A Song Is Born: Fabulous Music But a Waste of Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye as Hobart Frisbee.

A musical remake of Ball of Fire must have been one of the easiest pitches of all time. After all, the original 1941 comedy--penned by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett--was about a bunch of academics writing an encyclopedia about music. Ball of Fire starred Gary Cooper as a naïve musicologist and Barbara Stanwyck as a brash nightclub singer who shakes up his world. The remake, A Song Is Born substitutes Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. It retains the plot, adds songs, and features many of the finest musicians working in the U.S. in 1948. How could it go wrong?

It gets off to a promising start with Professor Hobart Frisbee (Kaye) realizing that music has changed in the seven years that he and his colleagues have sequestered themselves to write their encyclopedia. To gain an appreciation for this "new" music, Frisbee embarks on a tour of New York City nightclubs. This serves as a great excuse for a musical montage featuring Tommy Dorsey, the Golden Gate Quartette, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnet, and others.

Virginia Mayo as Honey.

Frisbee also encounters Honey Swanson (Mayo), a pretty singer who needs to find a place to lay low when the police close in on her gangster boyfriend. Honey decides that Frisbee's Totten Music Foundation would be the ideal temporary hideout--never mind that she'd be living with seven intellectual bachelors.

Given the source material, music, and Danny Kaye, I expected A Song Is Born to be much better than a middling musical that smolders without catching fire. Except for the opening jungle chant number, Kaye neither sings nor dances. In his Kaye biography Nobody's Fool, author Martin Gottfried notes that the comedian had temporarily split from his wife Sylvia Fine following his affair with Eve Arden. Fine wrote many of her husband's songs and she refused to be involved with A Song Is Born. As a result, Danny Kaye "did not--he would not--find anyone else to write material for him."

Benny Goodman as a professor.

Without the fabulous music and a fully functional Kaye, the second half of A Song Is Born lumbers along toward its obvious climax. To her credit, Virginia Mayo tries her best to keep the film afloat and occasionally succeeds (as in the "yum-yum" scene).

It was Mayo's fourth film with Danny Kaye, having teamed with him previously in Wonder Man, The Kid From Brooklyn, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. She even had a bit part in Kaye's Up in Arms. By the way, Steve Cochran, who played the villain in A Song Is Born, appeared with Mayo six times (including The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat).

In addition to its plot, A Song Is Born shares other connections with Ball of Fire. Howard Hawks directed both films and Gregg Tolan served as his cinematographer. Mary Field also plays Miss Totten, the benefactor of the music foundation, in both films. Hawks expressed little enthusiasm for A Song Is Born, claiming that he made it only because Sam Goldwyn "pestered" and "annoyed" him into it.

Fortunately for Danny Kaye, his best films--White Christmas and The Court Jester--were still to come. And if A Song Is Born is nothing but a footnote in his long career, it's an still an interesting one that documents some of the great jazz and popular music instrumentalists of its era.

Danny Kaye Gets Up in Arms

Danny Kaye's feature-length film debut is a serviceable musical comedy intended as a showcase for its star and radio singing sensation Dinah Shore. In that regard, Up in Arms (1944) works well enough, though Kaye became a more controlled--and more effective--entertainer in later films such as the comedy classic The Court Jester (1955) and perennial favorite White Christmas (1954).

Dinah singing "Now I Know."

Kaye plays Danny Weems, a hypochondriac who works as an elevator operator so he can be near the many physicians working in his building. He fancies himself in love with a nurse named Mary (Constance Dowling), although he'd be better matched with Mary's friend Virgina (Dinah Shore). To complicate matters, it's instant love for Mary when she meets Danny's pal Joe (Dana Andrews). Before these romantic entanglements can be worked out, all four friends wind up in the Army--with Danny accidentally smuggling Mary aboard the ship carrying his unit into action.

In character for the "Theater Lobby"
number written by his wife Sylvia Fine.

Kaye seems determined to carry this flimsy plot by himself if required. He employs physical comedy, uses a wide variety of different voices, and sings nonsensical songs at breakneck speed. Most of his routines are very funny, but he could have benefited from more structure and a better supporting cast. Dana Andrews has little to do and seems out of place. Constance Dowling has one funny scene with Danny. The only other performer to stand out is Dinah Shore, who shows why she was successful enough to get her own radio show, Call to Music, in 1943.

Indeed, Danny and Dinah provide three good reasons to watch Up in Arms: her rendition of the Oscar-nominated ballad "Now I Know"; Danny's appropriately-titled "Theater Lobby Number," which is a musical "summary" of a made-up movie with Kaye playing all the characters; and, best of all, Danny and Dinah combining for "Tess's Torch Song." The last number is a hoot, with Goldwyn Girls sprouting from giant vases in the background and the two stars repeating each other's nonsensical lyrics with perfection. In fact, it's so good that--instead of a closing scene--there's a short reprise of "Tess's Torch Song" just prior to the closing credits.

Danny, Dinah, and Goldwyn Girls in giant vases!

Virgina Mayo.

Speaking of the Goldwyn Girls, one of them is played by Virgina Mayo (in fact, she has a brief speaking part as a WAC named Joanna). While she and Kaye never share a scene together, the two subsequently teamed up for Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), and A Song Is Born (1948).

Dinah Shore appeared in only a handful of films and never achieved silver screen stardom. That probably didn't bother her much, since she remained a recording star through the 1950s and also achieved success on television. After a career lull during the 1960s, she made a comeback as a popular daytime talk show host in the 1970s.