I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Best movie ever!

A lot of fun.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

A colossal Danny Kaye bomb.It's amazing that Danny's film career went anywhere after a film as miserable as this. This was not the film to showcase his talents.Dana Andrews was not for musicals. It was as simple as that. He played his sidekick in this and was Jeanne Crain's love interest in "State Fair." Andrews hit his stride in "The Best Years of Our Lives."Danny is a severe hypochondriac in this film. He gets drafted and loves Constance Dowling who doesn't have the heart to tell him that it's Andrews who is her love interest. Dinah Shore, as Virginia, loves Danny but he can't see it.General mayhem develops when all 4 of the characters are on the ship and Dowling becomes a castaway by accident.Look for Margaret Dumont in 2 brief scenes. I guess she was taking a respite from the Marx Brothers. She is not even at her gawky best here.Also miscast are Louie Calhern and Lyle Talbot, both wonderful character actors, who have little to do here and are wasted.Dinah sings nicely and I guess that she and Kaye make a nice Jewish couple. That's about it.

As a general Rule, I hate Hollywood musicals - Certain Musicals. This is just my personal taste and no offense to those who love musicals. Mostly because, and I bet a lot of people will agree with me, the music is just badly written. Always there are exceptions to the rule, and one of those being Danny Kaye (Another being Kay Kaiser).The Technicolor on this is just fantastic and the music and lyrics are of the best of the Danny Kaye films. It is a great comedy on it's own having a pretty hilarious premise and several incidents that have you howling in laughter even after 60 years or so. Danny Kaye is a dailectition of superb talent, and his fake Scottish in this movie is hilarious.Finally, Danny Kaye was a Musical genius, and I do not know any other entertainer who could use his flapper and a musical instrument as well. I have laughed Long Hours due to this guy all through my life, even if I have seen the film several times! Hahaha! Dinah Shore has a real swell number as well- Kind of in the middle of the film. I like Dinah Shore as his "leading lady" - I like how she is dressed, I love the sharp shoulders on her costumes, she was about as odd as he was. And this oddity is what made this film so classic. His most beautiful leading lady was always Virginia Mayo, but Shore is really funny and so it is a good match up.Of course there is the Danny Kaye­™ "Dream Sequence" and this one is fantastic. I love the flaming Women Torches- Goldwyn always made a little mini production out of those sequences. I don't know if Danny himself suggested these, but several of his movies have them and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" Practically consists of them. Wonder Man is another. So of course "Up in Arms" has a couple very good imagination sequences like that, including the ending.But nothing is as good as Kaye standing in front of a full Orchestra, dementing the music. This film has one scene in particular, where you can certainly say, that music, used as a comedy tool, works very well.

This is about as corny as they come. Everybody's so -- NICE. Danny Kaye is a shy elevator operator. Dinah Shore is a nurse who loves him. Constance Dowling is the girl Danny Kaye thinks he loves, but when she meets Danny's roommate, Dana Andrews, they fall for one another. (During a scene involving a horse-drawn milk wagon -- those were the days.) They all wind up in the Army and are sent to the Pacific. Danny accidentally becomes a hero. He winds up with Dinah, and Constance winds up with Dana. Everybody lives happily ever after.The whole thing was shot in an MGM studio and looks entirely phony.I love it. I used to watch it repeatedly with my kid when he was about ten. We had practically all the dialog memorized. The hypochondriacal Kaye is taking a passenger in his elevator, down from a doctor's office to the lobby. The guy tells Kaye he's feeling just fine now and clears his throat a bit. "What's that clicking in your throat?" asks Kaye, backing away. By the time they reach the lobby the poor guy staggers out, his face pale, his hands clutched to his chest.Well, no need to go on about this. It's a salubrious mixture of romance and comedy, with Kaye having to imitate a Scotsman and so forth, acquiring the reputation of a real lady's man and the nickname "The Purple Flash." His ridiculous song is in my opinion the funniest he's done on screen. We glean from the gibberish that he's been drafted and is trying to get out of it by offering all kinds of excuses to the draft board. In one of them -- I guess I can mention this, since it seemed to have slipped by the censors -- he's offering medical reasons why he should be exempt. Weeping piteously, still sputtering nonsense, he makes a pumping motion with his fist then points to his head and twirls his finger. At the end he falls off the stage into the band.Just two more things, I swear, then I'll quit. Dinah Shore gets to sing and record a really lovely gelatinous 1940s ballad. What a marvelous voice she had, so on pitch, feminine, and full of feeling. The name of the song is "Now I Know." The lyricist should be drummed out of his professional society. Here -- as in the other one or two songs -- the lyrics are about as bad as they come. ("Ten million Yankees are standing PAT and the world knows THAT isn't hay!") At any rate, Kaye takes the record and a forbidden record player on board the troopship, where he is harassed by most of the other soldiers, big tough specimens too. During one confrontation with them, the record starts playing and Kaye has to lip-synch the words while the others stare at him goggle-eyed. Finally, the stylus gets caught in a groove and Dinah Shore's voice repeats itself -- "Now I know....Now I know.....Now I know...." One of the soldiers, a suspicious and particularly feral brute, Blackie, slowly traces the music to its source, uncovers the record player and says in his working-class New York accent, "Now we BOTE know," and flings Kaye against the bulkhead.It's an engaging movie, well worth catching if it's on, and suitable for family viewing. (Never mind that gesture during Kaye's gibberish song. I'm sure the practice flourishes but the causal meme has faded.)

This is not Danny Kaye's best effort. That would be The Court Jester, as far as I am concerned. This movie was badly written. It wasn't horribly acted but the actors weren't given anything much to work with. Danny deserved better and so did Dinah Shore. She should have been a much bigger movie star than she was. She was very talented and had excellent screen presence. Too bad this movie is one of her few movies.At the end of the day, don't waste your time. If you want to see GOOD Danny Kaye movies, find The Court Jester, The Inspector General, White Christmas...or his dramas The Five Pennies or Skokie. He was a brilliant comedian AND dramatic actor. Don't use this movie as an example of his best work.