A Song Is Born
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A Song Is Born
Plot
A Song is Born is a musical remake of the 1941 comedy Ball of Fire, with the same producer (Sam Goldwyn) and director (Howard Hawks) at the helm. It will be recalled that the original film, co-scripted by Billy Wilder, was an amusing spin on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," wherein seven pedantic professors, working on a dictionary of slang, "adopted" an authority on the subject, breezy burlesque dancer Sugarpuss O'Shea. In the remake, the septet of scholars are working on an encyclopedia of music, but they're held up on the subject of "swing." When nightclub singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo), escaping from her gangster suitor Tony Crow (Steve Cochran), takes refuge in the professors' home, she offers to introduce them to the world of popular music. This proves to be quite a tuneful undertaking, since two of the professors are played by Danny Kaye and Benny Goodman! The tang and zest of original plotline has been muted to the point of harmlessness, but the film is saved by the presence of Goodman, his fellow bandleaders Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey and Mel Powell, and specialty performers Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Buck & Bubbles. A Song is Born was Danny Kaye's final starring vehicle for Sam Goldwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviReview
There was really no need for Howard Hawks, director of the brilliant comedy Ball of Fire to remake the film as the musical A Song is Born, but if he had to participate in this remake, he should have insisted on making the two feel like much more individual films. Granted, there are some changes, such as making the professors' project one on swing rather than slang; but these are cosmetic, and keeping so much of the dialogue and even the sets from the original only emphasizes their similarities, making Song come up short. However, if one can forget Ball of Fire and just concentrate on Song, there's plenty to recommend it. Much of the dialogue is as witty and laugh-inducing as ever, and while Virginia Mayo simply can't equal Ball's Barbara Stanwyck, she's still an incredibly tasty dish and a lot of fun to be around. It's also interesting, if a bit odd, to see Danny Kaye in a more subdued mood and to watch him be more or less a straight man rather than a manic instigator of mirth. Best of all, however, is the gathering of some truly legendary jazz performers here who are given amply room to swing and jive; when Benny Goodman or Louis Armstrong or Tommy Dorsey get going, Song becomes a glorious, splendiferous piece of melodious amusement. ~ Craig Butler, RoviCast
- Danny Kaye - Prof. Robert Frisbee
- Virginia Mayo - Honey Swanson
- Benny Goodman - Prof. Magenbruch
- Hugh Herbert - Prof. Twingle
- Steve Cochran - Tony Crow
Credit
Perry Ferguson - Art Director, George Jenkins - Art Director, Irene Sharaff - Costume Designer, Howard Hawks - Director, Dan Mandell - Editor, Hugo W. Friedhofer - Composer (Music Score), Emil Newman - Composer (Music Score), Hugo W. Friedhofer - Musical Direction/Supervision, Emil Newman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Robert Stephanoff - Makeup, Gregg Toland - Cinematographer, Samuel Goldwyn - Producer, Julia Heron - Set Designer, John P. Fulton - Special Effects, Fred Lau - Sound/Sound Designer, Billy Wilder - Screen Story, Thomas Monroe - Screen Story, Harry Tugend - Screenwriter| A Son's Sacrifice (2006 Film), A Son's Promise (1990 Film) | |
| A Song for Europe (1985 Film), A Song for Martin (2001 Film) |
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This article is about the 1948 film. For the song, see A Song Is Born (song).
| A Song Is Born | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Howard Hawks |
| Produced by | Samuel Goldwyn |
| Written by | Billy Wilder (story) Thomas Monroe (story) Harry Tugend (uncredited) |
| Starring | Danny Kaye Virginia Mayo Steve Cochran Benny Goodman Louis Armstrong Tommy Dorsey Lionel Hampton Charlie Barnet Mel Powell |
| Music by | Hugo Friedhofer Emil Newman |
| Cinematography | Gregg Toland |
| Editing by | Daniel Mandell |
| Studio | Samuel Goldwyn Productions |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 19, 1948 |
| Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
A Song Is Born (also known as That's Life) [1] is a 1948 Technicolor musical film remake, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, of 1941 movie Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper. It was directed by Howard Hawks from an original story by Billy Wilder, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
Filmed in lavish Technicolor, it featured a stellar supporting cast of musical legends, including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Benny Carter. Other notable musicians playing themselves in the cast include Charlie Barnet, Mel Powell, Harry Babasin, Louis Bellson, Al Hendrickson, The Golden Gate Quartet, Russo and the Samba Kings, The Page Cavanaugh Trio, and Buck and Bubbles. Other actors include Steve Cochran and Hugh Herbert.
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Plot
Mild-mannered Professor Hobart Frisbee (Danny Kaye) and his fellow academics, among them Professor Magenbruch (Benny Goodman), are writing a musical encyclopedia. When they discover that there is some new popular music that is called jazz, swing, boogie woogie or rebop introduced by two window washers Buck and Bubbles. The professors become entangled in the problems of night club singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo). She needs a place to hide out from the police, who want to question her about her gangster boyfriend Tony Crow (Steve Cochran). She invites herself into their sheltered household, over Frisbee's objections. While there, she introduces them to the latest in jazz, with which they are unfamiliar, giving the film an excuse to feature many of the best musicians of the era. The songs they play include "A Song Is Born", "Daddy-O", "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", "Flying Home", and "Redskin Rumba".
Eventually, Tony comes by to collect Honey, but by that time, she and Hobart have fallen in love. And the finale, of course, is not decided by guns but by music, its resonance and reverberation.
Cast
- Danny Kaye as Professor Hobart Frisbee
- Virginia Mayo as Honey Swanson
- Benny Goodman as Professor Magenbruch
- Tommy Dorsey as Himself
- Louis Armstrong as Himself
- Lionel Hampton as Himself
- Charlie Barnet as Himself
- Mel Powell as Himself
- Ford Washington Lee as Buck (as Buck and Bubbles)
- John William Sublett as Bubbles (as Buck and Bubbles)
- Page Cavanaugh Trio as Themselves
- The Golden Gate Quartet as Themselves
- Samba Kings as Themselves (as Russo and the Samba Kings)
- Hugh Herbert as Professor Twingle
- Steve Cochran as Tony Crow
- Felix Bressart as Professor Gerkikoff
Production
Kaye's personal writer/composer, Sylvia Fine, who also happened to be Kaye's wife, refused to take part in any more of his projects because Kaye had recently left her for actress Eve Arden. Kaye didn't want anyone else writing songs for him, so he simply did not perform any songs in the film.[2][3]
Hawks had almost no interest in the film, and only came to work on it because of the $250,000 paycheck. When speaking of the film, he said "Danny Kaye had separated from his wife, and he was a basket case, stopping work to see a psychiatrist [every] day. He was about as funny as a crutch. I never thought anything in that picture was funny. It was an altogether horrible experience." [2]
Release
A Song is Born was the number one film in the country from the time of its release until November 1948, while Hawks's other film (and in his opinion, best) Red River, was second.[2] However, A Song is Born never broke even, only earning about $2.2 million, while Red River went on to gross $4.1 million.[3] It was shown on American Movie Classics, hosted by Nick Clooney, and has been released on home video in both VHS and DVD formats.[4]
References
- ^ http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=4841
- ^ a b c http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=118153
- ^ a b Nobody's Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye, By Martin Gottfried, Published by Simon and Schuster, 1994, ISBN 0-7432-4476-1
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Song-Born-Full-Dub-Sub/dp/B001PPLINW
External links
- A Song Is Born at the Internet Movie Database
- A Song Is Born at the TCM Movie Database
- A Song Is Born at AllRovi
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