Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to answer some of the always welcome emails we’ve received over the last week or two.
As mentioned many times, we love to hear from you. If any of our Classicmoviechat blogs moves you to agree or to loudly disagree, please let us hear about it.
Our Dec. 29 blog questioning why Danny Kaye , a big Hollywood star in the Forties and Fifties, is largely forgotten today, drew this response from Rick 29.
If Danny lacks the following of some of his peers, I believe it’s because he seldom got film roles worthy of his talent. When he did, it was magic. I’d say that ‘The Court Jester’ and ‘White Christmas’ are both beloved films.
(That’s Danny above with ‘Court Jester’ costars Angela Lansbury, left, and Glynis Johns.)
His ‘chalice in the palace’ routine from ‘Court Jester’ is often mentioned among the greatest comedy bits in all of cinema. In a White Christmas docu, Rosemary Clooney seemed to feel Kaye was insecure, especially around Bing Crosby. So, there appear to be a lot of different views about him off the silver screen.
Thanks, Rick. Yes, there were differing views of Kaye offscreen. As mentioned in our original blog, Tony Curtis thought him mean-spirited, and couldn’t stand the sight of him. As for Kay’s apparent insecurity, there is always the possibility that he had much to be insecure about.
Regular contributor Patricia Nolan-Hall (Caftan Woman) writes us that, When my daughter was 13 she took her CD collection to a friend’s party. I suggested that maybe she might want to remove the Danny Kaye disc as her friend’s probably wouldn’t know who he was.
She responded that it was time they learned and – guess what? – they all got a kick out of it. Talent will tell, if given the chance.
But correspondent Nancy Mitchell takes the opposite view: I was always bothered about Danny Kaye. I knew he was talented, but I just didn’t like him. You put it perfectly — there was always an element of a “look at me” attitude in his performances. He didn’t ring true for me.
The three unidentified photos we ran to illustrate our Jan. 2 ‘Happy New Year All’ blog stumped some of you.
Ok, let’s try, wrote Taci. Linda must be Linda Darnell. And Alan Ladd is easy. But who are Jones and Irene and the fourth guy? That’s a bit more difficult. Irene could be a costume designer and the Jones guy looks familiar…
Patricia Nolan-Hall writes: The smile on the fella in trunks is very familiar. It’ll drive me crazy until I know. Kinda Buster Crabbe like, but…I don’t know. Coincidence time: I was just listening to an old Jack Jones album, so it’s nice to see his folks Allan Jones and Irene Hervey in the bottom left photo. Happy New Year!
Yup, it was Buster Crabbe, Alan Ladd, Linda Darnell and Allan Jones and Irene Hervey. We should also mention, of course, that all the photos came from The Donald Gordon Collection, our private stash of marvelously impromptu shots of Hollywood in the early Forties.
Thanks and, once again, Happy New Year!
