Wonderful Copenhagen from Colville Andersen on Vimeo.
Don't know why it didn't occur to me before to use this song. It's corny, it's kitsch - it's from a musical for god's sake - but it works well with the footage. The Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen song from the 1952 Danny Kaye musical about Hans Christian Andersen. The story is completely Hollywoodized and doesn't come close to drawing a true portrait of the writer. Believe me, I know. I produced this website for Danish Broadcasting for the bicentenary of Andersen's birth in 2005. Actually, if you're coming to Copenhagen and like history, I'm quite proud of The Time Machine on the aforementioned website. You follow in Andersen's footsteps in a flash-based 'game'.
The Hollywood film, it is said, is the single reason that generations of Americans still pronounce the English name for Copenhagen wrong. It's not Copen-HAH-gen. It's Copen-HAY-gen. Blame the songwriter/scriptwriter on that film.:-)
Meanwhile, back in fairytale land, splendid creatures roll about the streets each and every day, as Lars' photo attests [and every other photo on this blog]. You can send the dinky Little Mermaid to China, for all I care. I prefer the Cycling Girls of Copenhagen as a symbol for this city.
8 comments:
That was wonderful! Some of the best work Danny Kaye has done.
Danny Kaye did NOT film and edit this video. Just so we're straight on that. :-)
I love that movie. It is so incredibly corny and bad. And I love how its portrait of Copenhagen makes Solvang look like the real deal.
The video in this post - the one that Danny Kaye didn't do - is also quite good :-)
Yes that was so corny that it was cool! Or should we say chic?
I always pronounce Copen-HAY-gen, but some pronounce it another way. Then they make me feel stupid for saying it as Copen-HAY-gen.
Wow!
I posted it on criticalmass.hu
http://criticalmass.hu/blogbejegyzes/20081022/wonderful-wonderful-copenhagen
Someone's partial to blondes....
Cute video :)
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