Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Palaest recommended

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Ed-Shullivan A Song is Born may be seventy (70) years old now but the song remains the same. This is a romance disguised as a mobster movie, The sexy nightclub singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo) finds her very own Prince Charming in the form of Professor Hobart Frisbee (Danny Kaye) when she takes the Professor up on his offer to assist him in documenting the history of this new musical discovery from the United Sates called "jazz music". So Honey Swanson needs to find a place to lay low to avoid the federal investigators from subpoenaing her so she hides out at Professor Hobart Frisbee's academic school of music where the two lovebirds fall madly in love. The wicked witch is played by mobster Tony Crow (Steve Cochran) who sends for his dame Honey Swanson so that he can marry her so as his wife, she can't squeal to the Feds on a murder rap that they have targeted Tony Crow for committing.Virginia Mayo's beauty as Honey Swanson is not animated as in the Disney classic as she is a true beauty of the silver screen age. Danny Kaye who can't help but fall in love with Honey hears the music playing constantly in his head once he sets eyes first on Honey. The film has great jazz music, the comedy of Danny Kaye and his seven (7) stooges who are all his fellow music professors who have to find a way to save their princess Honey Swanson, and a barrage of cameo appearances by many of the great jazz legends of the time.This comedy/romance/musical is sure to rock your world! I give it a solid 9 out of 10 rating.

ilprofessore-1 Gregg Toland, the great director of photography of CITIZEN KANE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS and THE GRAPES OF WRATH was said to be the highest paid D.P. in America, as well as perhaps the finest B&W lighting cameraman the major Hollywood studio system ever produced. Under long- term contract to producer Sam Goldwyn, he died at the early age of forty-four in 1948, the same year this film was made for his boss. A SONG IS BORN is one of his few Technicolor films. For a man of visual genius, the photography here is surprisingly routine—flatly lit and uninspired compared to the more adventurous color work being done about the same time by Harold Rosson and Joe Rutenberg at the MGM studios. Perhaps Toland was too ill at the time to pay much attention to this project, no more motivated to do his best than was the film's director, the usually brilliant Howard Hawks who had directed BALL OF FIRE, an earlier version of the same story. The film is also flawed by garish makeup for the gorgeous Virginia Mayo. On the plus side, jazz lovers get a few brief moments of pleasure: a rare chance to hear America's prime band leaders of the time—Armstrong, Dorsey, Goodman, Hampton, Louis Armstrong—jamming together with sidemen Mel Powell and Louie Bellson. (Fletcher Henderson probably did the band arrangements) There is absolutely no comparison between this insipidly silly remake and the charming earlier B&W version which starred the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck as the bad/good girl and Gary Cooper in the role Danny Kaye assays with only moderate success.

bryce-40 Where else can you see a jam session with Louie Armstrong on trumpet, Charlie Barnet on saxophone, Benny Goodman on clarinet, and Tommy Dorsey on trombone? Four major swing band leaders jamming out, and they do it more than once on this film. The movie is sufficiently entertaining to watch, but the real treat is the music jam sessions. Some of you may not know Charlie Barnet. Barnet was from a wealthy family, and his bands were more freewheeling than most traditional swing bands. He was the first white band leader to integrate his bands, and he gave Lena Horne her first gig with a major orchestra.The true big band aficionado will recognize some of the other musicians, but I will not list them here as I might spoil someone's fun.

bfgw The story line, the plot, the characterizations in this film are all average. What makes this film stand out are the musicians and the music. The presence of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Tommy Dorsey along with other contemporary jazz musicians makes this film a true gem.