---Words and music by Cole Porter
from the 1955 musical Silk Stockings---
Today to get the public to attend a picture show
It's not enough to advertise a famous star they know
If you want to get the crowd to come around, You gotta have
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound
If Zanuck's latest picture were the gold old-fashioned kind
There'd be no one in front to look at Marilyn's behind
If you want to hear applauding hands resound, You gotta have
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound
The customers don't like to see the groom embrace the bride
Unless her lips are scarlet and her bosom's five feet wide, in
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope,
or Cinerama, VistaVision, Superscope, or Todd-A-O
and stereophonic sound
and stereophonic sound
You all remember Lassie that beloved canine star
To see her wag her tail the crowds would come from near and far
But at present she'd be just another hound, unless she had
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound
I lately did a picture at the bottom of the sea-
I rassled with an octopus and licked an anchovee
but the public wouldn't care if I had drowned, unless I had
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound
If Ava Gardner played Godiva riding on a mare
The people wouldn't pay a cent to see her in the bare, unless she had
Glorious Technicolor
or Cinecolor or Warnercolor or Pathécolor or Eastmancolor or Kodacolor or any color
and stereophonic sound
As an extra tonic,
Stereophonic sound
There was a time when dancing was so intimate and sleek
A fellow hugged his partner as they cuddled cheek to cheek
Now he doesn't even know if she's around, because they're in
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and Stereophonic sound