Un grain de folie

This ranks right up there with Danny Kayes "The Court Jester" when it comes to funny. You really need to pay attention to the dialog, because there are so many neat little jokes to hear. Such as when Danny Kaye tries to talk to his agent on whether or not he is crazy or peculiar. I won't tell you how it goes but it's very cool the way his agent lets him know. Then there are so many little things going on in this movie that even though I've watched the movie a numerous amount of times it still seems to be a longer movie than it really is. There is just so much going on in the movie. This is a really good family movie where everyone will enjoy it.

Danny Kaye plays a ventriloquist caught up in mayhem in Melvin Frank's Academy Award-nominated "Knock on Wood". Admittedly, some of the material (i.e., the gender relations) is a little outdated, but the humor is as lovable as ever. Kaye does a number of his verbal puns, there are some zany gags with a car, and then there's one of the funniest ballet scenes ever. It goes to show why Kaye was one of the best comedians ever (although he did also have a serious side, appearing as a Holocaust survivor in a TV movie about a Nazi rally in Skokie).

Not one of the best comedies of all time, but enjoyable enough for its short run.

Was Mai Zetterling a babe or what?

This, in my opinion, is one of Kaye's funniest performances, showcasing his comedic, singing, and dancing talents to the fullest. Not to be missed is the movie's finale, where Kaye finds himself on the stage of a London ballet as the leading dancer while simultaneously trying to escape from the baddies.

The sequence in this film where Danny Kaye lands on the stage of an balletic opera in progress has got to rank up there with the funniest single scenes in motion picture history. The spoof is as spot-on as the "Fantasia" spoof of opera in the "Dance of the Hours" sequence. It's hard to explain how the previous reviewer thought the new-car-with-gadgets scene was the funniest; actually, it's the most dated, and "Knock on Wood" would be better off without it. The story is a wicked satire on espionage agents, with Danny caught up unawares in the center of an international spy ring. There's also a love story reminiscent of "Walter Mitty", but this is the funnier film of the two. Danny Kaye is one of the most underrated actors of all time. His facial expressions--conveying what he thinks, which is often opposite to what he or the other characters are saying--is like a second voice carrying the humor line. It's so well done that it seems mundane to people who are not on the lookout for it. Only Sid Caesar, of all the comics in American history, including Chaplin and the other silent greats, used his facial expressions to the supreme comic effect that Danny Kaye achieved. I might even rank Caesar above Kay, but unfortunately Caesar did not get any good movie roles. (Mel Brooks wanted him for "The Producers," and it would have become THE best comedy of all time if he had landed him, but some busybody associate producer hated Caesar and so he nixed the deal. How sad.) If I were pressed to choose among Danny Kaye's films, I guess I would choose "The Court Jester" above "Knock on Wood," in terms of all-round satisfaction. Yet the ballet spoof in "Knock on Wood" surpasses any single scene in "The Court Jester." If you never see it, you'll never know how funny a thing can be.

There is plenty of fun to be had in this uneven Danny Kaye entry, the sequence where he gives an excruciatingly complicated explanation of the espionage activities of a group of mittel-European spies with very similar names is a hoot, but it is the ballet parody of "The Polovstian Dances" that takes this film to the heights of film comedy.

I believe this sequence to be one of the three funniest sequences in cinema, along with the first half hour of Chaplin's "Modern Times" and "Daphne's", (Jack Lemmon's), engagement sequence from "Some Like It Hot". The fact that it is unavailable on DVD is as inexplicable as it is regrettable.