Loring "Red" Nichols is a cornet-playing country boy who goes to New York in the 1920s full of musical ambition and principles. He gets a job playing in Wil Paradise's band, but quits to ...
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At the time of the Invasion of Normandy, an American soldier is asked to impersonate a British General in order to confuse the Nazi spies and assassins in London.
Director:
Melville Shavelson
Stars:
Danny Kaye,
Dana Wynter,
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Ventriloquist Jerry Morgan has to see another love affair fail. The reason: when the relationship reaches the point when it is time to discuss marriage, his doll Clarence becomes mean and ... See full summary »
After a timid milkman knocks unconscious a boxing champion who was accosting his sister, he decides to take up boxing himself in order to impress a beautiful nightclub singer.
Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted into the army and makes life miserable for his fellow GIs. He's also lovesick when it comes to pretty Mary Morgan, unaware that she's in love with his... See full summary »
After being murdered by gangsters, an exuberant nightclub entertainer returns as a ghost to persuade his meek twin brother to help bring his killers to justice.
Jacobowsky, a Jewish refugee, flees from the Nazis with an aristocratic, anti-semitic Polish officer trying to get papers to England. Jurgens learns to appreciate Kaye, despite their ... See full summary »
With her gangster boyfriend under investigation by the police, a nightclub singer hides out in a musical research institution staffed by bachelor professors - one of whom begins to fall for her.
Loring "Red" Nichols is a cornet-playing country boy who goes to New York in the 1920s full of musical ambition and principles. He gets a job playing in Wil Paradise's band, but quits to pursue his dream of playing Dixieland jazz. He forms the "Five Pennies" which features his wife, Bobbie, as vocalist. At the peak of his fame, Red and Bobbie's daughter, Dorothy, develops polio. Red quits the music business to move to Los Angeles where the climate is better for Dorothy. As Dorothy becomes a young teen, she learns of her father's musical past, and he is persuaded to open a small nightclub which is failing until some noted names from his past come to help out. Written by
Ray Hamel <hamel@primate.wisc.edu>
The German 1959 dubbing 5 PENNIES MACHEN MUSIK (literally FIVE PENNIES MAKE MUSIC; released 29 January 1960) carries a very special secret: in the dub Danny Kaye himself sings phonetically in German. All of Kaye's dialogue was dubbed by his regular German voice Georg Thomalla. But Danny Kaye personally went to Berlin to re-dub his vocals of some of the movies' songs into German. It's very obvious that he doesn't understand a word of what he sings at all, but nevertheless does very well. His performance is charismatic, highly sympathetic and works surprisingly fine in spite of his strong accent and pronounciation.
The German lyrics were written by Fritz A. Koeniger, who was one of the most skillful writers for dubbing dialogues in Germany ever. Koeniger also provided the German dialogue book for 5 PENNIES as well as for Kaye's KNOCK ON WOOD, THE COURT JESTER and WHITE CHRISTMAS. The German song titles are:
"Der kleine Penny" ("Five Pennies") "Wiegenlied in Ragtime" ("Lullaby in Ragtime") "Gut' Nacht, schlaf sacht'" ("Good Night - Sleep Tight") "Die Musik faehrt Karussell" ("The Music goes round and around") "Klingeling, klingeling, laeutet's immerzu" ("Jingle Bells").
Sigrid Lagemann, the German voice of Barbara Bel Geddes, also joins in singing together with Danny Kaye in "Wiegenlied in Ragtime" and sings the final reprise of "Der kleine Penny" on her own. All songs Kaye does together with Louis Armstrong remain in the original English (although Armstrong was around at Berlin that time and did a guest appearance in the 1959 film LA PALOMA !). Most likely the German songs were never released commercially on record and are exclusive to the German movie track.
The dubbing was carried out at the renowned company Berliner Synchron GmbH Wenzel Luedecke, which produced the German language versions of almost every Paramount film throughout the 50s and 60s. The dubbing was directed by Volker J. Becker. In early 1960 a German movie magazine published a picture which shows Danny Kaye and his wife Sylvia Fine at the dubbing atelier of Berliner Synchron. There is also a picture of Kaye together with company owner Wenzel Luedecke taken during his recording session. See more »
Goofs
After Red and Willa have left the club and are traveling home, the cars seen through the rear window of the taxicab are distinctly 1940's to 1950's vehicles which were nonexistent in 1924. See more »
... but I could never see the movie yet. Still, it partly saved my life when I was dying of a very bad pneumonia and was floating in between the two worlds. I didn't yet understand English, but the soundtrack of The Five Pennies played on the vinyl record (don't ask me how my Finnish parents got to possess it) went through my conscience and kept me on the living side. I can still sing one voice of the lullaby hearing Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong singing the other voices in my head. I'm lucky to be able to hear them without any technical device.
Now, by a coincidence I fall on this movie I never saw - so important in my life - on VHS / NTSC in Amazon. I live in Europe... No way being able to see it. Do you really mean that there's no DVD of it yet ? I seem to be not the only one wishing for it.
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... but I could never see the movie yet. Still, it partly saved my life when I was dying of a very bad pneumonia and was floating in between the two worlds. I didn't yet understand English, but the soundtrack of The Five Pennies played on the vinyl record (don't ask me how my Finnish parents got to possess it) went through my conscience and kept me on the living side. I can still sing one voice of the lullaby hearing Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong singing the other voices in my head. I'm lucky to be able to hear them without any technical device.
Now, by a coincidence I fall on this movie I never saw - so important in my life - on VHS / NTSC in Amazon. I live in Europe... No way being able to see it. Do you really mean that there's no DVD of it yet ? I seem to be not the only one wishing for it.