Danny Kaye

  • Michael Curtiz – White Christmas (1954)

    1951-1960ComedyMichael CurtizMusicalUSA

    After leaving the Army after W.W.II, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis team up to become a top song-and-dance act. Davis plays matchmaker and introduces Wallace to a pair of beautiful sisters (Betty and Judy) who also have a song-and-dance act. When Betty and Judy travel to a Vermont lodge to perform a Christmas show, Wallace and Davis follow, only to find their former commander, General Waverly, is the lodge owner. A series of romantic mix-ups ensue as the performers try to help the General.Read More »

  • Charles Vidor – Hans Christian Andersen (1952)

    1951-1960Charles VidorMusicalRomanceUSA

    Synopsis:
    Hans Christian Andersen was Sam Goldwyn’s final production for RKO Radio release, and also the producer’s last Danny Kaye vehicle. The Moss Hart-Myles Connolly screenplay largely disregards the facts concerning Denmark’s great storyteller, opting for a fanciful blend of comedy, fantasy, romance and music. As played by Kaye, Hans Christian Andersen starts out as a small-town cobbler whose gift for spinning fairy tales is keeping the local kids from attending school. Asked to leave town, Hans heads to Copenhagen to seek his fortune as a writer.Read More »

  • Norman Z. McLeod – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)

    1941-1950ClassicsComedyNorman Z. McLeodUSA

    Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
    James Thurber wasn’t too happy with the Sam Goldwyn film adaptation of his 1939 short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but the Technicolor musical comedy proved to be a cash cow at the box office. Danny Kaye stars as Walter, a milquetoast proofreader for a magazine publishing firm. Walter is constitutionally incapable of standing up for himself, which is why his mother (Fay Bainter) has been able to arrange a frightful marriage between her son and the beautiful but overbearing Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford). As he muses over the lurid covers of the magazines put out by his firm, Walter retreats into his fantasy world, where he is heroic, poised, self-assured, and the master of his fate. Glancing at the cover of a western periodical, Walter fancies himself the two-gun “Perth Amboy Kid”; a war magazine prompts Walter to envision himself as a fearless RAF pilot; and so on. Read More »

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