Customer Reviews

Blues in the Night

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very offbeat kind of film that is not well known. You'll either really love it - I do - or you'll not care for it at all. Anatole Litvak, who directed so many womens' pictures, directs this odd little film that starts out as a kind of "small town band does good" picture, takes a turn into gangster territory, and then gets really dark with a venture into film noir and mental illness. Nobody in this film was a big name at the time, and I get the feeling it was one of those films that Warner's liked to grind out like sausages in the 30's and 40's that just happened to turn out to be rather special. Great performances are turned in from everyone involved, which includes Priscilla Lane as a good girl with depth, Lloyd Nolan as a gangster with a touch of the entrepreneurial and even a bit of a mentor, Jack Carson as a heel with a large bag of excuses for his behavior, Betty Field as the gangster's moll who aspires to be a singer and also ruins men as a hobby, and Richard Whorf as the musician and bandleader who falls for the moll and also into temporary insanity. Also note that future great director Elia Kazan shows up playing a small part as one of the bandmembers.

Released just three weeks before the beginning of World War II, it provides a snapshot of how the Depression and the era of the gangster were receding into memory just as an age of optimism was beginning that would go on hiatus during the war effort, and restart and peak after the war was over. Great atmosphere and great acting - highly recommended.

I saw this wonderful story on late night. The acting is superb,story brillant.Betty field as troubled singer, loyd nolan as gangster club owner. this is how stories should flow keeping the watcher interested.

Overlooked film drama part film noir, part celebration of jazz music, part social commentary - features future directors Elia Kazan and Richard Whorf in leading roles - fast-paced, well written -recommended.

It's hard to decide which is the most awkward part of this slightly noirish movie...the beginning, the middle or the end. The beginning features five white musicians and a girl singer who decide to form a special kind of band, led by the impassioned piano player. "It's gotta be our kind of music, our kind of band...the blues, the real blues...the kind that comes out of people, real people...their hopes and their dreams...." The middle features these six riding a box car, becoming entangled with a rough gangster who befriends them, a tough-as-nails femme fatale who does not, and a roadhouse success in New Jersey. The end features a nervous breakdown, a dead baby, a shooting, a car ride to death and another box car. You know, the usual blues stuff. Along the way there is some impassioned dialogue.

What Blues in the Night has going for it are songs by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, including one great song, "This Time the Dreams on Me" and one they knocked out of the ball park, perhaps the best popular blues song ever written, "Blues in the Night." The movie also features another first-rate performance by Lloyd Nolan as the gangster. I wonder if any other actor appeared in so many flawed A movies or just plain B moves but who invariably gave believable, notable performances. There are several musical numbers that stand out. We also have the chance to see Betty Field, a first-rate actress who wasn't as successful in Hollywood as she was on Broadway. She plays the femme fatale, complete with bad grammar and the kind of sexy selfishness that can lead a man to bed at night and leave him alone with an empty wallet the next morning. She's brittle and hard here, but her strong suit as an actress, I think, was the fragile vulnerability and warmth she could project. After her role in this movie, the next year she played the doomed Cassie in Kings Row, two performances as different as a prostitute's embrace is from a tremulous first kiss. The movie also has the curiosity value of featuring Elia Kazan in his last acting role. He plays the band's hyperactive young clarinetist whose mother wants him to be a lawyer. Kazan and the film's screenwriter, Robert Rossen, both were hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Hollywood witch-hunts. Both named lots of names. While those they named saw their careers crushed, Kazan and Rossen prospered. Would I have done it differently? I don't know. What little reason there is to remember this movie, however, is the great Arlen/Mercer song:

My mama done tol' me, when I was in knee-pants,
My mama done tol' me, "Son, a woman'll sweet talk
And give you the big eye, but when the sweet talkin's done,
A woman's a two-face, a worrisome thing who'll leave you to sing the blues in the night."

Now the rain's a-fallin', hear the train's a-callin, "Whooee!" (My mama done tol' me)
Hear that lonesome whistle blowin' 'cross the trestle, "Whooee!" (My mama done tol' me)
A-whooee-ah-whooee, ol' clickety-clack's a-echoin' back th' blues in the night.

The evenin' breeze'll start the trees to cryin' and the moon'll hide its light when you get the blues in the night.
Take my word, the mockingbird'll sing the saddest kind o' song, he knows things are wrong, and he's right.

