Birth of the Blues

Plot synopsis:
Although he is only twelve, Jeff Lambert is a very talented clarinetist, and although the boy's father has spent a small fortune to have Jeff taught the fundamentals of classical clarinet, the lad prefers to spend his time in New Orleans with a group of black jazz men who perform in a dive on Bourbon Street. As the boy grows into manhood, his love for jazz intensifies, and he forms his own group, much to the chagrin of his aging father.
Moving ahead we find Jeff (Crosby) in his late twenties, and he and his boys have been unable to secure a job at any of the classier New Orleans cabarets and have been forced to limit their playing to street corners and to one-night stands in some of the dingier nightclubs. When his lead trombone player asks Jeff why the band can't seem to get anywhere, Jeff replies that he thinks the main problem is that the group lacks a hot trumpet player. He begins to search throughout New Orleans in the hope of finding a trumpet man who can fill the bill. He finds one in a local jail and promises to bail the fellow out as soon as he can raise the money. This he does, and the trumpet player, named Memphis (Brian Donlevy), agrees to become a member of Jeff's band.
At the same time, Jeff notices a young lady called Betty Lou (Mary Martin) being overcharged by a horse-cab driver. He takes pity on her and her Aunt Phoebe (Carolyn Lee) and he invites them to stay with him. Memphis is attracted to Betty Lou and he gets her a job at a club owned by Blackie (J.Carrol Naish) and she agrees to the job if Blackie will take on Jeff's band and he reluctantly agrees to do so.
With a great trumpet player, Jeff's band becomes the most popular jazz band on Bourbon Street. All goes well until they find out that the owner of the club, Blackie is a racketeer who uses his night spot only as a convenient front for his criminal interests. Jeff and the boys decide to leave Blackie's club and go on to other things, but when they tell Blackie of their plans, the gangster threatens to kill them one by one. Jeff takes a swing at Blackie, which causes a violent saloon brawl between Blackie and his gang and Jeff and his boys. During the fight, Jeff's good friend Louey (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) is injured when he is cracked over the head with a bottle. When the riot is over, Jeff and the boys take the unconscious Louey home to his wife, Ruby (Ruby Elzy). As she tearfully bemoans her husband's injury, Jeff and the band play a moving musical tribute to their fallen comrade. Slowly Louey regains consciousness.
A few weeks later, Jeff and his band have still another unpleasant run-in with Blackie. This time the gangster is accidentally killed by one of his own henchmen leaving Jeff, Betty Lou and the band to move on to better things.

Tags: murder

Review:
Birth of the Blues was a labor of love for Bing Crosby and it showed.
The plot is a fictionalization of the creation of the first all white jazz combo, the Original Dixieland Band.This is Mary Martin's second of two films she did with Crosby and at the same time this was being shot, she was doubling as the girl singer on his Kraft Music Hall.
Why movie audiences didn't take to her is still a mystery.Brian Donlevy was at the height of his career where he usually played villains.
He's no villain here, but he's Bing's rival for Mary Martin.
He plays a hot cornet player named Memphis and I do love the scene where Crosby's band engages in an impromptu jam session on the street in front of the new Orleans Jail where Donlevy is residing and Crosby's trying to get him out.
In a radio broadcast dramatization of this film, Phil Harris played Donlevy's part and Dinah Shore played the Mary Martin role.Usually Crosby's films have original material written for them, this is an exception.
A whole lot of old standards are used, the only original song for Birth of the Blues is The Waiter and The Porter and The Upstairs Maid, written by Bing's good pal Johnny Mercer.
It's nice, catchy, novelty number with the waiter and upstairs maid done by Crosby and Martin.
The porter is jazz trombone great Jack Teagarden who's really into the spirit of the thing.One of the standards is Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie, this time done with a jazz inflection.
Crosby and Martin duet it and it became a big seller Decca recording.J. Carroll Naish plays a good gangster villain assisted by henchmen Horace McMahon and Warren Hymer.
Hymer had a specialty in playing schlemiel henchmen and this is a typical Warren Hymer part.Eddie Anderson is in the film, playing a Rochester like part for Bing Crosby as he did for Jack Benny.
Personally I found his Rochester character very good, he often got the best of Jack Benny.
He acquits himself well here.Ruby Elzy plays Anderson's wife and she gets a good vocal opportunity to sing St. Louis Blues as Anderson is unconscious and the band thinks he's checking out.No one should pass on an opportunity to see Bing and Mary Martin together..
As with many musicals of the era, the little girl of the film sparks a sort of magic, something Carolyn Lee was quite good at.
