The Great Gilbert and Sullivan

The Five Pennies is the life story of influential jazz cornetist Red Nichols, played here by a remarkably straight-faced Danny Kaye. The somewhat romanticized screenplay chronicles Nichols' rise from obscurity, annotates the many future bandleaders who would play with Nichols' "Five Pennies," and details his self-destructive streak and (seeming) inability to conform to changing musical tastes. Weaving in and out of the main story is a sentimental subplot…Read More

Noted for intimate character studies created in collaboration with his actors, director Mike Leigh makes a dramatic change of pace with this biography of comic opera composers W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.…Read More