A Song Is Born (1948)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Thomas Monroe (story)
Billy Wilder (story)

Release Date:

19 October 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

Gangster's moll Honey Swanson goes into hiding when her boyfriend is under investigation by the police...

Plot Keywords:

Remake | Beautiful Woman | Remake By Original Director

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Danny Kaye	...	Professor Hobart Frisbee
Virginia Mayo	...	Honey Swanson
Benny Goodman	...	Professor Magenbruch
Tommy Dorsey	...	Himself
Louis Armstrong	...	Himself
Lionel Hampton	...	Himself
Charlie Barnet	...	Himself
Mel Powell	...	Himself
Ford Washington Lee	...	Buck (as Buck and Bubbles)
John William Sublett	...	Bubbles (as Buck and Bubbles)
Page Cavanaugh Trio	...	Themselves
The Golden Gate Quartette	...	Themselves (as The Golden Gate Quartet)
Samba Kings	...	Themselves (as Russo and the Samba Kings)
Hugh Herbert	...	Professor Twingle
Steve Cochran	...	Tony Crow

Also Known As:

That's Life (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Samuel Goldwyn Company, The

Trivia:

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.

Goofs:

Continuity: While at the resort, with everyone sitting around the table, the candles are different lengths depending on the angle of the shot.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Superman II: Restoring the Vision (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

Daddy-O

Enjoyable musical comedy (more so if you haven't seen the original)

This is a musical remake of the 1940 classic "Ball of Fire". The plot is almost the same, a gangster's moll crashes the residence of a bunch of professors who are writing an encyclopedia, and falls in love the the youngest one. This time they're a musical encyclopedia rather than a generalized one, which allows for a lot of musical numbers, some of them pretty enjoyable. It's a lively, superficial, colorful musical with some laughs to it, if you haven't seen "Ball of Fire" you'll probably have quite a good time.

But the film and especially the performances are vastly inferior to the original. Virginia Mayo is the same as she always was in musical comedies, a sort of generic leading lady/straight man. Danny Kaye is limited by his role, he's playing an uptight nerd and can't use his fabulous manic energy at all for most of the film (Gary Cooper was absolutely hilarious as the uptight nerd in the original, he was one good actor). The supporting performances are all pretty cartoonish, none stand out, but there are appearances by Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, and Lionel Hampton which you might want to catch.