The Kid from Brooklyn (1946)

Who's in it?: Danny Kaye (Up in Arms, Wonder Man, White Christmas), Virginia Mayo (The Princess and the Pirate, Wonder Man), Vera-Ellen (Wonder Man, White Christmas), and Steve Cochran (Wonder Man)

What's it about?: A milkman (Kaye) accidentally knocks out a professional boxer (Cochran) and is pressured by the fighter's manager into becoming a boxer himself.

How is it?: Easily my favorite of the three early Danny Kaye movies we've seen so far this year. In addition to Cochran, Vera-Ellen and Virginia Mayo are also both back from Wonder Man, playing Kaye's sister and girlfriend respectively. The movie's as funny as the previous two, but the music is better with even more focus on Vera-Ellen's amazing dancing.

There's also a nice character arc for Kaye's milkman and Cochran reminds me of Bobby Cannavale in all the best ways. And there's a great payoff gag at the end of the movie that made me want to rewatch the whole thing again right then.

Rating: Four out of five pugilistic pasteurized-product peddlers.

Wonder Man (1945)

Who's in it?: Danny Kaye (White Christmas), Virginia Mayo (Captain Horatio Hornblower RN), and Vera-Ellen (also White Christmas)

What's it about?: When a nightclub comedian is murdered by the mob, his ghost teams up with his nerdy twin brother to bring the killers to justice.

How is it?: Danny Kaye's second movie was also the screen debut of Vera-Ellen, who teams up with him again in White Christmas. I'm going to need to watch through her filmography alongside Kaye's. She's amazing in White Christmas and her dancing is just as impressive in Wonder Man where she plays another nightclub performer who's dating Kaye's comedian character.

I like the story here much more than Up in Arms. Kaye is great in both of his roles, but he's especially funny as the hapless, introverted, totally uncomfortable bookworm who sees a ghost that nobody else can. Virgina Mayo plays the woman that the academic brother is interested in and she's great, too.

Rating: Four out of five wacky, but vengeful ghosts.

Up in Arms (1944)

I miss doing these short movie reviews. And since I'm watching my way through a couple of filmographies this year, I thought it might be nice to document them instead of just briefly mentioning them in my Year End Wrap-Up next January.

Who's in it?: Danny Kaye (White Christmas), Dinah Shore (lots of '70s variety and sketch shows), Dana Andrews (Night of the Demon, Laura), and Constance Dowling (whom I didn't know before, but dang she's cute)

What's it about?: It's J Geils Band's "Love Stinks": The Movie. She loves him, but he loves her, but she loves somebody else. In the military.

How is it?: After enjoying Danny Kaye for years in annual viewings of White Christmas, I decided to finally look at some of his other films this year. This was his first starring role and it's a funny one, though not as hilarious as I expected.

Shore is in love with Kaye who's in love with Dowling who's in love with Andrews who (in a not so shocking twist) is actually in love with Dowling back. There's a lot of lead-up before the four of them join the army and are deployed to the South Pacific. The plot is extremely loose, really just something to hang some wacky hi-jinx and mediocre songs on, but it's easy to see why Kaye became a star. He and Shore (whose voice gets a lot of deserved attention) do some cool scat singing, which I enjoy. And it's always nice to see Dana Andrews.

Rating: Three out of five singing soldiers.