Escándalo en la Costa Azul

Not all Danny Kaye films have lasted well. In my opinion the two that have are "The Court Jester" and "On The Riviera".

"On the Riviera" is a superbly mounted comedy, with gorgeous Riviera scenery, lavish sets, and some ravishingly beautiful women. The mistaken identity plot is an old one but there great scenes of confusion and some good and sometimes surprisingly suggestive dialogue, unusual for the time especially in a Danny Kaye movie.

Dance routines are imaginative and energetic with some statuesque and eager looking chorus girls. Gwen Verdon does a specialty number.

Thoroughly enjoyable, it stands up to repeat viewing.

There is probably more remakes left in The Red Cat, the play on which Folies Bergere, That Night In Rio, and now On The Riviera is based. Danny Kaye in this film steps into the shoes of first Maurice Chevalier and Don Ameche and they fit well.

Like his predecessors Kaye plays dual roles, an American entertainer who includes impressions in his act and a French industrialist who was an air ace a World War ago. The entertainer has Corinne Calvet in his act as an assistant and the industrialist is married to Gene Tierney.

When the industrialist makes a secret trip to Great Britain for some financing his associates are left holding the bag with another French industrialist. They hire Kaye the entertainer to impersonate the industrialist and the results, especially with the interaction between the women are hilarious.

I'm surprised that Danny Kaye never thought to play the Dromios in a film version of A Comedy Of Errors. With his friend Laurence Olivier as Antipholus it would have been a classic.

On The Riviera got two Oscar nominations for Art&Set Direction and for musical scoring by Alfred Newman. Sylvia Fine also known as Mrs. Kaye wrote most of the score and Popo The Puppet got Kaye a lot of success with his children fans. But the hit was the oldtime ragtime song Ballin' The Jack revived for On The Riviera.

This film holds up well and one of these days Robin Williams will see this as a property for him. As it is three fine films have been made already.

"The Red Cat" was a Broadway play. It was back Darryl Zanuck and brought to the screen almost immediately as "Folies Bergère de Paris" and then, within a short time, remade it as "A Night in Rio" and now here in "On the Riviera"! And, if that isn't enough, the basic story idea of this script is very familiar--using one of Hollywood's oldest clichés--the 'identical stranger'. Like "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "The Prince and the Pauper", this movie hinges on the audience accepting that this is possible. In other words, if you can't accept this, the film will be rough sailing.

In this version, the lead is played by the talented Danny Kaye--who sings and dances up a storm. Now if you like singing and dancing, you're in luck. If you don't, then once again it will be rough sailing. My problems is that I am not a huge musical fan. There are, of course, exceptions. Kaye plays dual roles--a singer/dancer as well as a famous French aviator. The humor begins, such as it is, when the aviator is in London and he's needed in Paris--so, reluctantly, the actor/dancer is paid to pretend to be the aviator. The acting is quite good but the story is just too old and too familiar to make the story anything other than a time-passer.

By the way, while I wasn't all that impressed by this film, I must say that the special features on the DVD for the film are terrific--and actually make watching it worth while. I especially liked "The Rivera Story", as it showed side-by-side comparisons of the three films--and they were often word-for-word the same picture.

My axiom is that any movie featuring Gene Tierney deserves to be viewed, and "On the Riviera" is one of them. The plot is a moderately funny comedy of errors, with Danny Kaye in the roles of an American cabaret-entertainer and of his double, a French hero-aviator. The acting is generally good. The photography is accurate, with bright, spirit-raising colors, worthy of the beauties of the Cote d' Azur (but the movie appears to have been largely made elsewhere). Kaye performs a number of nice, though longish, ballets. Gene Tierney has the opportunity to show her talent just in one scene, when she is uncertain whether she has slept with her actual husband, the pilot, or with his American double (by the way: a bit salacious situation for the early fifties, isn't it?). With her usual professionalism, Gene doesn't steal the show to the pretty Corinne Calvet, who in fact has a larger role. In any case, as soon as Gene appears on the screen, the movie soars: the splendor of her eyes obscures the sky and sea of Provence. After all, "On the Riviera" is an enjoyable movie, especially for fans of old classics.

Kaye won a Golden Globe for his great performance in dual roles as a military giant and an entertainer who tries to win the love of Gene Tierney. A fun filled musical comedy with great dancing and the always unstoppable Kaye, doing what he does best.