A Song Is Born Overview:

A Song Is Born (1948) was a Comedy - Musical Film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Samuel Goldwyn.

SYNOPSIS

Director Hawks puts his own Ball of Fire (1941) to music, with the help of guest stars Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Tommy Dorsey. While researching the history of jazz for a collaborative project, a group of tweedy professors led by Kaye gets a lively lesson from a sultry nightclub singer (Mayo) on the lam from both her gangster boyfriend and the district attorney. As spirited as its predecessor, this boasts charismatic performances, especially from the above-mentioned big-band guests and other musical stars such as Mel Powell, Buck and Bubbles, and Charlie Barnet.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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BlogHub Articles:

A Song Is Born: Fabulous Music But a Waste of Danny Kaye

By Rick29 on Aug 13, 2018 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

Danny Kaye as Hobart Frisbee. A musical remake of Ball of Fire must have been one of the easiest pitches of all time. After all, the original 1941 comedy--penned by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett--was about a bunch of academics writing an encyclopedia about music. Ball of Fire starred Gary Coope... Read full article


Film Review: A Song Is Born (1948)

By Christina Stewart on Mar 19, 2014 From Pretty Clever Films

Our Howard Hawks-athon this month at Pretty Clever Films continues with a look at A Song Is Born. A carbon copy remake of Hawks? own screwball classic Ball of Fire (1941). A Song Is Born stars Danny Kaye, in the role originated by Gary Cooper, with Virginia Mayo taking on the Barbara Stanwyck role a... Read full article


A Song Is Born (1948)

on Jan 24, 2014 From Journeys in Classic Film

We’ve come to the end of our time with Danny Kaye and it’s was a pleasant experience, overall.? None of the movies in Warner Archive’s two Kaye collections were terrible or unwatchable, although I did find two (The Court Jester and The Kid From Brooklyn) head and shoulders above th... Read full article


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Quotes from

Professor Hobart Frisbee: [to Miss Bragg, after she has summoned a cab for Honey Swanson] It's all yours, Crabapple Annie!


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Facts about

In 1948, when "A Song Is Born" was released, the American Federation of Musicians was striking the record companies and union musicians could not legally make records. Nonetheless, the union allowed Capitol Records to make an album of music from the film because the company agreed to donate the proceeds to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund, In the year between the film shooting and the recording sessions, Benny Goodman had radically changed the personnel of his band - notably adding two bebop musicians, trumpeter Theodore "Fats" Navarro and tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray - so the version of "Stealin' Apples" on the record doesn't sound at all like the one heard in the movie.
(Inside joke) When asked to play without music, Prof. Magenbruch (Benny Goodman) says, "You can't play without music." The others answer, "Well, Benny Goodman used to." Magenbruch then says he's never heard of Benny Goodman.
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