Much of the New York entertainment press was gaga over Brooklyn's own Danny Kaye who had made his mark in the city's nightclubs, mountain resorts and on Broadway before going to Hollywood. An article in the Sunday Herald Tribune looked forward to seeing him perform one of his most popular nightclub numbers, “Pavlowa,” in the Technicolor musical “The Kid From Brooklyn,” the week's big movie opening. Those critics who were not unabashed Kaye groupies pointed out later that week that a milkman-turned-prizefighter singing a tongue-twisting patter song about ballet dancers was incongruous with the movie's plot and made no sense for his character.
The anonymous writer of this newspaper feature called the number a “rough-house satire on the ballet” performed by “the chrysanthemum-topped clown.” Kaye had introduced it at Chez Paree in Chicago then brought it with him when he played his starmaking engagement at Le Martinique in New York. According to the article, the three most important performances of the number were at the first anniversary backstage party for “Life With Father,” which set in motion the events that would lead to his Broadway debut in “Lady in the Dark”; a performance at a party thrown by Elsa Maxwell in Hollywood to celebrate the liberation of Paris where he followed prima ballerina Alica Markova; and the week-long filming of the sequence for “The Kid from Brooklyn.” The writer expected the number to join in popularity with the comic specialty numbers that Kaye had previously performed on film including “Bali Boogie” and “Cobra Number” from “Wonder Man,” and “Movie Lobby Number” and “Melody in 4-F” from “Up in Arms.”
Kaye had worked over his repertoire in his recent three-week live stand at the Paramount Theater. Each performance had been different. Sometimes he did “Conga” or the dialect-scrambling “Minnie, the Moocher,” or the millinery number “Antoine of Paris” or “Stanislavsky” or “Dinah.” Sometimes the performance would last the scheduled half an hour and other times would run close to an hour to the consternation of the stage manager. He did a full hour-and-a-half for his final performance. “Bobby-sockers sat in the third row watching him with opera glasses. Fan clubs sent him presents of tie-and-handkerchief sets, with requests that he do this number or that.” The show ended at midnight with the audience on its feet singing “Auld Lang Syne” along with Kaye.