Nowadays unnecessary remakes of popular (and even minor) movies seem to be the norm -- for example, I fail to see what Denzel Washington can bring to the droll Walter Matthau role in "Pelham 123" -- but the concept is far from new. The above film is a musical remake of 1941's "Ball of Fire" and both surprisingly were directed by Howard Hawks.
Granted Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo are not Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in the roles of the stuffy music professor and the showgirl who takes refuge in the house he shares with other fogeys compiling the ultimate music encyclopedia, but they are fine for this light-hearted riff on the original. It seems that the professors have just discovered modern popular music and jazz, which allows for major roles for Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and other now largely forgotten musicians from the period. We even have Benny Goodman heavily made-up to appear as one of the nerdish academics. There is a lovely bit when his character watches one of the groups and asks where their music is written down; he is taken aback when told that even Benny Goodman didn't use sheet music!
So not all remakes are a bad thing, especially when a true re-interpretation. Look at "The Philadelphia Story" and "High Society" as a good example. And very, very occasionally later versions do actually manage to outshine the original. While that is not quite the case here, especially since Kaye is given little opportunity for his trademark patter songs, Hawks did have a good go.
2 comments:
I so have not gotten the alerts I reset and reset...I havent even been getting my alerts on my comments! GRRR...Hope all has been well with you...I watched Reign Down On Me last night...I really liked it..it had some dry spots...but it was a good movie! There have been some good remakes...but things like the Starsky & Hutch and some others...well...I don't care to watch them again. Wishing you a great weekend..and will have to make sure to just hit your screen name cause the alerts are not working for shit! Hugs,TerryAnn
In the distant past when this film was first released in this country which may well
mean 1950 in my then local cinema, I thought it one of the funniest I had ever seen. My tastes have obviously changed as I now consider it worth watching only
for the swing and jazz items. I have not changed my thoughts on Virginia Mayo,
however, as I did not reckon her then either.
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