Danny Kaye’s Two Sets of Screen Tests

Producer Sam Goldwyn wanted to make sure Danny (and one particular Goldwyn Girl) were ready for their close-ups before filming started on Up in Arms.

Soon after signing his five-picture deal with Sam Goldwyn to come to Hollywood, Danny Kaye agreed to report to the studio a year early—in August 1942, during the summer hiatus of his hit Broadway show, Let’s Face It—to make a series of screen tests. Those tests, which resulted in Goldwyn bleaching Danny’s hair blond and almost forcing him to undergo plastic surgery on his nose, are covered in my book, Danny Kaye: King of Jesters.

But what I did not mention is that Goldwyn later had Kaye undergo a second series of screen tests before he would allow the cameras to officially begin rolling on his first movie, Up in Arms.

After Let’s Face It closed in the spring of 1943, Kaye relocated to Hollywood to begin preparing for his first feature film role. He was originally supposed to star alongside a Broadway revue performer, Virginia Mayo, but Kaye’s wife, Sylvia, protested. Goldwyn agreed to consider casting another unknown, Constance Dowling, in her place and relegating Mayo, for this one picture, to featured “Goldwyn Girl.” Mayo then would be promoted to co-star for Danny’s four remaining films.

Goldwyn insisted, however, that Mayo be included in the stars’ color tests, which were filmed to sync the Technicolor and to make sure all the leads looked and sounded perfect.

Principal photography was set to begin June 21, 1943. On May 10, the studio produced Color Test A with Kaye, Mayo, Dowling, Dinah Shore, and Dana Andrews running through lines inside a hospital room.

On May 20, under the supervision of director Elliott Nugent, they filmed Test B on the dock and inside Dr. Hamiliton’s office. This time, only Kaye, Mayo and Andrews were needed. No Dowling.

And on June 14, Color Test C featured Kaye, Mayo, Dowling, Shore and Lenore Aubert.

The next several days included make-up tests, wardrobe tests, dialogue rehearsals, and posing for color stills. For all of them, Goldwyn made sure Kaye was joined by Mayo—providing her with perhaps one of the most exhaustive preparations for a bit part in movie history.

Son of Goldwyn Helped Spread Kaye Stories

Producer Sam Goldwyn's son began producing shows himself not long after Kaye appeared in his sixth and final Goldwyn film, Hans Christian Andersen (1952).

Samuel Goldwyn Jr., son of the independent studio head who brought Danny Kaye to Hollywood and produced his first five films, died Jan. 9 at the age of 88.

His legendary father saw Kaye on Broadway in Lady in the Dark in 1940 and immediately began to pursue him for films. It took him until May 14, 1942, to sign Kaye and his songwriting wife, Sylvia Fine, to a five-picture deal, the first—the war comedy Up in Arms—to begin production a year later.

It was followed by Wonderman, The Kid from Brooklyn, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and A Song Is Born. After Danny left to “freelance,” he returned to Goldwyn one last time, for Hans Christian Andersen (1952).

Goldwyn Jr. became a respected producer in his own right, first in television in the 1950s and eventually in the movies starting in the 1980s. But I’ll always know him as the person who donated—and maintained strict control over—his father’s business papers to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s Margaret Herrick Library.

After several years of begging, I was finally able to get permission from Mr. Goldwyn to pore over scripts, treatments, production records, contracts and correspondence concerning the making of the six Kaye films—research that proved invaluable in the writing of my book Danny Kaye: King of Jesters.

Goldwyn Jr. also held on to the rights to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and over the last decade-plus of his life, he continuing searching for the right script and the right star to remake the Kaye classic. He finally settled on Ben Stiller, whose 2013 film would prove to be Goldwyn Jr.’s final screen credit.

Grandfather of "The Lobby Number"

Danny Kaye wasn't the first to poke fun at "Apple Blossom Time" in Up in Arms' "Lobby Number."

