Knock On Wood (1954) DVD

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Knock On Wood (1954) DVD

Knock On Wood (1954) DVD

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$9.99

SKU:

P10272021943

Rating:

( 1 product review )

Product Description

Knock On Wood (1954)

Directors
- Melvin Frank
- Norman Panama
Writers
- Norman Panama
- Melvin Frank
Stars
- Danny Kaye
- Mai Zetterling
- Torin Thatcher
With the exception of the brilliant The Court Jester, Knock on Wood must rank as the best of Danny Kaye's movie vehicles. Capitalizing on the star's recent successful engagement in London, the film casts Kaye as a neurotic American ventriloquist performing in England and Europe. In a parody of the 1946 thriller Dead of Night, Kaye is unable to control the words coming out of his dummy, resulting in a near-nervous breakdown. On the advice of his manager (David Burns), Kaye seeks out the help of a psychiatrist, who turns out to be beautiful Mai Zetterling. But first, he heads to a local repair shop to pick up one of his dummies. What Kaye doesn't know is that a set of stolen blueprints for a top-secret weapon have been secreted into his dummy's head. Before he knows what's happening, our hero is up to his ears in spies, counterspies, and corpses. Falsely accused of murder, Kaye spends the rest of the film adopting one disguise after another to elude both the authorities and the various enemy agents roaming about. Filled to overflowing with musical and comedy highlights, Knock on Wood includes the famous "under the table" bit wherein Kaye finds himself literally between two warring spy factions, and a climactic ballet sequence reminiscent of (and superior to) the comic-opera finale of Kaye's Wonder Man (1945). And of course, the audience is treated to the tongue-twisting patter songs written for Kaye by his wife Sylvia Fine.

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Product Reviews

One of Kaye's best in every musical comedy category

Posted by J.R. Fanchalsky on May 13th 2026

Danny Kaye was at the mid point of his 37-year career in film, both television and big screen, but still on the way to his maximum popularity when he released "Knock On Wood" in 1954. By this time he had the ability and star power to make the film with his own company, Dena Productions, named after his daughter. Therefore, it showcases all of his talents including song and dance, madcap acting, and dazzling verbal improvisations such as those in the London pub scene.
The complex plot starts as Jerry Morgan (Kaye), a stage ventriloquist on a European tour, loses his fiancee due to a mental trauma developed in his childhood with parents who fought constantly, except when performing together on stage. His resulting lifelong fear of marriage comes to the surface expressed through his dummy in harsh insulting terms that Morgan cannot control. He finally agrees to see a psychiatrist. He becomes infatuated with the doctor's female assistant psychiatrist, though there is a truly comic rough start to their relationship.
Meanwhile, two separate powers are competing to steal the plans for a new highly destructive nuclear weapon. The plans are on two pieces of paper such that having only one of them is useless without the other. By coincidence, the action has the papers being separately stuffed into the heads of Morgan's two dummies, unknown to him of course, but the absolute objective of both parties of thieves. Morgan then becomes the stock character of the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and is mistaken as guilty of two murders. The chase is on through a variety of locations and circumstances giving Danny Kaye multiple opportunities to show off his comic acting ability to escape the bad guys and the police in a number of crazy set scenes.
The culminating scene finds Morgan thrust into a musical stage ballet ensemble where he doesn't know what will happen next even though he becomes the lead male actor/dancer and cannot escape despite repeated efforts. The action eventually winds down quickly with all problems solved, the guilty parties in custody, and Morgan and his psychiatrist happily married.
A great classic comedy film for a light evening's weekend viewing. Lots of laughs.