She first appears as six-year-old "Aunt Phoebe" sliding down a spiral banister and landing on Bing Crosby's lap, after which she smashes his lucky hat.
So Phoebe becomes a sort of mascot/hanger-on of the early New Orleans blues band that struggles to survive against strong prejudices against "darkie" music.
Towards the end of the movie Bing picks her up and lullabies her to sleep with the #1 hit song of 1941, "Melancholy Baby".
I never imagined this song was written to sing to six-year-old Carolyn Lee. The Melancholy Baby scene alone is worth the price of admission.The movie is well filmed, the jazz is great, the acting good and the story interesting.
Bing is at his best, Mary Martin is gorgeous and Brian Donlevy with his rakish mustache is quite the rogue.
One thing I liked about the film was the close, friendly relationships between the African-American and White jazz musicians.
Birth of the blues....so why is it so focused on all those white people?!.
So, seeing and hearing Bing Crosby and a bunch of white actors singing what they refer to as 'the blues' and its birth is pretty funny....in a sad way.
It's a lot like the 1950s when black rock 'n roll songs were remade by dull white singers--such as when (I kid you not) Pat Boone remade Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti"--and outsold the original!
Most of the music is NOT the Blues but Dixieland--a much happier and bouncier variation on Jazz and the Blues.
Now I don't mind this style of music--but this isn't the film's title!
The actors (Bing Crosby, Brian Donlevy and Mary Martin) are fine--but very white and middle-class.
An enjoyable film but not at all a tribute to the black men who created this music.
While the black men are mentioned (such as by using enlightened phrases like folks referring to it as 'darkie music'!), this is clearly a white-wash--though an enjoyable one..
Mary Martin, was a real favorite and got her Hollywood start singing "Daddy" in Cole Porter's Night and Day".
This film enjoyed the talents of Eddie (Rochester), Jack Teagarden (who sang with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, and my favorite male vocalist, Bing Crosby.
Crosby and Martin were so good together, and make you feel like hopping dancing and singing lively with them.
It's a pleasure to reminisce about these great musical films..
In this musical comedy set in New Orleans in the 1890's, a clarinet player with a passion for jazz, played by Bing Crosby, organizes a band of white musicians in an effort to bring this "blue music" to the white café society of New Orleans, during an era when whites looked down on jazz as a product of Black people.The film's screenplay is not very good.
Meanwhile, the shallow plot dilutes the impact of the film's music.
The only musical number I found even faintly memorable was "St. Louis Blues", performed with passion by diva Ruby Elzy.One thing I did find interesting was the inclusion of a couple of bit part actors who would later become well known.
And Barbara Pepper (as Doris Ziffel from "Green Acres") shows up off and on in the film as a nightclub hussy.Given the title, I was expecting a blues extravaganza, not a talk fest.
And it probably would be a good film for fans of Bing Crosby, for whom the film functions as a cinematic vehicle..
Birth of the Blues was an enjoyable Bing Crosby vehicle.
I think I saw a clip of this movie when I watched a special on PBS a couple of decades ago called "Remembering Bing", that clip being of Crosby and Mary Martin whistling.
In the New Orleans sequence where a bunch of black musicians were playing, it took me awhile to realize that one of them was Mantan Moreland with his familiar bug eyes-who I knew was a native of Monroe, Louisiana.
Oh, and a few decades after this movie, Bing's daughter Mary played a character on "Dallas" who was revealed to have shot Mary Martin's son, Larry Hagman, as J.
BIRTH OF THE BLUES (Paramount, 1941), directed by Victor Schertzinger, stars Bing Crosby in an interesting production that's "Dedicated to the musical pioneers of Memphis and New Orleans who favored the "hot" over the "sweet" - those early jazz men who took American music out of the rut and put it "in the grove." In musical terms, "blues" is not a form of depression but a music style of ragtime/jazz that originated by Southern blacks dating back to the 1890s.
W.C. Handy (1873-1958), "Father of the Blues," the most recognizable of blues composers of his time, was only an honorable mention along with such notables of both black and white legends as Ted Lewis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman before the film's conclusion.
While BIRTH OF THE BLUES could very well have been a biography to any one of these greats, playing more like a biography in general, but in present form, is basically a fictional account the birth of the first Dixieland Jazz Band.Opening in the 1890s, the plot begins with prologue in "Jazz Singer" plot-style where a Louisiana boy named Jeff Lambert (Ronnie Cosbey) is seen clarinet playing to "darkie music" among black musicians on the dock side of Basin Street by Louey (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson), the family servant, thus, reporting the news to the boy's stern musician father (Minor Watson).
