The Five Pennies (1959)

with Danny Kaye

easily the best scene of the movie

Kaye never did any seriously good movies, but I can't help but like him.  A lot.  I think that's part of his appeal; he seems like a genuinely nice person, with apparently a little more going on upstairs than some of his contemporaries.

He shines in hokey, family films such as White Christmas and this one.  For whatever reason, Kaye didn't believe that vulgarity should have any place in his act; when these standards aren't merely self-imposed (ie in family-type films) he seems less goofy and simply, well, likeable.

Red Nichols was a coronet player who quit just when he was most famous so that he could care for his polio-stricken daughter.  Or so the story goes.  I'm fairly certain for instance that he never threw his instrument over the Golden Gate bridge in disgust (seriously, who does that?), neither did he meet Louis Armstrong in a drunken impromtu performance while culminated in him nearly becoming ill on stage.  I don't think any of us really care how true-to-life this biopic is; we watch it because Danny is funny, the music is fantastic, and Sylvia Fine writes some witty lyrics.

I've read that Kaye was kind of a bitch in real life, which I have a hard time believing.  The guy who sang The Lobby Song might be a complete goof, but never a jerk.  But Kaye brings Nichols to his (whose?) attention-whoring, temperamental, egocentric worst, and finally the accusations make some kind of sense.  Then again, this is the same person who creates silly sketch acts to cheer up a room full of sick kids.  (Indeed, he moments Nichols spends caring for for his disabled daughter are among the best and most touching of the entire film.)   Hard to hate someone like that.

'Walter Mitty' is good; this one too.