Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

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"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for their 1933 operetta Roberta. It was performed by Irene Dunne for the 1935 film adaptation, costarring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Randolph Scott. It has been covered by numerous artists, beginning with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra with Bob Lawrence on vocal, which went to the top of the charts in 1934, and including Nat "King" Cole who first covered it in 1946. Possibly the most famous version was recorded in 1958 by the doo wop group The Platters, which became a number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

In 1956, Vic Damone had covered this song with a very dramatic, different and interesting rendition. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" became one of Vic Damone's most famous songs. A 1972 remake by British band Blue Haze also became popular. Saxophone player Boots Randolph did an acoustic cover of the song on the B-side of his LP Yakety Sax. Bryan Ferry recorded a quavering, briefly popular version of the song in 1974, on the album Another Time, Another Place; it reached no. 17 on the UK charts in September 1974. Jerry Garcia released a music video in the early 1990s covering the classic tune, with actress Ashley Judd sitting in the background listening.

The song has been featured in several films, including George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973) and much later in the 2004 Golden Globe-winning film Being Julia, directed by István Szabó. The Platters' rendition is the centerpiece song to Steven Spielberg's 1989 film Always, and features significantly in both the plot and soundtrack of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 2006 film, Three Times. It has also appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant". "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is the title of the 2007 pilot episode of the AMC original drama Mad Men.

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Last updated on Monday January 28, 2008 at 17:46:44 PST (GMT -0800)
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