Genre Guesstimation – Knock on Wood (1954)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by me and we will be reviewing our favorite Oscar Nominated or Winning Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Mar by sending them to andtheOscargoesto…@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Oscar Nominated or Winning Movies……….

“You know, I don’t think I’m crazy. I think I’m a little bit peculiar, but that’s not crazy.” – Jerry Morgan

Number of Times Seen – 1 (8 Mar 2022)

Brief Synopsis – A ventriloquist gets into trouble when his dummy is used as a courier for spies.

My Take on it – This is a film that I only came across while seeking out Oscar nominated Films that I’d never seen.

It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, but didn’t win.

Danny Kaye always manages to get a laugh out of me no matter what kind of roles he takes.

This film is no exception.

There are a few scenes where he is superb in all that he does and keep the viewer laughing quite hard.

As seen by its Oscar nomination, the dialogue is quite enjoyable and unique but the fact that the plot gets a bit convoluted along the way makes it not work as well as one might expect.

Kaye plays his character well, but isn’t given enough room to really shine because of the way that things are presented and play out here.

Kaye’s scene with his “dummy” are really fun to watch.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Although set in London, the film was mostly made on Hollywood studio sets. However, a second unit was sent to London to film backgrounds, and in these scenes a double was used for Danny Kaye, mostly filmed from behind or from a distance. The double was in fact a well-known British actor and comedian, Jon Pertwee. This may account for the fact that a character called “Sir Pertwee” appears in Kaye’s subsequent film The Court Jester (1955), also made by the team of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Nope. Kaye is always fun to watch, but it doesn’t come across well enough.

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)