"A Song Is Born"
(MGM, 1948)
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An excellent 1948 remake, by director Howard Hawks, of Howard Hawks' excellent 1941 comedy, "Ball of Fire," in which a group of fusty, out-of-touch professors are taken in by a tough-talking, vivacious modern gal who shows them a thing or two about the fast-talking modern world.
Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck starred in the original; here, their parts are played by Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, and instead of the gal being a burlesque girl, here she's a nightclub singer. This is handy because in 1948, the perfessers are interested in jazz music, and through diligent work they pull in an amazing all-star band of some of the hottest musicians of the big band era: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnett, Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, Mel Powell, The Golden Gate Quartet and a slew of others. Benny Goodman is doubly delicious in his role as a clarinet-toting fuddy-duddy professor who cuts loose when he's exposed to swing.
As remakes go, this is a remarkably durable film. The original is one of my favorite screwball comedies, but this version is also pretty fun, and the musical numbers are not to be missed. Danny Kaye is more believable as a nervous, repressed ivory tower academic, although a great deal of the charm of the original was the casting against type of the virile he-man movie idol Gary Cooper. It's Stanwyck who is really missed here, but Mayo does fine. (Besides, if I want to see Stanwyck, I'll just go back to the original...) All in all, this is a funny, funky film, with some great, hot musical interludes. Definitely worth checking out! (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film review blog)