From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to St. Joe, wherever the four winds blow.
I been in some big towns an' heard me some big talk, but there is one thing I know.
A woman's a two-face, a worrisome thing who'll leave you to sing the blues in the night.
My mama was right, there's blues in the night.

Anyone who doesn't believe this is true American poetry...well, you should also throw out the works of William Carlos Williams. For Mercer fans, you might be interested in the CD Evening With Johnny Mercer. Before an audience (which included Harold Arlen) he explains a bit about his writing, takes us through his career and breezes through a number of his songs. It was recorded in 1971, five years before he died. The drawback is that it runs less than an hour. For Mercer fans, it's essential. Mercer usually was his own best interpreter, but Bobby Troupe does a nice job with Bobby Troupe Sings Johnny Mercer. Troupe swings it and keeps it intimate. There's none of the over-orchestrating and lushness that some otherwise great singers brought to Mercer's songs. The CD is hard to find. Easier to locate is The Songs of Johnny Mercer sung by Susannah McCorkle, a fine, low-key stylist.

If I've given the impression you should forget this movie and instead spend more time listening to Johnny Mercer...you'd be right.

This is a very good film about people who love making music in it's raw form, performing live. They work hard and run into some successes and some troubles. Tremendous acting by Priscilla Lane and Richard Whorf (who looks amazingly like Victor Mature). Betty Field is a great "bad girl" without over playing the role and Priscilla Lane plays the opposing nice, cute girl, also without overdoing it. The director must have really done a great job working w/ all the actors to get such fine performances. Many of the roles would have been easy to over play or become parodies of themselves, but they don't allow that to happen. The storyline isn't complex, but the scenes and characters are so interesting that the plot doesn't need to be complex in order to entertain. You don't have to be a music fan to like this, but it doesn't hurt. This is one of my favorite films from this era.

Fast paced, great music, fun story line...what a little gem. Really superior for this type of film. Betty Field is her usually wonderful nutball self and to see Elia Kazan as an actor is a treat. Oh, and dig that title song--and the others!

You can't say too much about the film as it stands in the way of enjoying the ride. I found it slightly askew in the story line and for the better. It is refreshing seeing a different take on what is really only a limited number of plots according to James Cagney. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl. Boy meets girl, boy doesn't get girl, boy finds another. This one rips at the core of how stupid can be about their life when they give into emotions that blind them to the real world. A world grounded in true happiness and not just the momentary desires of one's self. See it and all this pseudo-crap will make sense.

Another of Priscilla Lane's better movies. I loved her pre-botox lips.
She and Richard Whorf were the real stars of this movie.

Blues in the night is a dynamic edge of the seat Thriller.

I bought it on the recommendations of previous reviewers and I was not dissappointed one bit.

Its in the film Noire catergory... a splendid well put together film that always has you wanting more, its cast of actors, where from the old school
who later in years became legendary leads in their business... but even in these earlier movies . they all had superb screen charisma.

The plot is very well scripted, and moves along at a great pace, ducking and diving and all the time giving its actors the chance to display there individual talents... Jack Carson for me is a superb favourite of mine, as too is Howard da Silva... who both went onto huge acclaim as time went by in the movie business.

Lloyd Nolan : he is terrific as always in any situation :he had a chequered career in Hollywood that span 50 years.. and the lead players Boy & Girl...Priscilla Lane very dishy, playing the romantic interest
of both her husband, and the main character player Richard Whorf the crazy mixed up musician were perfect casting.

Its a story thats got grit... intrigue... and romance... thats a sure fire recipe that would give a movie buff " The Blues in the Night "

They just cant make films of this calibre any more... which is a pity.

I blame the director Anatole Litvak for this turkey. A film noir type musical with shades of Andy Hardy. I never got gasps of amazement as the cover predicted.
It`s as phony as a three dollar bill . Nothing rings true: none of the overacting characters or the story. The music offers some bright spots. They`re just a happy-go-lucky troup, no matter how dire the circumstances. Entertaining as a nostalgia piece but too "Hollywood" even for Hollywood. The special features (more than usual) are quite good. I guess they thought that would make up for the film, but Jammin` the Blues was issued on a previous Warner DVD.