Want to know the best Danny Kaye movies? How about the worst Danny Kaye movies? Curious about Danny Kaye’s box office grosses or which Danny Kaye movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Danny Kaye movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
It seems that Danny Kaye (1911-1987) movies were always on television when I was growing up. I have fond memories of watching movies like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Anderson (1952), White Christmas (1954) and The Court Jester (1956) when I was younger. So when I got a request to do a Danny Kaye Ultimate Movie Rankings page I was shocked that he actually did not make many movies in his career.
His IMDb page only 33 acting credits from 1937-1986. This page will rank 17 Danny Kaye movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Shorts, television appearances and movies not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.
Danny Kaye Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort by Danny Kaye movies by his co-stars
- Sort Danny Kaye movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Danny Kaye movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Danny Kaye movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Danny Kaye movie received.
- Sort Danny Kaye movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Danny Kaye Table
- Eleven Danny Kaye movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 64.70% of his movies listed. White Christmas (1954) was his biggest hit.
- An average Danny Kaye movie earned $161.90 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 14 of Danny Kaye’s movies are rated as good movies…or 82.35% of his movies. The Court Jester (1956) was his highest rated movie while The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) was his lowest rated movie.
- Eleven Danny Kaye movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 41.17% of his movies.
- Two Danny Kaye movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 11.76% of his movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 14 Danny Kaye movies scored higher that average….or 82.35% of his movies. Hans Christian Anderson (1952) got the the highest UMR Score while The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Danny Kaye
1. Danny Kaye 1913-1987) was born David Daniel Kaminsky in Brooklyn.
2. Danny Kaye left school at the age 13, to work and perform at resorts in the Catskills Mountains.
3. Danny Kaye made his Broadway debut in 1939. In 1941 while performing in the musical, Lady in the Dark, he was noticed by agents and production companies. After a two year courtship, Danny Kaye signed with Samuel Goldwyn and started his movie career.
4. Danny Kaye’s first movie was 1944’s Up in Arms. Up in Arms was a very successful movie and started a nice 15 year run that would produce some major hits for Kaye. Some of these hits were 1946’s The Kid From Brooklyn, 1947’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 1952’s Hans Christian Andersen and 1954’s White Christmas.
5. Danny Kaye was never nominated for an Oscar®. He did however receive 4 Golden Globe® nominations during his movie career. He won the Golden Globe® for Best Actor twice in his career…for 1951’s On the Riviera and 1958’s Me and the Colonel. In 1982 he received an Honorary Oscar®.
6. Danny Kaye was the first ambassador-at-large for UNICEF. Kaye worked tirelessly for UNICEF.
7. Danny Kaye was married one time in his life. He married Sylvia Fine in 1940. They would later become estranged but never filed for divorce. In 1946, their daughter Dena was born. Dena is Danny Kaye’s only child.
8. Danny Kaye was one of the original owners of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. Danny Kaye was an accomplished pilot. He was rated to fly multi-engine planes including the big 747 jets.
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i love white christmas. as a matter of fact i am watching It on tv right now.
Hey Annette…..that is awesome…..it is the perfect time to watch White Christmas. Hope you are having an awesome Christmas.
The pestle with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
Hey Nick…classic line from a classic movie.
Love Danny Kaye! What a wonderful all around performer!
Hey Adrian K. I agree with your comment 100%.
Hi Adrian, I wonder if you can help me out. We have a neighbor at the cottage who is a big fan of Danny Kaye. She recently passed away but she always talked about naming her cottage after a Danny Kaye movie. She said she would name it after a term used in a Danny Kaye movie about animals in the woods. It was a word like Uwhatalago or something like that ?? We wanted to make a sign for her son in her memory. Do you know the name of the DK movie she would have been referring to about the animals in the woods ? If you do know the movie, do you know where I could find the word above she was referring to ??
Hey Sheri. I would guess it would be Hans Christian Andersen. Not sure he says the word you are looking for, but he talks and sings stories to kids all movie. So I would look there first.
Hey In The Shadows…first of all…good to hear from you….it has been awhile..and secondly…good guess….that would seem like a great place to start when trying to answer Sherri’s question.
Hey Sheri. I do not know the answer to your question, but I will see if I can figure it out. In The Shadows has offered up an answer…which seems like a logical answer. I have only seen bits and pieces of Hans Christian Andersen….but he is surrounded by kids in that one. Maybe some of the other UMR readers can provide an answer. Thanks for stopping by…hopefully we will be able to get you the right answer.
I appreciate this website! I love Danny Kaye movies; I grew up on them. My favorites are The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Wonder Man, also fond of The Court Jester. As I recall, Wonder Man seemed to be in black and white when I was watching it as a little girl… I believe it has been colorized? To this day, one of my favorite phrases is “palpably inadequate”.
Hey Francesca…thanks for the kind words about our website. Glad you like our Danny Kaye page so much. Your Top 3 are some of the best Kaye movies out there.I like that phrase “palpably inadequate” too. Not sure if Wonder Man was filled in color or not…..our UMR expert on that subject (Oh John where are you?) has not checked in lately. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
I watched Wonder Man last night and realized it was filmed in Technicolor. I forgot to mention another favorite movie: a song is born. I’m surprised it’s not remembered by more people, it was very popular when I was a little girl. My family were all big fans, so it seemed like we were always catching one of his movies on TV.
Hey Francesca….good to know that Wonder Man was in color. Pretty sure Danny Kaye had a lot of color movies in his career. His percentage of color to black and white was among the best of thespians in the classic era. Thank you John.
A Star Is Born is a classic…..now the question is….which A Star Is Born is your favorite? The Streisand, Garland, Gaynor or Bennett version? I am thinking it is the Garland version. Added bonus….there is a Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper A Star Is Born coming this year. Thanks for the return comment.
Sorry for the late reply. I don’t think I get a notice when anyone replies here.
I still think this is a great site… and I popped in again because I was again looking through Danny Kaye.
I was referring to the movie a Song is Born, which is one of my favorite Danny Kaye movies of all time. The name is obviously a take off from the movie A Star is Born. I’m not that big of a fan of a star is born, I recognize it as a classic, but I can’t help it. I’m just not crazy about it.