A superb remake as a musical, with many greats of the swing era

SimonJack

Director Howard Hawks and producer Samuel Goldwyn must have liked Billy Wilder and Thomas Monroe's story, "From A to Z." They used it as the basis for the 1941 box office hit movie, "Ball of Fire," that starred Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. And then, just seven years later they used the same story, revised, to make this 1948 comedy musical with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo.

Both films were successes - the first coming in 15th in box office with $6 million in ticket sales. That was the biggest year for Gary Cooper who starred in the top 1941 box office movie, "Sergeant York," which had sales of $13.5 million. Cooper get his first of two Academy Awards for that film and that won two of 11 Oscar nominations. "Ball of Fire" received four nominations.

Few movie remakes ever top the original films, so it's not likely that Hawks and Goldwyn expected "A Song is Born" to be better than "Ball of Fire." But they wanted to make a musical out of the story, and they had a huge field of talent they could use for that purpose. Where Cooper wouldn't have worked for a musical, Danny Kaye would and did. So, with one significant change in the plot, they could turn the story into a musical. The group of professors in the first film were working on a new encyclopedia of all knowledge. In "A Song is Born," they are working on a new encyclopedia of music.

So, when the professors discovered from a couple of hep window washers that they know little to nothing about modern music, Kaye's Professor Hobart Frisbee sets out to learn about jazz, blues, boogie woogie and swing. And that leads to some of the best jazz, blues, and swing music assembled in one movie that wasn't a biopic of one of the great musicians of the period. Virginia Mayo is the moll in place of Barbara Stanwyck's Sugarpuss. She wasn't the star that Stanwyck was but she's excellent in this role as Honey Swanson.

Of course, Kaye's comedy and diverse talents contribute much to this film. While Hobart's scholarly colleagues can't match the caliber of the supporting cast who make up the "wise" guys in the first film, they do very well. And this film has something the first doesn't -- a "Who's Who" of the modern music scene. Benny Goodman is one of the professors, Magenbruch, and other greats of jazz and swing in the film are Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, and Charlie Barnet. The Page Cavanaugh Trio, The Golden Gate Quartette, and other performers add to the great sound and enjoyment of this film.

This 1948 film didn't top the first one in awards or box office, but it did have $6 million in ticket sales and come in 48th in box office in a year when the top 50 films were very closely bunched in popularity and box office. The top movie that year was "Red River" that starred John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. It had just $11.8 million in ticket sales and received two Oscar nominations. That was the year that "Hamlet" won four Oscars, including best picture and Laurence Olivier's as best actor, and its box office was 14th for the year at $8.9 million.

This is a movie that should delight audiences of all ages well into the 21st century.

score 10/10

SimonJack 7 January 2021

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6450533/