The Five Pennies

BACK ON DVD! Danny Kaye cuts loose with his trademark musical clowning. Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong plays his horn and croons in that famed gargling-granite voice. Big Band icons Bob Crosby, Ray Anthony, and Shelly Manne join the fun. And Barbara Bel Geddes (decades before DALLAS) and debuting teen Tuesday Weld add to the excellent performances in The Five Pennies, the success-tempered-with-tears biopic of jazz great Red Nichols (portrayed by Kaye). Superb, too, are the more than 20 tunes peppered throughout the film. Best of all: the Satchmo-Kaye "When The Saints Go Marching In" duet, with the legends scat singing a list of music world saints and adding a little "Frere Jacques" too!

• classic
• drama