“Kaye Wants Pure Comedy”
The Pittsburgh Press – May 29, 1954
HOLLYWOOD – Danny Kaye is one comedian who doesn’t want to play Hamlet. Or Pagliacci, either. He just wants to be funny, that’s all.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with a downbeat story about downtrodden people,” he says. “I don’t mind doing a serious scene in a movie—but that’s all. Too many actors do tragedy and serious drama too well for me to bother about it. I just want to cheer people up.”
While it is unusual for famous clowns and buffoons to yearn, at least in public, for the opportunity to play tragedy, Kaye scoffs at it.
And to prove he isn’t fooling his first independent movie is a roaring comedy titled “Knock on Wood.” In it Danny plays a ventriloquist who becomes unwittingly hooked up with some spies and some women.
“The whole premise of the thing is to keep me in as much trouble as possible,” explains Kaye.