''The Five Pennies'' is a semi-biographical 1959

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

starring

Danny Kaye Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; yi, דוד־דניאל קאַמינסקי; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopr ...

player and bandleader Loring "Red" Nichols. Other cast members include

Barbara Bel Geddes Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost five decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the t ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

Harry Guardino Harry Guardino (December 23, 1925 – July 17, 1995) was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. Biography Guardino was born to an Italian family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and raised in Bro ...

Bob Crosby George Robert Crosby (August 23, 1913 – March 9, 1993) was an American jazz singer and bandleader, best known for his group the Bob-Cats, which formed around 1935. The Bob-Cats were a New Orleans Dixieland-style jazz octet. He was the younge ...

Bobby Troup Robert William Troup Jr. (October 18, 1918 – February 7, 1999) was an American actor, jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He wrote the song " Route 66" and acted in the role of Dr. Joe Early with his wife Julie London in the television prog ...

, Susan Gordon, and

Tuesday Weld Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is an American actress and model. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over t ...

. The film was directed by

Melville Shavelson Melville Shavelson (April 1, 1917 – August 8, 2007) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. He was President of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAw) from 1969 to 1971, 1979 to 1981, and 1985 to 1987. Biog ...

. The film received four

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

nominations: Best Musical Scoring (

Leith Stevens Leith Stevens (September 13, 1909 – July 23, 1970) was an American music composer and conductor of radio and film scores. Early life and education Leith Stevens was born in Mount Moriah, Missouri,DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). ''Radio Stars: An ...

Best Original Song This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

( Sylvia Fine—Danny Kaye's wife), Best Cinematography ( Daniel L. Fapp), and Best Costumes (

Edith Head Edith Head (October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design between 1949 and 1973, making her the most awarded woman in the Academy's history. Head is cons ...

). The real Red Nichols recorded all of Kaye's cornet playing for the film soundtrack. The other musicians in Red's band were not asked to provide their musical contributions, and the sound of his band was supplied by session players.

Plot

Red Nichols (Kaye) is a small-town cornet player who moves to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the 1920s and finds work in a band led by Wil Paradise (Crosby). He meets and marries singer Willia Stutsman, a.k.a. "Bobbie Meredith" (Bel Geddes). Red and his friends Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Artie Schutt and Dave Tough form their own

Dixieland Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ( ...

band called "The Five Pennies" (a play on Nichols' name, since a

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

equals five

pennies A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is t ...

). As their popularity peaks, the Nichols' young daughter Dorothy ( Susan Gordon) contracts

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

, and the family leaves the music business, moving to the balmier climate of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, where Nichols works in the shipyards and both parents help Dorothy work on her recovery. As a teenager, Dorothy (

) learns of her father's music career and persuades him to make a comeback. His first attempts to play a horn (he threw his own treasured instrument into the San Francisco Bay in despair when Dorothy was ill) are a miserable failure. Eventually he listens to his wife and daughter, and practice restores his skill. His old friend Tony Valani (Guardino), now a huge success, gets him a gig to perform at a small club, with The New Five Pennies. Nichols, nervous and terrified of splitting his lip, is disappointed when he sees no other old friends in the audience. He opens the show, and after a few notes, “

Won't you come home Bill Bailey "(Won't You Come Home) Bill Bailey", originally titled "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please.... Come Home?" is a popular song published in 1902. It is commonly referred to as simply "Bill Bailey". Its words and music were written by Hughie Cannon, an ...

?” echoes through the dark. The lights comes up, and it is Satchmo and his friends. Willa comes up on stage and tells him she has a surprise for him. Dorothy steps onto the dance floor without her cane and asks her father to dance. Willa sings “This little penny is to wish on...” while they do. Then Nichols takes his horn and plays “ Glory Hallelujah!” His friends join in.

Cast

Red Nichols Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols (May 8, 1905 – June 28, 1965) was an American jazz cornetist, composer, and jazz bandleader. Biography Early life and career Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, United States. His father was a college music profes ...

as Willa Stutsman (her singing voice is dubbed by Eileen Wilson) *

as Himself *

as Tony Valani *

as Will Paradise *

Arthur Schutt Arthur Schutt (November 21, 1902 – January 28, 1965) was an American jazz pianist and arranger. Schutt was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, United States, and learned piano from his father. He accompanied silent films as a teenager in the 1910 a ...

* Susan Gordon as Dorothy Nichols - Ages 6 to 8 *

as Dorothy Nichols - Age 13 to 14 *

Ray Anthony Raymond Antonini (born January 20, 1922), known as Ray Anthony, is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter, and actor. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Biography Anthony was born to an Italian family in Ben ...

Jimmy Dorsey James Francis Dorsey (February 29, 1904 – June 12, 1957) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and big band leader. He recorded and composed the jazz and pop standards "I'm Glad There Is You (In This World of Ordinary People ...

Shelly Manne Sheldon "Shelly" Manne (June 11, 1920 – September 26, 1984) was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, s ...

Dave Tough Dave Tough (April 26, 1907 – December 9, 1948) was an American jazz drummer associated with Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. Biography Born in Oak Park, Illinois, United States, Tough was a friend of Bud Freeman, who was p ...

* Ray Daley as

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...

* Valerie Allen as Tommye Eden *

Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 5 ...

as Himself (cameo)

Music

Eleven composers are credited in the film.

Reception

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' critic

A.H. Weiler Abraham H. Weiler (December 10, 1908 – January 22, 2002) was an American writer and critic best known for being a film critic and motion picture editor for ''The New York Times''. He also served a term as chairman of the New York Film Critics ...

wrote that the "solicitous dramatization of the harried life and times of that noted jazz man, Loring (Red) Nichols, the tune-filled story... is highly palatable schmaltz served up with a Dixieland beat by some authentic performers, musical and otherwise." He found Kaye's performance particularly fine on many levels.

References

External links