My favorite Danny Kaye number is “The Lobby Number,” from his first feature, Up in Arms. The song’s convoluted creation (which continued even after the number was filmed, so Danny had to go back and film parts again) is fully detailed in the book Danny Kaye: King of Jesters. But, in brief, Sylvia Fine and Max Liebman created most of the number by piecing together snippets of songs and sketch jokes they’d written for movie spoofs at Camp Tamiment.

But what about the number’s most famous line, “When it’s cherry blossom time in Orange, New Jersey, we’ll make a peach of a pear”—where did that come from? Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, if you go back far enough. For Up in Arms, Sylvia pilfered the line from a ditty she’d written at Tamiment, a Busby Berkeley-type production number, “Cherry Blossom Time” (“When it’s cherry blossom time in Orange, New Jersey, we’ll make a peach of a pear. Oh, honeydew be mine, because we cantaloupe. I’ll take you to the chapel, as the apple of my I declare, the month of May is merry, for girls ‘n’ boysenberry…”). Sylvia’s inspiration was “When It’s Apple Blossom Time in Normandy,” a pop song that was a huge hit—in 1913.

But Fine wasn’t the first to spoof the song. In 1917, Jerome Kern and P.G. Wodehouse made fun of it (and other “When it’s something-or-other-time in some place far away place” songs, like “Tulip Time in Holland”) in “Nesting Time in Flatbush” for the 1917 Broadway show Oh Boy! And, five years later, Cole Porter included a joke about the lyrics in his song “Cocktail Time” from his show Mayfair and Montmartre.

For the record, Sylvia insisted she’d never heard of the Kern or Porter songs when she wrote “The Lobby Number.”

Danny Kaye’s Other Christmas Movie

Danny Kaye nearly played this scene in a flowing white beard and overstuffed red suit.

As the top moneymaker of 1954 and a perennial TV favorite ever since, White Christmas may have become Danny Kaye’s most-remembered movie—but it very nearly wasn’t his first Christmas movie. A decade earlier, Kaye had begun production of another holiday-themed classic—until an on-set injury led to the project losing its festive trimmings.

Back in 1944, Sam Goldwyn put his writers to work preparing a follow-up to Danny’s debut in Up in Arms. Over the first few drafts, the story evolved from Danny playing a bookish genius who disguises himself as a nightclub performer to help solve a murder into making the nightclub performer Danny’s obnoxious twin—who becomes the murder victim—and who returns as a ghost to assist his brother.

Goldwyn, though, didn’t want the story to get too grim, so for draft number 6, he brought in Jo Swerling, a frequent collaborator of All American director Frank Capra. Among Swerling’s suggestions:  re-setting the story at Christmas time. The holidays would be worked into the storyline, most notably during the climax, in which gangsters chase Danny’s bookworm character through a crowded department store.

Swerling and Mel Shavelson scripted a string of comedy sequences, as Kaye tries dodging the hitmen on elevators, hiding out amid a nylons sale, and mixing in with the Goldwyn Girls as models in a fashion show (a scene copied a couple of years later in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty). Danny finally swipes a Santa costume and takes the place of St. Nick greeting kids in the toy department. But the gangsters recognize him and start chasing Santa through the store, to the customers’ disbelief. Danny finally makes it into the package room and slides out of the building on a package chute. But the hoods aren’t far behind. On the street, they run up behind Santa and grab him—only to discover it’s a Salvation Army Santa. They look up, and there’s a Santa on every corner.

Danny flees to the nightclub. The gangsters arrive a moment later, but—noticing the DA in the audience—Kaye (still dressed as Santa) bounds on to the stage, in the middle of Vera-Ellen’s dance routine, and makes up a song in which he lyrically reenacts the murder he’s witnessed, playing all the characters himself.

Executives at the studio loved the film’s new holiday overlay so much, they wanted to rename the movie The Christmas Spirit and release it in December. Goldwyn enjoyed the Christmas elements, but thought there were too many holiday pictures all ready. He’d stick with the name Wonder Man. After five more script rewrites, filming began in July 1944, with some Christmas elements—particularly the Santa store chase—intact. Unfortunately, four days into production, Danny severely wrenched his knee finishing up the film’s opening dance number.

