Mel Powell Movies
- 1954
Co-produced by famed documentarian Willard Van Dyke, Lonely Night was filmed in cooperation with the Mental Health Film Board. The 62-minute "docudrama" focuses on a young girl named Caroline, who suffers from emotional depression and is under psychiatric care. As the story progresses, the audience is made aware that Caroline's mental condition is as much the result of her environment as of her own inner demons. Caroline is played by Marian Seldes, the daughter of pop-culture critic Gilbert Seldes and later a prolific stage and soap-opera actress. Lonely Night is narrated by another familiar character actor, Frank Silvera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marian Seldes, Charles Moffett, (more)
A Song is Born is a musical remake of the 1941 comedy Ball of Fire, with the same producer (Sam Goldwyn) and director (Howard Hawks) at the helm. It will be recalled that the original film, co-scripted by Billy Wilder, was an amusing spin on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," wherein seven pedantic professors, working on a dictionary of slang, "adopted" an authority on the subject, breezy burlesque dancer Sugarpuss O'Shea. In the remake, the septet of scholars are working on an encyclopedia of music, but they're held up on the subject of "swing." When nightclub singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo), escaping from her gangster suitor Tony Crow (Steve Cochran), takes refuge in the professors' home, she offers to introduce them to the world of popular music. This proves to be quite a tuneful undertaking, since two of the professors are played by Danny Kaye and Benny Goodman! The tang and zest of original plotline has been muted to the point of harmlessness, but the film is saved by the presence of Goodman, his fellow bandleaders Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey and Mel Powell, and specialty performers Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Buck & Bubbles. A Song is Born was Danny Kaye's final starring vehicle for Sam Goldwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, (more)
