THE MAN FROM THE DINERS' CLUB

US, 1963, 96 minutes, Black and white.
Danny Kaye, Telly Savalas, Martha Hyer, Cara Williams, Everett Sloane, George Kennedy.
Directed by Frank Tashlin.

The Man From the Diners' Club is the last of the typical Danny Kaye comedies. It is rather slight in comparison with Kaye's great successes of the '40s and '50s. The director is Franklin Tashlin, a noted director of slight comedies who worked often with Jerry Lewis. The screenplay was co-written by Bill Blatty who later became William Peter Blatty of Exorcist fame. The film is generally a pleasant Danny Kaye comedy with all kinds of routines and ironies (of the hoodlum chases the innocent hero variety).

1. The appeal of Danny Kaye as a character and as a comedian? The particulars of his style? The popularity and enjoyment of his films? This as his last major feature film?

2. The use of black and white photography? Music? The Runyonesque atmosphere? Comic gangsters and their exploits? Plus computers and work? The attitudes towards machines and computers in the '60s? (Plus the coffee break?)

3. The particular qualities of Danny Kaye in this film? How did he characterise Ernie Krenk? As a poor man of the '60s? As an individual, a weak man, a bumbler and a bungler? The importance of his confronting older gangsters and their style? His confrontation of modern machines? The type that would be conquered by both yet succeeds? The moral implications of the Danny Kaye portrayal of the little American man?

4. The character of Ernie Krenk as seen at his work and his relationship with Lucy, the delay of their wedding? The change of character in his pretence of going to the gym to be an instructor? His trying to remedy the situation of giving the card to a crook? In the light of his issuing a card to a dog? His encounter with Sugar Pye? The dangers? The challenge? The chase and his outwitting the gangsters? The success of the little man?

5. The comic devices in the film? Danny Kaye's skill in mimicry and impersonations? Comic lines? Slapstick humour?

6. The background of the Diners' Club and the world of finance, credit, standards for credit cards, the card as a symbol for the gangsters? The satire on money and its possibilities? Especially the gangsters using the card for
such wide purposes? The people involved and their dedication to computers and cards? Especially the girl who fainted when her system was wrecked?

7. The character of Lucy? Heroine, foil to Danny Kaye? Her friend and her acid comments?

8. The comic portrayal of the gangsters, especially Foots Pulardos, Telly Savalas and this kind of comedy? The various plots for death, making money? The gymnasium, its atmosphere and the people who ran it? The satire on the big feet? The satire on Sugar Pye and her relationship with Pulardos?

9. The scenes between Sugar and Ernie? Especially in the dumbwaiter and the police, with the hippy kind of party and poetry recital, in jail?

10. The build-up in the use of the cards, the elaborate scheme of escape, the satire on this escape and chase? The humour of Foots on the bike pursuing Sugar?

11. The importance of the climax of the chase in the gymnasium? The various details of Danny Kaye's escape, the car chase after the explosion? Drawing the police into the chase, the satire on the freeways and accidents happening there?

12. How appropriate was the happy ending for this kind of film? Appropriate for the success of the little man as portrayed by Danny Kaye?