Movie Men Step Out

Bing Crosby, James Cagney, Roy Rogers, Maurice Chevalier and Elvis Presley on the same album? They are five of the unlikely track-mates on “The Hollywood Men,” the just-released RCA Records companion piece to last year’s “I’m Ready for My Close-Up: The Hollywood Ladies Sing” album.

Among the other actors, singers or composers featured in the 20-song CD: Mario Lanza, Don Ameche, Ray Walston, Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini and Tony Perkins, the actor best known for the “Psycho” films.

In assembling the package, Don Wardell, national director of catalogue for RCA Records, took some liberties.

Crosby sang in dozens of films, but he didn’t sing “Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella” (the selection that opens the album) in any of them. The song, Didier C. Deutsch explains in his liner notes, was in a film--”It’s a Great Life” in 1943. But Crosby’s version was recorded in 1957 with Bob Scobey’s Frisco Jazz Band.

Similarly, Sinatra sang in several films, but he didn’t sing “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” in a movie. Irving Berlin contributed the song to the 1942 film “Holiday Inn,” Deutsch again informs us, but Sinatra’s version was recorded separately with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

Wardell said the reason the artists aren’t always represented by songs from their films is because RCA only uses material from its own catalogue in the series and none of the artists’ film work was apparently ever released on RCA.

Despite the cited oddities, “The Hollywood Men” is a generally delightful collection, highlighted by Cagney’s rousing “Mary’s a Grand Old Name” (from “Yankee Doodle Dandy”), Walston’s sprightly “Those Were the Good Old Days” (from “Damn Yankees”) and Fred Astaire’s “Night and Day” (from ‘The Gay Divorcee”).

And what does Perkins sing?

The actor apparently never sang in a film, but he made several albums for RCA early in his acting career, and one of the songs was from the 1957 film “Boy on a Dolphin,” even though Perkins didn’t appear in the film.

MORE MOVIE MUSIC: Alfred Newman, David Raksin and Max Steiner are the composers saluted in a series of reissues from RCA. These albums, remastered for CD, feature re-recorded highlights from the scores. Raksin, however, conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra when it recorded material he wrote for “Laura,” “Forever Amber” and “The Bad and the Beautiful.”

Charles Gerhardt conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra for the Steiner and Newman sessions. The latter includes music written for such films as “King Kong,” “The Big Sleep” and “Johnny Belinda.” The Newman material was written for such films as “Wuthering Heights,” “The Song of Bernadette” and “Anastasia.”

IN THE STORES: New CD releases include “Sixteen Tons of Country Boogie: The Best of Tennessee Ernie Ford” and “Zooma Zooma: The Best of Louis Prima” (both from Rhino). . . . Parliament’s “The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein” and “Motor Booty Affair” (Casablanca). . . . Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (the fourth in the Polydor series of Williams CD retrospectives).