertainment...​As for Bing—well, he's just about as usual, a little less lively, perhaps, a little older looking, but still casual and sincere. He'll never make Monsignor. He'll always be a parish priest, whenever he turns his collar backward, because you always sense a sport shirt underneath".

 

Never having see the film, I do have and have listened to the soundtrack, which one track, apart, sad to say, I found the songs to be very poor indeed. 

Another film, Ian, you need to catch up with! However, I won't press you as hard on Say One For Me. 
Road to Utopia is essential viewing! The reason I push Utopia so much is that it was my first Bing film I ever saw back in 1987. That was the start - I was hooked on Bing. I already knew Bob Hope from The Muppet Show.

I first saw Say One For Me on commercial TV in 1990. It was played on a school day and I was home sick. It happened to be sports carnival and my friends accused me of staying home to watch Bing and knowing how much I hated sport. But, I swear, I was genuinely sick. My mother would have made me still go to school if I was well and make me endure sports carnival. Bing was not a reason to stay home from school. That was the last time Say One For Me was played on commercial TV in Australia. Glad I got sick.

Earlier that same week in 1990, the same station played The Country Girl. I had to make do with programming the VCR for that one. I have a feeling The Country Girl hasn't played on Australian commercial TV since then either.  

The first time I came across any part of “Say One For Me” was forty-five years ago when I picked up a copy of the first book I read on Bing. It was a paperback version of Charles Thompson's authorised biography "Bing" and its front cover had a close up of its warmly smiling subject taken from this very movie. Then as Pantelis has noted, its own chapter featured in "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time", of which I've just re-read, providing a very well written laugh and thus increasing my curiosity. 

Again, as Pantelis and Aaron have written - perhaps the film as a whole may not deserve the drubbings from the above book or some of its 1959 reviews during its general release, so despite the forthcoming, I'd still be curious to see it. Other than only ever having viewed a single, very brief televised clip of Bing singing "The Secret of Christmas", I've never managed to source a cheap DVD copy or find it featured in any UK television listings. Maybe just as in Australia, Aaron, it's possible it hasn't been broadcast here since the early 1990's. However, I do now have a recently unsealed and now played copy of its soundtrack CD. Although most grateful to those consistently good people at Sepia for this beautifully produced "two for one" release – (purchased mainly for its headlining feature, “Road to Hong Kong”) but my goodness, the quite rightly second billed soundtrack I've found to be a real curiosity.

On the credit side, the warm sound of the Lionel Newman conducted orchestra is so lush! I have a real weakness for soundtracks of this era and courtesy of I'm sure, some first rate re-mastering, many of the instrumental tracks are so shimmeringly indicative of that early stereo, elegantly, often cosy "lounge" cinema sound.

Semi-kudos, too for Robert Wagner for at least being able to carry a tune … but oh dearie, dearie me!!! The majority of these songs!!! Other than the touchingly laudable "The Secret of Christmas" (with Bing - and as indeed with all of his singing on here, being in that tip-top, later, lower smooth registered form), I do find the majority of them almost instantly forgettable. I am so sorry, Pantelis and Aaron please don't hate me but here goes …

To my ears, it's as if some cynical Fox studio executive gave a huge financial incentive to Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heuson to go as bland as they dared."Boys, c'mon - Cole Porter's now ill, Irving Berlin's more or less retired, Gershwin, Larry Hart and Jerome Kern are all dead and Rogers & Hammerstein are lost to Broadway with their “The Sound of Nunsic” or whatever it is … who's gonna judge? Why not just give yourselves a rest until sweating over your next Sinatra album and just phone this one in? Plus Bing's never gonna give you any of the trouble Frank does. Guys – just do yourselves a favour!”

I have tried and tried to concentrate on these way below par songs to glean some sort of tuneful or lyrical memory but it's all to no avail: “The next time you say one, say one for me … I'll say one for you …. say one for two … say one for me … you'll kneel down to pray one … to pray one for two … “Oh lordy lord! Where's Bing's cassock for me to hide under when I need it? Not to mention an even more unwelcome duet counter melody on this title number with dear, patient Bing so doing his best with what little's been provided. It's such a shame, as Debbie Renyolds, his partner here although bereft of much range, could often sing fairly engagingly but this just adds to the mawkishness.

