ON THE RIVIERA
US, 1951, 89 minutes, Colour.
Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney, Corinne Calvet, Marcel Dalio, Jean Murat, Clinton Sundberg, Sig Rumann.
Directed by Walter Lang.
Danny Kaye was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is interesting to look back now and to see whether he makes such an impact with his patter songs and, especially, with his impersonations.
This film is a remake of the Maurice Chevalier vehicle, Folies Bergere. Danny Kaye portrays a comedian doing the clubs on the Riviera as well as a philandering industrialist. He is invited to impersonate the industrialist at an important party, even deceiving the wife (played by Gene Tierney, not an actress who appeared in comedies). Eventually, he is unmasked by other girlfriends as well as by the business rivals.
The film was considered very amusing in its time. It was directed by Walter Lang, who was about to direct such films as There’s No Business Like Show Business and The King and I.
Danny Kaye won a Golden Globe as best actor in a comedy for his performance.
1. The quality of this comedy and its use of comedy conventions?
2. The standard of the film as a Danny Kaye vehicles comedy, characterisation, music and songs, style?
3. The importance of the plot? Its slight nature, the question of mistaken identities, contrasting of identical-looking characters?
4. The importance of the structure for audience interest and involvement, the songs, events taking place over 48 hours, the significance of the finale and the happy ending?
5. Danny Kaye's contribution to the film? His skill in presenting two diverse characters? Jack Martin as a genial and soft kind of entertainer, Henri the celebrity, the womaniser, the businessman, the man who had to reform his relationships? Danny Kaye's ability to bring humanity even to comic characterisations? What were the elements which contrasted the two men? Relationships, business, success, attractiveness?
6. How attractive was Collette? The type of chorus girl and nightclub entertainer, her infatuation with Henri? her love for Jack?
7. The contrast with Lily, her suffering with Henri, her keeping up face, her enjoying the masquerade at the dinner, her worry about the night that she spent?
8. The importance of the identities and the truth? The truth about each character? The use of farce and mistaken identities during the dinner? The moralising about each character?
9. The importance of the supporting casts as types rather than as characters? The club manager, Henri's two advisors, his business enemy?
10. The quality of the humour of the film? Where did it get its main laughs?
11. The contribution of the songs?
12. The importance of Danny Kaye's style of comic humanity?
