Sentimental biography of a famous jazzman , Red Nichols, stars Danny Kaye paying tribute to this great musician by providing a terrific acting and whose traumatic private life was a little shocking for Hollywood standards . Along the way , there appears Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong who plays his horn and croons in that famed gargling-granite voice. Other famous horn players and Big Band icons as Bob Crosby, Ray Anthony and Shelly Manne join the fun.
The plot is plain and simple , an engaging biographic chronicle , featuring perormances from legendary musicians as Bob Crosby, , Bobby Troup , Ray Anthony , Luis Armstrong and Red Nichols magnificently played by Danny Kaye who cuts loose with his trademark musical clowning . The film is a Danny Kaye recital , he plays his horn , sings ,and puts some faces and grimaces . Sylvia Fine , Kaye's wife , is the lyricist , composer , besides associate producer and dialogs writer , and responsible for many of the best known musical routines and songs for her husband . This is a mirth as well as melancholic rhapsody in which the duo starring : Danny Kaye as the extraordinary jazzman and Barbara Bel Geddes as the woman who he loved , both of whom giving awesome performance . An engaging and charming film , though tends to be overlong and slow-moving at times , concerning a dramatic portrayal of a horn player who fights to fill his need for music , while becomes trapped in some dramatic misfortunes . Accompanying them a lot of wonderful of secondary actors and musicians , such as : Harry Guardino , Bob Crosby, Bobby Troup , Susan Gordon , Ray Anthony, Shelly Manne and a teen Tuesday Weld. What the script lacks in originality is amply made up for the extraordinary music and outstanding cast . Highlights the moving musical score by composer Leith Stevens and colorful cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp , while enjoyable apperance by Louis Armstrong make it a must-see for Jazz enthusiasts .
This musical drama was competently made by one of the best Golden Hollywood directors , Melville Shavelson. His movies have a special penchant for recapturing a particular atmosphere , many of this movies are about real people but they remain muted in impact . A notorious screenwriter , Bob Hope and Danny Kaye features Shavelson's movies when he became filmmaker and his films with them are the most successful such as : ¨The seven tittle Foys¨ , Beau James¨, ¨On the Double¨ and ¨Five pennies¨ . Shavelson's later pictures were made for TV and mostly biographies as ¨The great Houdini¨ , ¨Ike¨, ¨Ike : the war years¨, and ¨The legend of Valentino¨ which remains the best work on the subject to date . Two of the best films resulted to be ¨¨Cast a giant shadow¨ , an epic movie with all-star-cast dealing with the birth of Israel and one of his biggest hits was ¨Yours , mine and ours¨. The Five Pennies (1959) rating : 7/10 . Better than average. The flick will appeal to Jazz lovers and Danny Kaye, Louis Armstrong fans.
