Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) wrote this eccentric, Oscar-nominated fantasy about a young boy named Bart (Tommy Rettig) who doesn’t enjoy his piano lessons with the mean Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried).

In a rare straight role, Danny Kaye plays the influential jazz musician Red Nichols, played here by a remarkably straight-faced Danny Kaye. The romanticized biopic chronicles Nichols’ rise from obscurity, describing the future bandleaders who would play with Nichols’ “Five Pennies,” as well as his self-destructive streak and inability to change A subplot concerns Nichols’ […]

First Love is a modern variation of the Cinderella legend –there’s even “six white mice” as a sextet of motorcycle policemen!). Deanna Durbin, then 17, plays Constance Harding, the poor relation of wealthy tycoon James Clinton (Eugene Pallette). When she comes to live with the Clinton family, she clashes with her eccentric and ambitious aunt […]

Inexperienced film director Francis Ford Coppola made the E.Y. Harburg-Fred Saidy musical Finian’s Rainbow two decades after it played on Broadway.

Oscar Nominations: 1 Original Score: Louis Gruenberg Oscar Awards: None Oscar Context: The Scoring winner was “Pinocchio.”     Share this: