Review – On the Double

I never thought I'd find myself typing these words, but this picture seriously needed more corny musical numbers. That's what I've come to expect from Danny Kaye, so on the rare occasion that the mood for such a thing strikes me, I'd at least like to get what I paid for. But this is like getting a craving for a Big Mac only to discover when you get home that they gave you a Fillet O' Fish by mistake. To be sure, Kaye is his usual, charming self, once again playing a goofy nebbish caught up in a comedy of errors. Perhaps World War Two was still too fresh even 15 years later when this was made, but overall it's just far too serious. Our hero is an American private who just happens to bear a resemblance to an arrogant British general. So he decoys German spies (and the general's mistress, and the general's wife, and so on) while the real guy goes off to command the D-Day invasion. However, the Nazis really have it in for the guy, so they keep trying to assassinate him. The deaths that keep cropping up are, well, less than humorous. And worse, we get almost none of the comedian's legendary Catskill musical shtick. When the funniest moment in a Kaye movie is the scene where he and the love interest throw salad on one another, you know you aren't getting the typical experience. Mildly amusing