With his DRAGNET/’54 feature film directing debut just behind him (eventually 400 tv episodes), Jack Webb brought his distinctive (okay, downright weird) acting & directing style to this Roaring ‘Twenties tale of a hard-driving cornet player who runs his New Orleans jazz combo; woos society floozy Janet Leigh; fights off mob manager Edmond O’Brien; suffers the fast alcoholic decline of the reluctant band singer O'Brien assigns to them (Peggy Lee); is pressed by detective Andy Devine to spill all on O’Brien’s protection racket; then head back for that last late-night set at the speakeasy where the crowd knows their jazz and the owner waters the bootleg booze. When you consider that Webb stops the plot cold whenever he plays, Lee sings, or Ella Fitzgerald does a number at her place, that’s a lot of story & music to fit into 95 minutes. But Webb, churning out 30 minute tv cop dramas as his day job, was nothing if not efficient. Facility that gave him lots of time to refine his bizarre visuals: upfront/lateral staging for lenser Harold Rosson’s WideScreen super-shiny WarnerColor CinemaScope image (sets, cars, streets, costumes, Webb’s shoe-polish-black hair: like what you’d see behind a velvet rope at a museum). And physical stunts (fights, car smash-ups, gunplay), given the herky-jerky treatment of one of those plastic boxing-ring action figures. At this stage, Webb’s flat, staccato line delivery stands out from the rest of the cast; by the ‘60s, everyone on his shows had picked up his clipped style.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: This was Peggy Lee’s big year in film, Oscar® nom’d here*, plus songs & vocals for Disney’s LADY AND THE TRAMP/’55. Yet, no real follow up movie-wise. How come? https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/09/lady-and-tramp-1955.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Lee not exactly good, but what a tour-de-force theatrical setting she gets for her sanatorium sendoff!
No comments:
Post a Comment