Song is Born, A (1948)
If not for a later, title role that Danny Kaye really wanted to play (Hans Christian Andersen (1952)), this would have been the actor's last performance in a Samuel Goldwyn film. It was the last that Kaye, and co-star Virginia Mayo, did as contract players for the producer. By the time Goldwyn made this film, his creativity was waning, even on the heels of arguably his greatest success, the Academy Award Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). For this comedy, Goldwyn finally convinced Howard Hawks to work for ($25,000/week) him again, ironically to direct a remake of their last film together, Ball of Fire (1941), which had co-starred Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. It's a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs-type story with Mayo as the comely street smart moll Honey Swanson, who has to hide out from the law in the residence where seven single elderly (save Kaye) professors have been voluntarily sequestered for years to complete a "history of music" reference for their homely benefactor (Mary Field, in both films). Harry Tugend (uncredited) did little with the Thomas Monroe-Billy Wilder story (Wilder/Charles Brackett screenplay) besides change the professors’ work from an encyclopedia (From A to Z), in the original, to the music tome. Like most remakes, it doesn't have the charm of the original (nor the great supporting character actors either!).
Instead of the youngest professor, Hobart Frisbee (Kaye), investigating the new slang (as Cooper's character did), this time he's interested in the newest music (e.g. jazz) that's been developed during the nine years that the professors have been "shut-in" working on their book. During his investigation, Frisbee meets Honey singing in a nightclub, and several other famous music professionals of the day including Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Page Cavanaugh, and the Samba Kings (among others). Benny Goodman plays one of the professors (incognito until he's asked to play the clarinet with the others). Honey initially brushes off Hobart until she learns that her gangster boyfriend, Tony Crow (Steve Cochran), is wanted for murder and that she's wanted for questioning. Using the card that he'd left with her, Honey visits Hobart and is instantly "adopted" by the professors which include Twingle (Hugh Herbert), the only one who's a widower, Gerkikoff (Felix Bressart), Traumer (Ludwig Stössel), and Oddly (O.Z. Whitehead). She, and the other musicians, help the professors learn the latest rhythms. The romantically inexperienced Hobart falls in love with the sassy blonde Holly, which eventually leads to a similar (yet slightly different) means to the same end as the first film. Esther Dale plays the professors' housekeeper, Miss Bragg. Paul Langton plays one of Crow's heavies, Sidney Blackmer the mobster's lawyer.
Most Recent Additions:
I Want You (1951) - full review!
A Bill of Divorcement (1932) - full review!
Patterns (1956) - full review!
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) - full review!
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) - full review!
Hour of the Gun (1967) - full review!
To Sir, with Love (1967) - full review!
You'll Never Get Rich (1941) - full review!
The Actress (1953) - full review!
Mannequin (1937) - full review!
All My Sons (1948) - full review!
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) - full review!
State Fair (1945) - full review!
Billy Budd (1962) - full review!
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) - full review!
The Bachelor Party (1957) - full review!
The Glenn Miller Story (1954) - full review!
The Southerner (1945) - full review!
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
Never on Sunday (1960) - full review!
The Arrangement (1969) - full review!
A Summer Place (1959) - full review!
Miracle in the Rain (1956) - full review!
Love Letters (1945) - full review!
The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) - full review!
The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Come and Get It (1936) - full review!
The Prize (1963) - full review!
This Is the Army (1943) - full review!
Home from the Hill (1960) - full review!
Hangmen Also Die (1943) - full review!
The Shop on Main Street (1965) - full review!
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) - full review!
A Gathering of Eagles (1963) - full review!
This Happy Breed (1944) - full review!
Red-Headed Woman (1932) - full review!
Waterloo Bridge (1931) - full review!
Baby Face (1933) - full review!
Titanic (1943) - full review!
Cover Girl (1944) - full review!
Saratoga Trunk (1945) - full review!
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Young Philadelphians (1959) - full review!
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Pocket Money (1972) - full review!
Week-End at the Waldorf (1945)
Judge Priest (1934) - full review!
Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) - full review!
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Angel Face (1952) - full review!
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) - full review!
Dallas (1950) - full review!
Springfield Rifle (1952) - full review!
Gaslight (1940) - full review!
The Gazebo (1959) - full review!
Passage to Marseille (1944) - full review!
The House on 56th Street (1933) - full review!
Annie Get Your Gun (1950) - full review!
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Lonelyhearts (1958) - full review!
Good News (1947) - full review!
Wild Rovers (1971) - full review!
Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) - full review!
Topper Returns (1941) - full review!
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
The Winning Team (1952) - full review!
The Hasty Heart (1949) - full review!
Storm Warning (1951) - full review!
[Home] [Hitchcock] [Oscar's Best] [Essays] [Essential Films] [TCM Picks] [Obscure Films] [Links] [Other Reviews] [Academy Awards] [Silent Films] [Movie Index]
