Product Details

• Actors: Louis Armstrong, Jr. Sammy Davis, Jeanette Du Bois, Lola Falana, Michael Vincente Gazzo
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: January 12, 2010
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002TVQ4D0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,684 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

MAN CALLED ADAM:MUSIC MAKERS - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Must See Jazz Movie, May 21, 2010

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Lori Adams "lastar" (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Music Makers: A Man Called Adam (DVD)

I haven't seen this music since I was very young. The day I got it in mail I quickly opened it and put in DVD to watch. I didn't leave the couch till the movie ended. I had been searching for this film and movies like it for a long time. If you are a Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, Mel Torme, or Cicely Tyson, Ossie Davis fan such as me, you will thoroughly enjoy this movie. I recommend this film to any music lover, especially jazz.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sammy's Oscar Worthy Performance, December 10, 2010

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Bronzebuckaroo - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Music Makers: A Man Called Adam (DVD)

I've been trying to get TCM to show this movie for about a year now and they refuse to do so. I'm happy that it has finally been made available on dvd. Sammy's acting is absolutely superb in this film and he should've won an oscar that year for best actor. His final scene on stage is both sad and incredibly well acted. This movie has some of the greatest legends all in one film. There's Satchmo,Ossie Davis,Frank Sinatra Jr., Mel Torme,Peter Lawford,a very beautiful Cicely Tyson,Janet Du'Bois,Lola Falana,Johnny Brown,and Sammy's music director George Rhodes. Look for Morgan Freeman as an extra in a club scene and also Albert'Poppy'Popwell as an extra. Albert played in several Clint Eastwood movies (once as a pimp,one as a bank robber, and once as a fellow cop friend of Dirty Harry's.What a great film that at least should be shown on the Black networks.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blues for Adam Johnson, April 17, 2010

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L. Spain (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Man Called Adam (Amazon Instant Video)

Some films try to cram so much emotion into each frame that they leave you feeling a little dizzy, like after a roller-coaster ride. You're exhausted by the dramatic twists and turns of the story, but exhilarated by the effort; confused by the wildly conflicting shifts in tone, yet inspired by what you believe the filmmakers were straining to achieve. That's what the experience of watching "A Man Called Adam" is like.

Filmed in 1966, while the Civil Rights struggle was shaking the United States out of its complacency over the so-called "Negro problem", with Black Panthers, protests, sit-ins, and urban uprisings sending their angry smoke into the sky, this confrontational little black & white film tells the story of a prodigiously talented jazz musician and singer, Adam Johnson, who is played by none other than the similarly hugely gifted performer, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Adam has some serious personal and social problems. He's arrogant to the point of violence, foul-mouthed, selfish and brutal in his dealings with women, drinks and smokes too much, and, well, you get the picture, eh? Self-destructive is an understatement. You're subjected to about an hour-and-a-half of all this masochistic suffering, blow-by-blow, insult after insult. It gets kind of intense after a while, to the point where you're about to throw your hands up and exclaim in exasperation: "This guy is a major (expletive of your choice)!"

And yet...and yet, as you watch Sammy Davis, Jr. run himself through a wringer trying to hold on to the reins of this sad and tortured genius, you begin to be impressed by his energy as manages to keep such a potentially unsympathetic character alive and breathing when you wish he'd just go away and die. It dawns on you slowly that all that energy MUST be controlled by a great deal of skill. And suddenly, it's like Mr. Davis ceases to be Sammy and you think, "Well, maybe he ain't acting." And that's what guides this movie to its occasional moments of transcendence over its sometimes-manic dramatics. When you read that Sammy Davis at the height of his Las Vegas fame as a member of the "Rat Pack" was not allowed to stay overnight in the hotels he performed in because of his Black skin color, you KNOW he wasn't acting. He becomes larger than life, which makes the tragic life of his character, Adam Johnson, burn like a fuse in your brain as he twists a knife slowly, clinically, into your heart -- just a twist -- so you can know what it feels like to be wounded by irrational, hateful forces, as he has been wounded.

Of course, by necessity in a film, Mr. Davis couldn't be a one-man show as he was so successfully in his live performances on stage. Arrayed around him in supporting roles is a black, brown and beige garden of unique and talented actors and actresses such as Ossie Davis and Cicely Tyson; personalities like Johnny Brown, George Kirby, and lovely Lola Falana; once-in-a-century kind of musical artists such as Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, and others who later found fame on television, such as Jeanette DuBois ("Good Times"). If you're sharp, you'll spot a young and lanky Morgan Freeman in the party scene with the stylish jazz singer, Mel Torme.

And lest you think that a movie featuring jazz musicians is all sadness and blues, then, baby, just wait `til you see and hear all the cats wailin' through some swingin' modern jazz numbers composed and arranged by Benny Carter and performed (some on-screen and some not) by the likes of trumpeter Nat Adderley, trombonist Kai Winding, pianist "Junior" Mance, and drummer Jo Jones. As they said back in the day, "all the pots are on", so get ready for some serious cookin'!