I knew, going into this process, that A Song is Born was a musical remake of Ball of Fire, so I intended to spread them out as much as possible. A Song is Born was also on Amazon Prime, a service which happens to remove movies without any notice at all, so after about a month, I felt enough time had passed to watch the musical remake.
Boy, they really weren't lying when they called this a remake. This is exactly the same movie as Ball of Fire. The difference is that Ball of Fire is obsessed with words, primarily early 1940s slang, while A Song is Born is obsessed with music, primarily jazz. With the exception of when they play music, it's the same movie and I think almost the exact same dialogue.
Now, I can't say how I'd feel about this movie had I watched it first, but I didn't. And so I really, really didn't like this movie. And it's almost entirely due to the fact that everything about it is the same as Ball of Fire, but worse. Everything is worse.
As I said in my Ball of Fire review, Gary Cooper didn't really do much for me in the few movies I'd seen him in prior to Ball of Fire, but nothing better exemplifies why he's good when you compare him to Danny Kaye in A Song is Born. Now this is my first Danny Kaye movie and as I understand it, he's a lot different here than this in his other movies. Which is good because it kind of feels like he's just trying to copy Cooper here, but poorly.
Then there's Virginia Mayo. She really never had a chance. Maybe she's good in other things. But my reference point here is Barbara Stanwyck, and in the words of Howard Hawks, Virginia Mayo is no Barbara Stanwyck. Few are, but never has that point been more clear than comparing Ball of Fire and A Song is Born.
Hell, I even like Dana Andrews as the gangster more in Ball of Fire than Steve Cochran here. I'm telling you, every thing about this movie is worse than Ball of Fire. And like I said, maybe if I hadn't watched that movie first, it'd be different. Ball of Fire had a spark, the movie kept your attention, there was a rhythm to everything that happened. This movie is just flat.
Well, except for one thing: the music. I'd recommend A Song is Born just for the historical document, but I'd also tell you to skip everything but the music. Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnett, Mel Powell - they're all in this movie and playing music and it's great. It's the only good thing about the movie, but it's so good that it basically makes the movie worth watching by itself.
Speaking of, the plot makes much less sense here than in Ball of Fire too. A grammarian working on an encyclopedia cut off from the outside world for years? Makes sense that he isn't up to date on new slang. A musical encyclopedia that is completely unaware of jazz makes... a lot less sense. Surely these extremely smart professors know that music is constantly changing and they need to stay up to date. I don't know, it seems insane to me that these experts on music just have never heard of jazz in 1948.
Sharing my distaste for this movie is... the director himself, Howard Hawks. Who admitted that he only directed it because it came with a $250,000 paycheck, which is the equivalent of $2.7 million today. He called Kaye a basket case because he had separated from his wife. And he didn't have nice things to say about Mayo either, as expressed above. He said it was a horrible experience.
How much can music save a film? That's the question I'm debating when giving my grade, but let it be known that whatever my grade, the music is the only redeeming quality in this movie. Just watch Ball of Fire instead.
2/4 stars
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