By all accounts, Danny Kaye was a terrific actor and an overall stand-up human being. Along with appearing in well-regarded comedy classics like The Court Jester and White Christmas, he worked for a number of years to raise awareness for various charitable causes. But for one reason or another, I'd never actually caught anything he appeared in, until I heard of the Warner Archive Collection's release of Danny Kaye: The Goldwyn Years. For someone in a position like mine, it's the perfect place to start, as this four-disc set chronicles some of the first feature films Kaye was ever cast in, each one supervised by legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn. The movies themselves may have been out of style for a long time, but even the most archaic titles in this collection contain proof concerning why Kaye was considered one of the foremost funnymen of his time.

UP IN ARMS (1944)

Following the formula that spelled success for Abbott & Costello and Laurel & Hardy, Kaye stumbles into all sorts of hijinks as an enlisted man. Despite his laundry list of supposed illnesses, hapless hypochondriac Danny Weems (Kaye) finds himself drafted into service anyway. But if that weren't a big enough pickle, our boy's gal pal (Constance Dowling) becomes an accidental stowaway when he heads off for battle, fraying his nerves even more as he scrambles to keep her presence a secret. Having performed on stage for years and appearing in a few short films, Up in Arms saw Kaye make his debut as a leading man on the big screen. The story chosen for this occasion is very much on the safe side, yet it doesn't stifle its star, giving him ample room to bombard viewers with all the spastic twitching and gibberish-spouting at his disposal. But it's this schtick of Kaye's that gives Up in Arms a good shove off the rails. At first, it's amusing to see Danny's concerns for his nonexistent maladies manifest themselves in exaggerated facial tics and, in one case, a musical number about how his friends should forget about seeing a movie because they're all the same anyway. But by the third arbitrary song-and-dance sequence that has Kaye playing the mushmouth card for no reason, our patience has long since been obliterated. Though some pleasant tunes and the fetching "Goldwyn Girls" lineup try to soften the blow, Up in Arms is ultimately sunk by its own overbearing wackiness.

WONDER MAN (1945)

Rubberfaced comic Buzzy Bellew (Kaye) is the toast of New York's nightclub circuit. But after witnessing a gangster commit murder, he himself is shuffled off this mortal coil before he has the chance to testify. However, Buzzy isn't about to let a silly thing like death get in his way. He has a score to settle, and he's going to need the help of his nerdy twin brother Edwin (also Kaye) to catch the hoods who did him in. Following the hit that was Up in Arms, Wonder Man sought to further display Kaye's humorous stylings, while introducing special effects wizardry into the mix. While the film's Oscar-winning photographic tricks do a convincing job of allowing its star to share the screen with himself, its laughs aren't as fortunate. You'd think that with a plot involving Kaye playing two characters with polar opposite personalities -- never mind the fact that one of them is a ghost -- the opportunities for inventively chaotic comedy would be endless. Sadly, the movie sticks to having Kaye mug up a storm in Buzzy's nightclub act, while straight-up ignoring a premise from which it could've conjured any number of clever scenarios. The charisma of its headliner guarantees at least a few chuckles out of Wonder Man, but they're still outnumbered by all the times you'll wish a giant cane would materialize and yank him off the screen.

THE KID FROM BROOKLYN (1946)

A boxing match is the last place you'd expect to find mild-mannered milkman Burleigh Sullivan (Kaye). But that's just where he's bound after getting credit for a goof-up that lands the current champ (Steve Cochran) knocked out cold. Poor Sullivan never threw a punch, but tell that to the other guy's manager (Walter Abel), who decides to cash in on the publicity and start training the dairy dynamo for the big time. The Kid from Brooklyn is a remake of 1936's Harold Lloyd comedy The Milky Way, with Kaye assuming the role played by the Safety Last! great himself. I won't compare adaptations or claim who the better performer was, but I will say this flick gives its star his greatest opportunity yet to play a character, as opposed to a vehicle for an act that wore out its welcome two movies ago (for the most part). Kaye displays some fun physical work here, especially in a climactic bout that sees both him and Cochran duking it out with their own handicaps. That said, running nearly two hours, the film still seems overstuffed with protracted musical numbers, none of which take your mind off of the complete lack of surprises the "nice guy gets an ego and learns not to be a jerk" storyline brings. Though it's nice of The Kid from Brooklyn to give us a break from Kaye's usual motormouthed routines, it manages to scrounge up different ways of testing the audience's perseverance.

A SONG IS BORN (1948)

In one of the rare cases of a director remaking his own movie, Howard Hawks transforms his saucy 1941 comedy Ball of Fire into a gentler, jazz-infused update. A Song Is Born has Kaye leading a team of intellectuals compiling an encyclopedia on the history of American music. But their stuffy world is thrown for a loop after Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo) -- a torch singer and gun moll running from the law -- barges in and brings them up to speed on all the modern beats. A Song Is Born may lack the spiciness and sexual tension of its predcessor, but Hawks proves nevertheless that the same story can be told well in a slightly more sanitized form. Kaye is at his most restrained here, owing to the buttoned-down nature of his character (and probably to the fact that he was estranged from his real-life wife at the time). But the absence of the man's over-the-top tics frees up so much room for us to grow fond of the burgeoning romance between his and Mayo's characters. Plus, it's hard to turn down a film that gathers so many of the era's musical greats like Louis Armstrong and Tommy Dorsey into the same room (the joke being that Kaye is clueless as to who any of them are). The pacing could've been prodded along a bit more briskly, but A Song Is Born ends up as an overall joy to watch, thanks to a story with a sweet edge and an enviable line-up of toe-tapping tunes on the soundtrack.

(Danny Kaye: The Goldwyn Years is available to purchase through the Warner Archive Collection: www.warnerarchive.com)