The now adult Jeff Lambert (Bing Crosby), better known as "Sunshine," has formed a band, but is unable to gain prominence playing in New Orleans cabarets with his all white musicians playing to Dixieland music.
Jeff's luck changes with new additions to his company: Memphis (Brian Donlevy), a white trumpet player serving twenty days in a local jail, and Betty Lou Cobb (Mary Martin), a young woman from Alexandria who supplies Jeff $20 to have Memphis bailed from jail.
Carrol Naish) and his thugs (Warren Hymer and Horace MacMahon) make certain that their newfound "Basin Street Hot Shots" doesn't get to leave for Chicago where a great opportunity awaits them.During this well-scripted 84 minutes, song interludes and highlights include: "The Birth of the Blues" (sung by Bing Crosby during opening credits); "The Memphis Blues" (by W.C. Handy); "Gotta Go to the Jailhouse," "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," "Tiger Rag" (played by Dixieland Jazz Band); "Waiting at the Church," "Cuddle Up a Little Closer" (sung by Mary Martin); "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie," "My Melancholy Baby" (sung by Crosby to Carolyn Lee); "The Waiter, the Porter and the Upstairs Maid" (new song by Johnny Mercer and Robert Emmett Dolan, performed by Crosby, Martin and Jack Teagarden); "The St. Louis Blues" (hauntingly sung by Ruby Elzy); and "The Birth of the Blues" (sung by Crosby during the montage featuring other blues performers).Though disappointing through its historic accuracy, it succeeds in entertainment values.
Bing Crosby and Mary Martin work just as well here as their did in their initial offering, RHYTHM ON THE RIVER (1940), while Paramount's resident tough guy, Brian Donlevy, has his moment fist-fighting with Bing for one scene.
Aside from the aforementioned leads, the best moments go to Eddie Anderson (billed simply as his character "Rochester" from Jack Benny radio fame) where he gives singing advice to Betty (Martin)from a black man's point of view.
Very much a black and white production, there's an interesting use of color slide shows on the motion picture screen during the movie house sequence.
Others featured in the cast include Harry Barris (Suds); Cecil Kellaway (the French accented Mr. Granet) and Barbara Pepper (Maisie).Out of circulation since public television broadcast days in some states (1980-1990s), BIRTH OF THE BLUES can be found on DVD along with Crosby's musical, BLUE SKIES (Paramount, 1946) on the flip side.
LOUIS BLUES (Paramount, 1939), a/k/a BEST OF THE BLUES, the Crosby edition, nearly forgotten to today's generation, happens to be one of the more enjoyable birth of the blues presentations for its time.
This also has Crosby singing with Louis Armstrong..
Jazz lovers, go out and rent Birth of the Blues; even if you don't like old movies, it might become one of your favorites.
Loosely based on real events, Bing Crosby plays someone who, despite his classical training, has jazz in his veins and insists on playing a new kind of music.
When no one wants to listen to it, he forms a band with Brian Donlevy and Mary Martin and starts touring, forcing everyone to listen to it!Cute little tidbits included in the screenplay will make jazz historians chuckle, like when one band member breaks his bow and is forced to improvise by plucking the bass fiddle with his fingers.
Fans of the original jazz and blues movement will enjoy seeing Jack Teagarden perform, as well as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson enjoying a pretty big part as Bing's loyal friend.I'm not the biggest fan of jazz, but I thought this movie was adorable.
It's light and fluffy, with only a little smidge of drama, unlike some musical biopics.
A new song was written for the film, "The Waiter, the Porter, and the Upstairs Maid", and for me, it was particularly fun to watch.
I'd heard the song a million times on my Bing Crosby Greatest Hits CD but never knew what movie it came from!.
Good-natured and entertaining with great songs and performances.
Not a great film, and as far as Victor Schertzinger-directed and Bing Crosby and Mary Martin films go, there is a preference for 'Rhythm on the River'.
However, despite the script, story and characterisation not being as strong as the rest this is good-natured entertainment.The songs and performances especially make much more of an impression than the aforementioned not-so-good things.
Despite strong performances, not much attention was given to characterisation, which is barely there.On the other hand, it is a very handsome looking film and very well directed by Schertzinger.
The songs are simply great, standouts being the title song, "St Louis Blues", "Melancholy Baby" (definitely a highlight here) and the jazzy rendition of "Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie".
Even with its faults, there is something about 'Birth of Blues' that stops one from being too hard on it, it's funny, charming and good-natured.Performances are great, with Bing Crosby and Mary Martin singing in a way that takes you to another world that you don't want to leave, while they look comfortable and are charming.
