Cupid Takes a Holiday

"Cupid Takes a Holiday" is the third of four shorts that Danny Kaye made for the Education Film Corporation in 1937 and 1938. They are his first films, and in this third entry, Kaye has the lead role. The idea for the plot had possibilities for humor. A debonair emigre goes to a matrimonial service to find a wife. But, the story segments and screenplay are not very good or funny. And, it's in poor taste with racial and physical stereotypes.

The comedy is mostly in the antics and those are weak at best. The dialog that's supposed to be funny is quite lame. Even Danny Kaye's physical gyrations and attributes can't save this film. Here are the best lines of comedy in the film. They attest to why it misses the mark of good comedy.

Owner, "What type of wife do you want?" Nikolai Nikolaevich, "Uh, let me see. I do not care what she looks like, provided she is beautiful. I do not care how old she is, provided she is young. And, I do not care how poor she is, provided she has plenty of money."

Owner, "You know what you'll get when you marry her?" Nikolai Nikolaevich, "Sure, a divorce." Owner, "You'll get a thousand heads of cattle." Nikolai, "What good are the heads without the rest of them?"

Nikolai Nikolaevich, "For you I would swim the highest mountain, climb the widest river, fight the world, conquer armies."

Danny Kaye must be married by midnight or according to family tradition, he will go dippy dappy daffy. He doesn't care how old his bride is so long as she's young, nor how poor she is if she is rich, nor how ugly, so long she is beautiful. Somehow the man running the lonely-hearts bureau has trouble meeting these specifications.

Kaye is still in his raw phase, doing his Catskills Russian shtick, high-speed babbling that would soon be applied to song. This short from Educational Pictures is fast and furious, and pretty funny in an old-fashioned, heartless manner. Knowing what Kaye would become in terms of performance, you can see how he got from here to there.