Me and the Colonel (1958)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This Danny Kaye vehicle starts unpromisingly as a feeble, flat-footed comedy but develops – despite Curd Jurgens' heavily misplaced performance – into a slight but rather poignant little microcosm of suffering humanity. Danny Kaye, in a rare dramatic role, delivers a fine, sensitive account of "me" – which contrasts all the more with Jurgens' gaucheries. Glenville's direction is at its best in the handling of crowd scenes, and also in his effective use of natural locations. Elsewhere alas, he makes no attempts to dampen Jurgens' heavy-handed enthusiasm, or even to speed up any of the slow-moving expository scenes which – to add a total disinterest to what was already an almost complete turn-off – are filmed from the most uninteresting angles possible!

In Me And The Colonel Danny Kaye's career took a dramatic turn as he stars in the movie version of the play Jacobowsky And The Colonel which was an autobiographical work of refugee writer Franz Werfel. It was also Werfel's last work as he died in 1945 as the play was running on Broadway. Werfel when fleeing France and the onrushing Nazi occupation traveled the same route from Paris to southern France and I'm sure his real life experiences verbatim would make an interesting story.The play starred another refugee Oscar Karlweis as the philosophical Jewish refugee Jacobowsky and Louis Calhern as the stiff necked Polish colonel who among other things is anti-Semitic, so typical of his class in those days. On screen the colonel is played by CurtJurgens and he has a mission, to get to the United Kingdom and give the new Polish in exile government a list of contacts. Naturally the Nazis want to get their hands on him and the list. The colonel wants to also get his French wife Nicole Maurey out of France as well and his orderly Akim Tamiroff.The film is their journey through France along the same path Werfel took to get out of Europe. In Jurgens mind Kaye is annoying Jew, but he gradually learns to both respect Kaye's resourcefulness and see a Jewish person as a human being. All too human as Maurey also starts to develop feelings for him.For this role Kaye dropped a whole lot of his usual shtick and his performance is simple and restrained. The humor and there is a bit there is of the whimsical and ironical kind. He does it well. Two other performances of note are that of Alexander Scourby as the Nazi colonel who also has designs on Maurey and Martita Hunt as a helpful, make that very helpful Mother Superior of a convent.For a different and refreshing Danny Kaye I highly recommend Me And The Colonel.

It's hard to understand how war and humor can go together. But the whole premise of this film is that human beings can manage to laugh in even the bitterest experiences. In fact, it's sometimes the irony of life that brings laughter through the tears as sarcasm. Sweet sarcasm is the core of this movie and Danny Kaye is the only one who could deliver it with such pathos and perfection. Amid hatred and discrimination, stupidity and war there is cleverness and cutting truth delivered through irony. Outstanding writing and casting make this a gem. The only flaw in the diamond is that it gets slow sometimes and can feel like a late 50's movie masquerading in a 40's war movie coat. Making the movie in color would have been too jarring to the concept of an "old" war movie. But it is also noticed in it's absence. This is a great movie in a dull package but sharp minds will watch and heed its pointed humor and laugh through their tears.

I must say, Danny Kaye delivers a very skilful and thoughtful performance as Jacobowsky, and Curt Jurgens is hilarious in his over-the-top display of pompous honor as the military Colonel. In the dangerous and harrowing era of the war it's surprising that any degree of humor could be found in stark situations, but this story does so, and does it well. At times it's downright funny, other times it's delightfully witty, turning life's awkward moments into amusing vignettes. Yet shining throughout is the quality of Kaye's sympathetic character who draws on the inherited wisdom of his people to help him meet one difficulty after another. An excellent story indeed. Thank goodness human nature can still find humor even in life's most dire moments.