REVIEW: Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
Title: Hans Christian Andersen
Release Year: 1952
Genre: Musical, Fairytale, Biography
Cast: Danny Kaye
Plot: A fictional biography of the Danish fairytale writer, Hans Christian Andersen.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️＿ ＿
Review: This film was very entertaining to watch. The sets and costumes were great and of course Danny Kaye was as usual, brilliant.
Gary Cooper was considered for the role of Andersen at first. I don't know how that would've turned out but I'm glad it didn't happen because it was definitely Kaye's style.
The Music was the best part of the film. I really loved the song, "Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen".
The pronunciation of Copenhagen in the song was actually German and Danes disliked that, since their country was occupied by the Germans in World War II. Anyway the Danish pronunciation is "CopenHAYgen" so English speakers back then should have respected that.
The biopic is of course fabricated - as was informed in the beginning of the film - but it wasn't about how Andersen became one of the world's best children's storytellers:
The fairytale was about his unrequited love for a ballerina.
Andersen's character in the film is somewhat childlike, as you would imagine a children's book author to be, but he was also depicted as selfish and a little cruel towards his adoptive son.
His adoptive son, on the other hand, was very mature and was somewhat the source of Andersen's success whether Andersen knew it or not.
Anyway I didn't feel Andersen really learned his lessons, it just seemed as though the consequences caused him to change and not of his own will.
There was originally planned to be an animation sequence supervised by Walt Disney but it never went through.
For children, there's nothing to learn from this story, except for the collection of Andersen's most famous fairytales that were presented, like:
For adults - where these things won't effect their thinking - it's a good film to watch.
There were many funny quotes but the one I liked the most was more meaningful than funny:
Hans: "You'd be surprised how many kings are only a queen with a mustache"
Oh how very fitting that is today.
Release Year: 1952
Genre: Musical, Fairytale, Biography
Cast: Danny Kaye
Plot: A fictional biography of the Danish fairytale writer, Hans Christian Andersen.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️＿ ＿
Review: This film was very entertaining to watch. The sets and costumes were great and of course Danny Kaye was as usual, brilliant.Gary Cooper was considered for the role of Andersen at first. I don't know how that would've turned out but I'm glad it didn't happen because it was definitely Kaye's style.
The Music was the best part of the film. I really loved the song, "Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen".
The pronunciation of Copenhagen in the song was actually German and Danes disliked that, since their country was occupied by the Germans in World War II. Anyway the Danish pronunciation is "CopenHAYgen" so English speakers back then should have respected that.
The biopic is of course fabricated - as was informed in the beginning of the film - but it wasn't about how Andersen became one of the world's best children's storytellers:
"Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about this great spinner of fairy tales"
The fairytale was about his unrequited love for a ballerina.
Andersen's character in the film is somewhat childlike, as you would imagine a children's book author to be, but he was also depicted as selfish and a little cruel towards his adoptive son.
His adoptive son, on the other hand, was very mature and was somewhat the source of Andersen's success whether Andersen knew it or not.
Anyway I didn't feel Andersen really learned his lessons, it just seemed as though the consequences caused him to change and not of his own will.
There was originally planned to be an animation sequence supervised by Walt Disney but it never went through.
For children, there's nothing to learn from this story, except for the collection of Andersen's most famous fairytales that were presented, like:
For adults - where these things won't effect their thinking - it's a good film to watch.
Hans: "You'd be surprised how many kings are only a queen with a mustache"
Oh how very fitting that is today.
Very funny film...but has more mature scenes than any romantic dramas in the golden age. And yes, the never ending ballet scene was the worst. It’s definitely not my favourite Danny Kaye film, but I’m still glad we’ve watched it since it had “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen”
ReplyDeleteYes I’m glad for the song too
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