Knock on Wood (film)

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Knock on Wood
Promotional poster
Directed by	Melvin Frank Norman Panama
Written by	Melvin Frank Norman Panama
Produced by	Melvin Frank Norman Panama
Starring	Danny Kaye Mai Zetterling Torin Thatcher David Burns Leon Askin
Cinematography	Daniel L. Fapp
Edited by	Alma Macrorie
Music by	Sylvia Fine Victor Young
Production company	Dena Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	April 14, 1954 (1954-04-14)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$3.5 million (US)^[1]

Knock on Wood is a 1954 American comedy thriller film starring Danny Kaye and Mai Zetterling. Other actors in the film include Torin Thatcher, David Burns, and Leon Askin. The film was written and directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, with songs by Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine. Location shooting in England took place around London as well as Maidenhead and Marlow.

Plot

Jerry Morgan (Kaye) is a ventriloquist who is having trouble with love: just when his relationship with a woman gets around to marriage, his dummy turns jealous and spoils everything. Jerry's manager Marty threatens to quit unless Jerry sees a psychiatrist, Ilse Nordstrom (Zetterling), who tries to discover the source of his problem. The two of them eventually fall in love.

At the same time, Jerry becomes unwittingly intertwined with spies and has to run from the police. In his escape, he finds himself impersonating a British car salesman, trying to demonstrate a new convertible with loads of bells and whistles. Later on, he finds himself on stage in the middle of the performance of an exotic ballet.

Cast

Danny Kaye as Jerry Morgan/Jerry's father
Mai Zetterling as Doctor Ilse Nordstrom
Torin Thatcher as Godfrey Langston, the film's villain
David Burns as Marty Brown, Jerry's manager
Leon Askin as Lazlo Gromek, a spy
Abner Biberman as Maurice Papinek, a spy
Otto Waldis as Brodnik, a spy
Gavin Gordon as Car Salesman
Steven Geray as Doctor Krüger
Diana Adams as Princess Maya
Patricia Denise as Jerry's Mother
Virginia Huston as Audrey Greene
Paul England as Chief Inspector Wilton
Johnstone White as Langstons Secretary
Henry Brandon as Man with a Trenchcoat
Lewis Martin as Inspector Crawford

Production notes

The film features dialogue with linguistic play (particularly the names of the dummies "Clarence" and "Terrence" and the Slavic names of the spies) which would also be a feature of Kaye's later film The Court Jester (likewise written and directed by Frank and Panama).

The title song "Knock on Wood" should not be confused with "Everybody Thinks I'm Crazy" from the 1941 cartoon entitled Woody Woodpecker, starring the character of the same name; or the song "Knock on Wood" from the 1942 film, Casablanca (with music by M.K. Jerome and lyrics by Jack Scholl). Kaye performed renditions of both the title song from Knock on Wood and "The Woody Woodpecker Song," which are found on the album The Best of Danny Kaye [Spectrum, 2000].

Home media

Knock on Wood was issued as a region 2 DVD in March 2009.

References

^ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1954', Variety Weekly, January 5, 1955

Bibliography

Gehring, Wes D. Movie Comedians of the 1950s: Defining a New Era of Big Screen Comedy. McFarland, 2016.

External links

Films directed by Melvin Frank

The Reformer and the Redhead (1950)
Strictly Dishonorable (1951)
Callaway Went Thataway (1951)
Above and Beyond (1952)
Knock on Wood (1954)
The Court Jester (1955)
That Certain Feeling (1956)
The Jayhawkers! (1959)
Li'l Abner (1959)
The Facts of Life (1960)
Strange Bedfellows (1965)
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968)
A Touch of Class (1973)
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)
The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976)
Lost and Found (1979)
Walk Like a Man (1987)

Films directed by Norman Panama

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