With Kaye (and sometimes two of him!) in almost every scene, production had to be shut down for three weeks. During that time, the director brought in gagwriter Phil Rapp to completely revise the screenplay. To save time and money, Rapp cut the entire department store sequence and ultimately all other Christmas references (since, without the Santa finale and with no chance of making a December release date, they were unneccessary).

Swerling would get a supernatural Christmas story filmed, however. Right after working on Wonder Man, he rejoined Capra one final time—to help write It’s a Wonderful Life.

Thanksgiving Special: Danny Kaye Chows Down

Elsa Lanchester looks on as Danny Kaye finally performs his "Busy Eater" routine in The Inspector General.

Although Danny Kaye never wrote his own material for his movies, he did dream up a collection of dialects, characters and routines to amuse his friends that ended up inspiring his screenwriters (the most famous being his “surgery scat” that his wife Sylvia Fine used as the basis for “Melody in 4-F,” which made it into his first movie, Up in Arms).

The head writer on his first three movies was Don Hartman, one of Danny’s closest pals, who was intimately familiar with Kaye’s formal and informal material. Consequently, Hartman was always trying to work Danny’s bits into his storylines. Another chum was Phil Rapp (creator of radio’s The Bickersons and Baby Snooks), who was brought in on Kaye’s first six movies to doctor the scripts (i.e., to add as many gags as possible).

For The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), Rapp hoped to include Danny’s “Busy Eater” routine. Kaye, a serial mocker, thought the act up one night while dining with friends at a Chinese restaurant. Sitting nearby was a man energetically filling his face without taking a breath. Kaye was so intrigued by his eating style that he spontaneously began imitating the customer. From then on, Danny could send friends into convulsions whenever he sat down at a dinner table.

Unfortunately, the bit was a poor match for the Kid from Brooklyn storyline and was dropped. But two years later, Rapp tried again, slipping it into a rewrite for A Song Is Born. Once again, the plot had to be stretched too far to create a situation in which Kaye’s character is so starved that he pigs out in fast motion.

A year later, however, Rapp got his golden opportunity. The script that he was brought in to doctor for The Inspector General already contained a scene in which Danny’s character is starving and is treated to a feast by the unsuspecting townspeople. The set-up was waiting for him! Finally, Kaye could be filmed maniacally chewing, chugging, cutting, buttering and seasoning for posterity.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 6. One Big Fat Contract

Danny Kaye really had no interest in appearing in White Christmas. He simply did not care for supporting roles. A few years earlier, he’d agreed to co-star with Gene Kelly in a musical Huckleberry Finn for MGM, but—just as filming was about to begin—he backed out. He knew that he’d disappear behind Kelly in any MGM musical.

Consequently, he didn’t think his role would be any better appearing alongside Bing Crosby in a movie built around Crosby’s most famous song. But Kaye also didn’t want to just say no to Paramount. His personal production company had just completed its first picture, Knock on Wood, and Paramount had provided funding, equipment, crews, offices, and distribution—and agreed to do the same for a second film. Indeed, production had gone so well, Kaye’s partners were in the midst of negotiating a second two-picture deal with Paramount.

In addition, Paramount’s liaison to Kaye—Don Hartman—was a close personal friend of Danny's. He oversaw the writing of Kaye's first three movies in Hollywood (Up in Arms, Wonder Man, and The Kid from Brooklyn) and nearly teamed up with Danny to form their own production company in the late 1940s.

In August 1953, when Hartman begged Kaye to take the role, he was desperate, after already losing Fred Astaire and Donald O’Connor. The script, music, costumes, sets, everything was ready and waiting.

So Danny agreed to appear for the ridiculous amount of $200,000 (more than double O’Connor’s price) plus 10% of the profits, convinced that Paramount would pass. Paramount had already promised to split the profits in thirds with Crosby and Berlin, but—out of options—consented to pay the $200,000, if Crosby and Berlin each gave Kaye 5% of their cuts. Both happily agreed, figuring that the picture—and, in turn, they—would make more in the long run with Kaye in the cast.

Ironically, the role Kaye didn’t want turned out to be the most lucrative of his career.