1941 - Warner Brothers
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Synopsis
Great hot jazz piano player Jigger (Richard Whorf) is playing a dive with sickly drummer Pepi (Dead End Kid leader Billy Halop.) Big fan and clarinetist Nicki (future directing wiz Elia Kazan) gets thrown in jail with them following a bar brawl where the meet a bass player and decide to form a band. They add a trumpet player (Jack Carson) who's married to singer 'Character' (Priscilla Lane.)
The six set out hittin' the rails. They soon land a gig in a roadhouse bar in New Jersey run by slimy singer Kay (Betty Field.) The joint is soon taken over by Kay's ex-flame, small-time gangster Del Davis (Lloyd Nolan) and the place turns into a swinging hot spot with an illegal gambling room upstairs. Character gets pregnant and Jigger who's fallen for Kay taps her as the new singer, but soon as he realizes she won't work out, she gets him to quit the band and flee with her to New York.
He lands a gig in what seems to be the whitest big band in NYC and lives the high life with Kay, which eats him up inside and drives him crazy. His ex-band mates rescue him and get him to a sanitarium where he recovers.
But... does he rejoin his band mates or choose the woman he loves? That's for you to find out.
My Thoughts
This unique and highly entertaining film moves at a frenetic pace, like most Warner Brothers films of the 30's and 40's and never takes itself too seriously. There's never a dull moment.
It's also a very unusual film as it straddles the lines of many different genres. It's both a musical and a gangster/proto-film noir without ever being completely either one. There are no spontaneous bursting-into-song that define a typical musical, but music is clearly the focus.
All the musical performances are tied to stage performance or rehearsal. A hater of musicals could easily enjoy this without feeling dirty, as long as you like jazz. The gangster element is never a big presence either. Nolan's character is never the dominant, leading factor of the story like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson or Humphrey Bogart are in their archetypal roles of the era.
The film is notable also for it's amazing and sometimes LSD-level-trippy montages by future Dirty Harry/Invasion of the Body Snatchers director Don Siegel. These are best when Jigger is halucinating when he is recovering. It makes me wonder if Director Litvak was implying that Jigger turned to drugs to deal with his problems in NYC, even though the production code would have forbidden that plot development.
The one element that is dominant is the love and reverence for jazz, which I share. The awe the group shares sitting in prison watching the African-Americans (in a segregated cell) singing 'Blues in the Night' is palpable and a dramatized example of one of the many times in history whites have stolen the music of blacks and used it to great effect.
I first discovered this film from the classic Mercer-Arlen song of the title. It quickly became a jazz/blues standard. I first heard one of Cab Calloway's many versions of the song via an old LP compilation called "Remember How Great...? and fell in love with it's haunting melody, just like Jigger and his band.
I fell for the song and it took years for me to realize it came from this film. I tracked the film down, which Warners released on DVD in 2008.
DVD
The DVD has excellent image quality, although there are occasional specks and a rare scratch that occur throughout the film, but never distract from it. The sound is good, conveying the rich analog jazz. Special features include: 3 Looney Tunes cartoons that incorporate the song 'Blues in The Night,' a short featuring Jimmy Lunceford and his band (also appearing in the feature,) and the super-stylish Oscar-Nominated short "Jammin' The Blues," which features several jazz legends like Coleman Hawkins and is awe-inspiring and I highly recommended. An audio-only outtake featuring an instrumental take on the title track is included, along with the trailer. Warner Brothers always fills their classic films with ample extras and this is no different.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The film is definitely not what I was expecting and was a great experience. There are no acting tour-de-forces here but they are solid performances and the direction was on-par with the Warner Bros. house style (which I like) but nothing out of the ordinary. I do however recommend it highly especially to fans of jazz of the era. Good enough to name a blog after it.
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