Monday, 25 April 2016

The Five Pennies...

When the film came out in 1959, the family all trooped down to Hastings to see it, as Danny Kaye was the sort of chap we all liked to see and hear back then!

I was eleven or twelve, and although I knew the basic tune of The Battle Hymn of The Republic, I remember to this day, that when Danny Kaye took his cornet out and started the swing version of the music, he immediately did a 'twiddle', which I didn't understand...

Of course, it was jazz as grown-ups knew it, but not Scrobs at his tender age!

I've only just found this clip, and the bit I still whistle from all those years ago, even having heard it only once, is when he's walking across to Louis Armstrong (presumably sober by now...)!


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6 comments:

  1. rvi26 April 2016 at 06:35

    Simply brilliant!

    Do you know I never before knew that Danny was a musician. All I seem to remember him for was "Tubby the Tuba" and "The Ugly Duckling".

    Live and learn!

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  2. Scrobs.28 April 2016 at 05:59

    The first film I ever saw was 'Hans Christian Anderson', Reevers!

    Danny Kaye was very popular with my family, and even much later, in the sixties, he had a show here, where he really did prove himself as a very funny man!

    I'm not entirely sure that he actually was playing the Red Nichols cornet, but it looked pretty damn good to me, and sounds great even today!

    Got another trumpet solo to remember, ready for another post one day...

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  3. rvi28 April 2016 at 15:06

    OK - I'll promise to watch - so long as it is not Eddie Calvert and his blasted "golden trumpet" which used to make me cringe as I was growing up.

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  4. Scrobs.29 April 2016 at 14:39

    No, it won't be that awful noise, but someone much better...

    By the way, It was also my job to dash and turn off the radio as soon as Billy Cotton got as far as "Wakey Wa....."

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  5. rvi2 May 2016 at 04:36

    Ha ha! I still have a luvverly bunch-a-coconut shaped little wooden whistles that wouldn't... Alan Breeze was a gem and refs are still as useless as they always were.

    In our house, long before the advent of 24hr television, Sunday lunchtime always included compulsory listening to Round the Horne (see the trumpet connection there?) and the Navy Lark. They don't make 'em like they used to any more.... Sunday evenings were dedicated to Radio Luxembourg - "248 on the medium wave" and Dan Dare's night starvation(!) problems. Younger viewers will have no idea what I am talking about here. Ah well, never mind n'import rien.

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  6. Scrobs.2 May 2016 at 04:55

    That's an interesting point, Reevers!

    Leslie Phillips saying 'Right-hand down a bit' always got a hoot with my family, probably listening to the same programme at the same time!

    Round the Horne was always a huge laugh, and I suppose 'I'm sorry I'll read that again' became 'Son of...'!

    I liked Jack Jackson on Lux best, and his cat!

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