Another assault from this era which could almost guarantee a flop is one of those anti Rock'n'Roll songs, so prevalent then. It was the old guard's way of poking at what they were kidding themselves into believing was just a silly, temporary novelty - but despite their denials, they were taking its sales seriously enough to attempt these bits of mirthless mocking. Although Steve Allen humorously ribbed the form on American television by reading out some of their more repetitive and second grade lyrics and in his penultimate film, a“A King in New York”, Charlie Chaplin's Victorian music hall sensibility very pointedly satirised it, other efforts so badly misfired.

A couple of years earlier, Cole Porter, himself had already stumbled, taking down with him the musical romantic lead-exiting Fred Astaire with his only ever duff big screen top hat number, the lyrically dumb, crassly choreographed and annoyingly tick-tock rhythmed “The Ritz Roll and Rock”. The finale from an otherwise stylish “Silk Stockings”, Porter even had to be made familiar with some examples of Rock'n'Roll before committing anything to manuscript – and boy, did it show.

Here we have “The Night Rock and Roll Died (Almost)”
Note already, the title's clunky additional, final bracketed word before anyone's even begun to sing. And indeed before we hear the strained strains of Miss Judy Harriet, its brassy, sassy opening suggests more the beginnings of a second rate burlesque striptease, than a ribbing of Elvis and co. For a song whose title and lyrics suggest victory of the traditional Great American Songbook over this newly “degenerate” form, it is pure cornball without a trace of wit or pointed satire and barely a trace of Rock'n'roll.
Everything's self consciously, “a wailin'”, “a stompin'” and “a weepin'”and its electric guitar free big band arrangement, admittedly with part time jiving saxophones, still sounds to owe more to Harry James than Chuck Berry.

The repetitively silly, “You Can't Love 'Em All” is perhaps the most monotonous song on offer, here. Its self conscious attempts at coolness, instead reveals itself as a series of chants, barely packaged into a song whose first sixty seconds consists little more than a single two worded greeting.

His sitcom aside, I attempt to shy away from heavily criticising much associated with Bing - but hells Christmas bells, these banal offerings have finally driven me to it. All I wish for now is to repeatedly play my extended CD soundtrack of "High Society" while simultaneously receiving a badly needed calm talking to from someone of a forgiving, counselling nature .. Father Mike Conroy, perhaps? 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (Yesterday 3:53 pm)

Yes, I could not agree more, Stepo. Also, the studio system had (or was in the process of) collapsing by this time and Hollywood was in such a state of confusion - as well as you write, the record business. I can only speak for the music of "Say One For Me", never having seen the film but I was extremely shocked at how extremely poor the songs were, considering who wrote them, even allowing for off days. 

"Road to Hong Kong" on the same Sepia CD at least had a wonderful opening of "Teamwork" and on first viewing the film, this gave me a huge false sense of security having read for years about its failings.However, all these criticisms very soon bore fruit when it became apparent the fizz was around as flat as Fred and Ginger's ten year gapped film reunion - also with just one fully satisfactory musical number comparable to their RKO years.

Matters Hong-Kong weren't of course also helped by the shallow full time cardboard presence of Joan Collins when compared with the wonderfully warm, singing able and naturally humouress Dorothy Lamour. I do dread what an earth would have emerged with the thankfully just pre-produced "Road To The Fountain Of Youth" with our potential septuagenarian adventurers wooing a potential Farah Fawcett Majors, for goodness sake. Clearly, I'm so sad as to the reason this one didn't go before the cameras but I'm still relieved that it didn't. 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (Today 1:39 am)

I would also say, concerning the soundtrack of “Say One For Me,” that I’ve always been quite partial to “I Couldn’t Care Less.” The Buddy Cole backed version, that has a treatment quite similar to the deleted version of “Blue Moon” as “I Couldn’t Care Less” seemingly replaced it, is absolutely wonderful. Sinatra’s version is also quite good, I wish Bing’s commercial version with Frank DeVol was better, it feels a bit stale. I hope that the prior version with Percy Faith is discovered at some point.