Themes: Underdogs, Musician's Life, Fish Out of Water
Main Cast: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Benny Goodman, Hugh Herbert, Steve Cochran
Release Year: 1948
Country: US
Run Time: 113 minutes
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, All Movie Guide
Louis Armstrong - Himself; J. Edward Bromberg - Dr. Elfini; Felix Bressart - Prof. Gerkikoff; Ludwig Stossel - Prof. Traumer; O.Z. Whitehead - Prof. Oddly; Esther Dale - Miss Bragg; Mary Field - Miss Totten; Howland Chamberlain - Mr. Setter; Paul Langton - Joe; Sidney Blackmer - Adams; Peter Virgo - Louis; Tommy Dorsey - Himself; Lionel Hampton - Himself; Charlie Barnet - Himself; Mel Powell - Himself; Page Cavanaugh Trio; The Golden Gate Quartet; Shirley Ballard; Louis Bellson - Drums; Buck and Bubbles; Lane Chandler - Policeman at Inn; Ben Chasen - Ben; Joseph Crehan - District Attorney; Joe Devlin - Gangster; Robert Dudley - Justice of the Peace; Jack Gargan - Stenotypist; Karen X. Gaylord; William Haade; Will Lee - Waiter; Russo and the Samba Kings; Jeffrey Sayre; Irene Vernon; Patricia Walker - Photographer at Dorsey Club; Ben Welden - Monte; Barbara Hamilton; Diana Mumby; Muni Seroff; John Impolito; Marjorie Jackson; Martha Montgomery; Alice Wallace; Donald Wilmot; Susan George - Cigarette Girl; Gene Morgan; Page Cavanaugh; The Samba Kings
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 Professor's 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.
