The Five Pennies 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. 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 Loring “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 legends scat singing a list of music-world saints and adding a little “Freres Jacques” too!