Product Details

• Actors: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Louis Bellson, Benny Goodman, Sidney Blackmer
• Format: Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: April 7, 2009
• Run Time: 113 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001PPLINW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,758 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

The story of a nerdy music professor who hooks up with a beautiful saloon singer. Samuel Goldwyn Cast: Benny Goodman, Danny Kaye, Felix Bressart, Hugh Herbert, Louis Armstrong, Steve Cochran, Tommy Dorsey, Virginia Mayo

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Musical Remake of "Ball of Fire"!, January 29, 2009

By 

Kevin Mahan (Milford, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Song is Born (DVD)

This is a great movie. It is a re-make of the classic Cooper/Stanwyck movie "Ball of Fire" with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in the lead roles. Before you ask why a re-make was needed, let me say that this is a remake with a twist. The encyclopedia of "Ball of Fire" is now a musical encylclopedia. In addition to getting the expected comedy from Kaye and chemistry between Kaye and Mayo, you also get Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and others performing some great music. If you like the first version or if you like Danny Kaye or both, don't pass this one up.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second time's a charm (too), April 27, 2009

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Song is Born (DVD)

"A Song Is Born"
(MGM, 1948)
--------------------------------------------
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)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the best, April 15, 2009

By 

Daniel Daley (reno, nv) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Song is Born (DVD)

im blown away that this film took so long to get a good dvd treatment. one of the best musicals ive ever seen.