Up in Arms Reviews
“Comic Hits Stardom in First Try”
Danny Kaye Clicks In ‘Up in Arms’
The Pittsburgh
Press – Sep. 8, 1944
By: Dick Fortune
Spoiler Alert!
This review contains a simple summary of the movie.
So if you haven’t seen Up in
Arms and don’t want to know what happens,
only read the sections highlighted in yellow
for reviews on Danny.
There’s a new comedy star on the screen these days. Danny Kaye, the youngster
who clicked on Broadway a couple of seasons back has made the leap to Hollywood’s
top rank in one big picture—“Up in Arms” now at Loew’s Penn.
Actually
there isn’t much to the piece in which Dynamic Danny makes his debut. In fact if
he didn’t possess extraordinary talent for comedy, he might have been lost in the
hodge podge of Technicolor. But Kaye does have an unusual amount of talent for laugh-
Idea Borrowed
The idea for the story was borrowed from “The Nervous Wreck,” a comedy
of a couple of decades back. Danny plays a hypochondriac who gets a job as elevator
man in a medical building in order to be near doctors to whom he can explain his
multiple ailments.
But the draft board doctors know of his assumed ills
and he finds himself a regulation G.I. Joe. The nice part of his Army stretch however
is that his pal goes along and before they are sent overseas, the girl friends get
to go along as Army nurses.
He’s a Hero
Danny’s outfit is sent to the South Pacific and after being faced with
court martial he comes a hero by capturing 20 Japs. The picture starts out with that
incident and then goes on to explain how it’s done.
Kaye has a style of
comedy all his own and he appears to be a bundle of nervous energy that must keep
in motion. His routine includes nearly everything in the fun-