In Me And The Colonel Danny Kaye's career took a dramatic turn as he stars in the movie version of the play Jacobowsky And The Colonel which was an autobiographical work of refugee writer Franz Werfel. It was also Werfel's last work as he died in 1945 as the play was running on Broadway. Werfel when fleeing France and the onrushing Nazi occupation traveled the same route from Paris to southern France and I'm sure his real life experiences verbatim would make an interesting story.
The play starred another refugee Oscar Karlweis as the philosophical Jewish refugee Jacobowsky and Louis Calhern as the stiff necked Polish colonel who among other things is anti-Semitic, so typical of his class in those days. On screen the colonel is played by CurtJurgens and he has a mission, to get to the United Kingdom and give the new Polish in exile government a list of contacts. Naturally the Nazis want to get their hands on him and the list. The colonel wants to also get his French wife Nicole Maurey out of France as well and his orderly Akim Tamiroff.
The film is their journey through France along the same path Werfel took to get out of Europe. In Jurgens mind Kaye is annoying Jew, but he gradually learns to both respect Kaye's resourcefulness and see a Jewish person as a human being. All too human as Maurey also starts to develop feelings for him.
For this role Kaye dropped a whole lot of his usual shtick and his performance is simple and restrained. The humor and there is a bit there is of the whimsical and ironical kind. He does it well. Two other performances of note are that of Alexander Scourby as the Nazi colonel who also has designs on Maurey and Martita Hunt as a helpful, make that very helpful Mother Superior of a convent.
For a different and refreshing Danny Kaye I highly recommend Me And The Colonel.