Carrol Naish agreed seems incapable of being bad and while real-life trombonist Jack Teagarden is better as a trombonist than an actor there is denying how much of a legend he was on the instrument.In summary, not great but a good, fun film that are lifted particularly by great songs and a talented cast giving their all.
Anyone interested in where the Ealing comedy 'The Ladykillers' stole the idea of a group of musos playing a gramophone record whilst ostensibly rehearsing behind a closed door and actually stealing away need look no further than this entry, produced a good ten years before Ladykillers.
At best it's a mish-mosh with its heart in the right place; Crosby, ex Paul Whiteman vocalist and a friend of several early jazz musicians, notably Bix Beiderbecke, Jo Venuti, Eddy Lang and Louis Armstrong, was interested in a fictional recreation of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band with himself as leader, natch, and Brian Donlevy as Bix - at one point the script refers to him as 'the only white cornet player in the country' and Mary Martin as a completely fictional vocalist.
Carrol Naish seldom gave a bad performance; throw in several 'pop' songs of the day and a great original by Johnny Mercer and what's not to like..
Yes, the musical numbers, rather than being purely representatives of early southern blues and jazz compositions, are a mixed bag of early 20th century Tin Pan Alley compositions, mostly ballads, 3 genuine blues or ragtime compositions by southern African Americans(AA) or whites, and even a British music hall standard in "Waiting at the Church".
Presumably, the brass assumed that audiences would want more variety in musical styles than just blues or Dixieland, and I can't fault them for that.
At the beginning, it says the film is dedicated to the pioneers of such music in New Orleans and Memphis.
Well, the only connection with Memphis is a cornet-playing jailbird in NO, played by Brian Donlevy, who usually played villains.
He seems to represent a combination of NO-based Caucasian Nick LaRocca, coronetist and co-composer of the featured "Tiger Rag", and AA W.C. Handy, who was for a time based in Memphis, did play the coronet, and did compose the two featured blues numbers "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues", often converted to jazz by others.
We might expect a much more direct recognition of Handy's importance in a film of this title.
For a much more historically-relevant treatment of his life and career, check out the later film "St. Louis Blues".
That title song,only heard as sung by Bing during the opening credits, was, like most of the songs, actually a Tin Pan Alley composition.
Even the opening "At a Georgia Camp Meeting", staged as played by an all African American band and sounding from the title like it was derived from an AA spiritual, was actually an early Tin Pan Alley composition.Yes, the screenplay is very hokey, the way Bing, Mary Martin(MM) and Donlevy meet and all serendipitously end up staying with Bing for want of other accommodations.
In any case, although no Shirley Temple, she served as an occasional quirky diversion from the adult drama and music, and functions as a sleeping 'prop' during Bing's soulful rendition of "My Melancholy Baby".
Typically, Bing, Donlevy and MM form a budding romantic triangle, with Donlevy aggressively pursuing MM, who is more attracted to the laconic Bing.J.Carrol Naish, as a shady restaurant owner(Blackie), who's willing to send his goons to wreck competing establishments that want to take his new draw of Bing's revolutionary band, is a bit extreme, but possibly realistic, and certainly adds to the drama.
Toward the end, when Bing's 'Basin Street Hot-Shots' get an offer from a Chicago establishment, Blackie is willing to hold the band hostage at gun point to prevent their leaving!
Bing and Donlevy are the heroes in getting the band safely on the boat for Chicago, while Blackie meets his end in poetic justice fashion(see film for details).The film dramatizes the difficulties pioneer Caucasians had in getting blues and various jazz forms accepted by snobbish conservative white society as legitimate musical forms for their listening and dancing.
I noted that all the jailbirds shown, except Donlevy, were AA's, some acting crazed with the Dixieland music.
Certainly, Bing showed that he much valued his servant Louey(Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson) as a friend, when he appeared near death.
Along with Phoebe, Louey, with his gravely voice, served to lighten the serious drama.I enjoyed the music, on the whole.
Along with the traditional Dixieland numbers, a standout was the "Wait til the Sun Shines, Nellie", sung by Bing and MM, in a Dixieland style.
According to the screenplay, this rendition served as the bridge to white acceptance of Dixieland jazz.
Bing's mellow rendition of "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" was enhanced by accompanying slides of appropriate paintings, in color, in this otherwise B&W film..
Ruby Elzy(AA)'s soulful rendition of "St. Louis Blues", as Louey apparently hovers near death, is also memorable.