Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

bkoganbing For his debut film Danny Kaye was given an impressive production for a typical service comedy, a little more than most got during wartime years. Sam Goldwyn was a man who never did anything by halves and Kaye's stardom was assured. Kaye's so funny that you might not notice that the plot was taken and used the following year by MGM for Anchors Aweigh.If you can wrap yourself around the concept that Dana Andrews would want to pal around with hypochondriac Danny Kaye than you'll find this a very funny film. As with so many others the Selective Service didn't find any one of Kaye's thousand or so ailments reason enough to keep him out of World War II.A couple of nurses played by Dinah Shore and Constance Dowling are in the cast. Kaye is absolutely bug eyed over Dowling, but it's Andrews that she likes. In the meantime Dinah Shore who has a couple of good songs to sing can't get Kaye to notice her.Up In Arms got two Oscar nominations for Best Musical Scoring and for Dinah Shore's song Now I Know. Personally I've always liked Tess's Torch Song which you can hear her perform in this film. But the real treat are Kaye's patter numbers done by Max Liebman and Mrs. Danny Kaye Sylvia Fine. The Melody in 4-F is a classic and loved by all of Danny Kaye's fans.This was the start of a great comic career and an impressive start at that.

douglas hansen I remember seeing Up In Arms on TV when I was a young boy and found it thoroughly entertaining. I remember so much of it as if I'd just seen it and now it's been at least ten years.The story concerns a hypochondriac (Danny) who gets drafted despite his terrible perceived problems. Along the way he hitches up with his friend Joe(Dana Andrews), Dinah Shore in one of her better roles and Constance Cummings. I'll not tell you which girl Danny gets but this is the movie that has his famous spoof on the movies of the time. It's his incredible "Lobby Number" which precedes to get him and his friends "escorted" out of the movie theater before the show even starts.There is also a great Technicolor musical number towards the end of the film "Tess's Torch Song" with Danny and Dinah. It's a swingy, torchy, blues of a thing that has always left me smiling. Sure it's a fluff of a movie but that's what many pictures were in those days.So if you wish to escape reality and go along for a tuneful and comedic ride, just get Up In Arms. Personally I'd jump at a box set of Danny Kaye DVD's. I don't understand why the Inspector General gets a release but Up In Arms, Knock On Wood and the Kid From Brooklyn are left in VHS form. These are some enjoyable movies and truly highlight Danny Kaye's knock out entertaining.

Robert J. Maxwell This is about as corny as they come. Everybody's so -- NICE. Danny Kaye is a shy elevator operator. Dinah Shore is a nurse who loves him. Constance Dowling is the girl Danny Kaye thinks he loves, but when she meets Danny's roommate, Dana Andrews, they fall for one another. (During a scene involving a horse-drawn milk wagon -- those were the days.) They all wind up in the Army and are sent to the Pacific. Danny accidentally becomes a hero. He winds up with Dinah, and Constance winds up with Dana. Everybody lives happily ever after.The whole thing was shot in an MGM studio and looks entirely phony.I love it. I used to watch it repeatedly with my kid when he was about ten. We had practically all the dialog memorized. The hypochondriacal Kaye is taking a passenger in his elevator, down from a doctor's office to the lobby. The guy tells Kaye he's feeling just fine now and clears his throat a bit. "What's that clicking in your throat?" asks Kaye, backing away. By the time they reach the lobby the poor guy staggers out, his face pale, his hands clutched to his chest.Well, no need to go on about this. It's a salubrious mixture of romance and comedy, with Kaye having to imitate a Scotsman and so forth, acquiring the reputation of a real lady's man and the nickname "The Purple Flash." His ridiculous song is in my opinion the funniest he's done on screen. We glean from the gibberish that he's been drafted and is trying to get out of it by offering all kinds of excuses to the draft board. In one of them -- I guess I can mention this, since it seemed to have slipped by the censors -- he's offering medical reasons why he should be exempt. Weeping piteously, still sputtering nonsense, he makes a pumping motion with his fist then points to his head and twirls his finger. At the end he falls off the stage into the band.Just two more things, I swear, then I'll quit. Dinah Shore gets to sing and record a really lovely gelatinous 1940s ballad. What a marvelous voice she had, so on pitch, feminine, and full of feeling. The name of the song is "Now I Know." The lyricist should be drummed out of his professional society. Here -- as in the other one or two songs -- the lyrics are about as bad as they come. ("Ten million Yankees are standing PAT and the world knows THAT isn't hay!") At any rate, Kaye takes the record and a forbidden record player on board the troopship, where he is harassed by most of the other soldiers, big tough specimens too. During one confrontation with them, the record starts playing and Kaye has to lip-synch the words while the others stare at him goggle-eyed. Finally, the stylus gets caught in a groove and Dinah Shore's voice repeats itself -- "Now I know....Now I know.....Now I know...." One of the soldiers, a suspicious and particularly feral brute, Blackie, slowly traces the music to its source, uncovers the record player and says in his working-class New York accent, "Now we BOTE know," and flings Kaye against the bulkhead.It's an engaging movie, well worth catching if it's on, and suitable for family viewing. (Never mind that gesture during Kaye's gibberish song. I'm sure the practice flourishes but the causal meme has faded.)

classickai The first Danny Kaye vehicle, this film still has the power to make me laugh. The action revolves around a hypochondriac named Danny Weems who is hopelessly in love with a beautiful nurse named Mary (played by the lovely Constance Dowling) at the hospital he works as a doorman at, while completely unaware of the attentions of her multi-talented best friend and fellow nurse, Virginia (played by the talented Dinah Shore, a singer known to those alive in the '70s as the host of "Dinah! & Friends"). Meanwhile, Danny introduces his handsome roommate Joe to Virginia, but Joe and Mary end up hitting it off, though Danny is completely oblivious to it all.This movie was contemporary with World War II, of course, and the real action begins when Danny is drafted by the U.S. Army despite the multiple ailments he believes he has. Joe joins up along with him, and -- of course -- the two nurses join up as well. And the movie goes along from there.As with Kaye's other well-known movies, "Up In Arms" is a virtual showcase of his comedic talents when they were still very fresh and seemingly spontaneous. The musical numbers are particularly enjoyable.This is a film one needs to see if one needs a good, clean laugh. I saw this movie as a kid a decade ago when I was home from school and sick, and Danny Kaye kept me laughing throughout the whole thing -- it definitely made me forget my troubles.The only downside to this film is the stereotypical characterisation of the Japanese soldiers seen near the end, but the viewer must remember when this film was made, and that wartime propaganda like this was common. In comparison to others from that era, the comedy is fairly tame.My rating for this movie is 10 out of 10. They truly don't make them like this any more.