WONDER MAN
US, 1945, 98 minutes, Colour.
Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Vera Ellen, Steve Cochran.
Directed by H.Bruce Humberstone.
Danny Kaye's second film. After his successful career on stage and in night clubs, Sam Goldwyn contracted Kaye for five films and he made his debut in the entertaining Up in Arms with Dinah Shore. Virginia Mayo had a small role in that film and she was to star with him in such subsequent films as A Song is Born and the famous Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
This in not the best of Danny Kayo’s films. At times his routines tend to be silly rather than clever. However, there are the usual impersonations of Irish and Italian and other nationalities, nonsense songs and many sight gags. He is also able to portray the night club brother and studious brother very well. The film introduced Vera Ellen to the screen. Entertaining, if dated comedy.
1. The appeal of Danny Kaye's comic style? How successful a vehicle for him? His popularity in the forties subsequently, now?
2. The film bore evidence of the styles of the forties - comedy conventions, music and choreography, romance and gangster films? What were the most prominent conventions used, how well? How do they stand up now?
3. The colour photography, New York? The importance of the trick photography for the presence of the two brothers? Oscar winning techniques? How do they seem now? Their contribution to the enjoyable fantasy?
4. Danny Kaye's skill in portraying the two brothers? How well did he contrast them in appearance, manner, way of speaking? His ability to move from one to the other when Buzzy took over Edwin? The contrast in Kaye's styles of comedy for the two brothers?
5. The expected humour of Danny Kaye, for example the impersonations of Irish, Russian, Italians? The nonsense songs? The innocent good humour? The smart man-about-town style?
6. Buzzy as the conventional good-hearted night club entertainer, the ups and downs of his romance with Midge? Conventional backstage plot and types? The complexity with the murder and his being killed?
7. The contrast with Edwin. his work in the library, Ellen and her devotion to him, the woman interviewing him? The evening at Ellen’s, the buying of the potato salad, the entry into Buzzy's world? The conventional romantic material, misunderstandings? The inevitable happy ending? Edwin pleading to be taken over by Buzzy and the humour and pathos he evinced here?
8. The gangsters and their conventional presentation, the murder sequence, the burial, the pursuit and the chases?
9. Ellen as attractive heroine, her reaction to the mix-ups, to the potato salad incident, Edwin and imitating the pets, the songs? in the apartment with the murderers, the District Attorney, the opera?
10. The contrast of the two leading ladies for musical comedy style?
11. The contribution of the gallery of minor characters - the people in the night club, the suitor to marry Midge, the drunks, the police?
12. A happy resolution, the light touch of conventional material?
