Up in Arms

This is only the second Danny Kaye film I've had the pleasure of watching, and he certainly didn't disappoint. The scene at the beginning of the film is fantastic, and Kaye's outstanding ability to tongue-twist in a song mixed in a conversation is hilarious! It has a lovely plot and Kaye steals every scene, from his serious romantic side, to his outrageous physical comedy. There are loads of brilliant one liners in there from Kaye, and his character being a hypochondriac just adds to the enjoyment! If you haven't seen this film yet, then what are you waiting for?!

One of the funniest movies of all-time. Danny Kaye's first film. Catapulted him from a virtual unknown to an international super-star. Two songs co-authored by his wife, Sylvia Fine, did the trick for him: "The Lobby Number" and "Melody In 4-F." These two songs put Danny's virtuoso tongue-twisting genius on full display. Danny Kaye plays a hypochondriac who is drafted into the Army in World War II and ends up single-handedly capturing a platoon of Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific while winning the heart of beautiful songstress Dinah Shore. Now, 60 years later, the film remains thoroughly enjoyable, and no other entertainer has emerged who can equal Danny Kaye's extraordinary comedic talents. If I had to make a list of the 10 funniest films ever made, "Up In Arms" would surely be on that list.

This is not Danny Kaye's best effort. That would be The Court Jester, as far as I am concerned. This movie was badly written. It wasn't horribly acted but the actors weren't given anything much to work with. Danny deserved better and so did Dinah Shore. She should have been a much bigger movie star than she was. She was very talented and had excellent screen presence. Too bad this movie is one of her few movies.

At the end of the day, don't waste your time. If you want to see GOOD Danny Kaye movies, find The Court Jester, The Inspector General, White Christmas...or his dramas The Five Pennies or Skokie. He was a brilliant comedian AND dramatic actor. Don't use this movie as an example of his best work.

Other reviewers have noted that "Up in Arms" was the first major movie that launched Danny Kaye's star. It certainly is a foretaste of the versatile Kaye's many talents. It includes a couple tongue-twister sequences, a couple of other language impersonations, and just a little song and dance. But, none of these are at the accomplished level Kaye would reach and show in films that followed. What he is good at in this career opener, he is fantastic at in films such as "The Inspector General" of 1949, "On the Riviera" of 1951, "Knock on Wood" of 1954, and "The Court Jester" of 1955.

Venues to showcase talents like Kaye don't have to have great plots. Films such as this are good and enjoyable just for the entertainment of the star or stars. But, when films also have interesting stories, they often click better and enhance the viewing enjoyment. At least I find that so in Kaye films. With much better scripts in those later movies, he moved more naturally and smoothly into his tongue twisters, impersonations, or song and dance numbers.

"Up in Arms" doesn't have a very solid plot. So, it seemed to me a number of times that the producers forced the next Kaye sequence on us. Like an old-fashioned entertainment break between scenes in an otherwise not-too-good stage show. Those few who praise this film as among Kaye's best had best watch again those films I named above. His impersonations, tongue twisters, and song and dance advanced remarkably in just a few years as he perfected his talents in each of these fields. Still, it is his comic performance alone that earns this movie seven stars in my book. Dinah Shore's singing supported the film some, but otherwise I think the cast was lackluster. Dana Andrews had more than a dozen movies under his belt, and would rise to become a leading man and male co-star in many films of the late 1940s and 1950s. But, he did not fit in comedies or musicals. He's clearly out of place here.

One other thing that struck me, with the rich Technicolor for such an early film, was the makeup worn by the ladies. In the musical scene with everyone boarding a ship, all the WAC nurses line up along the ship railing. As the camera pans their pretty faces, their heavy use of makeup really stands out. That may have been a sign of the times, and I appreciate the lesser use of pancake makeup in modern days. Our sharp lenses and cameras can give us very close shots that show the natural beauty of the human face. I think the pancake would be obvious and not very enticing.

Here are some favorite lines from this film.

Danny Weems, "Say, what's the matter with that horse of yours? He keeps breathing in all the time - never breathes out?" The Milkman, "Well, I'll tell you, Bub. But I don't want it to get around. He isn't really a horse. He's a vacuum cleaner."

Danny, "You know, if I don't get a rest petty soon, I'm gonna have to have an operation." Joe Nelson, "They can't operate on you, Junior. With all those pills inside of you, you'd roll off the table."

Sgt. Gelsey, looking at some of the 100 plus nurses sunbathing and sitting in their special deck area aboard the ship, "We never had anything like this in the last war." Info Jones, Sergeant, we don't have anything like it in this war either."

Navy nurse (Goldwyn Girl, June Lang, uncredited), "Gosh, how can a guy who looks like a canary turn out to be a wolf?"

I just saw this for the first time. I'm an old Danny Kaye fan -- grew up with Court Jester & other DK films; always appreciated his particular genius.

I only saw the second half of this film -- but it just blew me away. Of course, it already features the trademark Danny Kaye combination of showmanship, clowning, doe-eyed sincerity, patter-songs and absolutely beautiful vocal control that others mention here. And that is truly impressive. Also impressive in this film is the playing with gender, which is something DK could always get away with, but here comes out as particularly hyper and intense.

But what really shocked me was how ahead of its time this film was. Made during WWII, and absolutely full of patriotism and wartime idealism, all somehow mixed together with the idealism of romance and home and family, this was clearly a 1944 deal, with fake-looking classic Hollywood sound stage warships and sea scenes. But it looks much more like something out of 1955 or, God help us, 1966.

They don't really hide from that sound-set fakeness, esp. in the truly weird dream sequences, and the whole thing ends up looking more like Bob Fosse than the WWII propaganda film it's also trying to be. These sequences feature sets and costumes in co-ordinated "hot" pastels, a bartender-cum-minister-cum-scat singer, and I kid you not a bright sky blue goat. This segues into a scene with intense women in skimpy black clothing (think Robt Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video from the 1980s meets a 1890's bordello), some of whom are mounted/pinned/crucifed on trees/crosses/black wings set on poles.

In front of this, Danny Kaye in a devilish red suit does some of the most pure and outrageous absurdities I have EVER seen him do -- phasing in and out like the young Robin Williams on cocaine, switching into and out of a pastiche of popular song styles, slang, scat and African-American impersonation as if he were a black guy pretending to be a white guy pretending to be a black guy pretending to be a black guy. (In most of this, he is echoed capably -- but not brilliantly -- by Dinah Shore.) He is manic and brilliant and so very American and post-modern.

He is also incredibly young, and looks quite a bit like some manic, visionary rock star of today. (He resembles a bit the young Sting or Billy Idol.) And esp. in those fantasy scenes, the intensity combined with the costuming and showmanship made me realize that DK can be seen in that line of intense musical innovators/showmen that includes Prince and probably Jack White of the White Stripes.