Blues in the Night

Plot synopsis:
While playing in a bar in St. Louis, jazz pianist Jigger Pine meets aspiring clarinetist Nickie Haroyen who tries to convince him to put together a jazz band. After a drunk patron starts a fight, Nickie and Jigger are thrown in jail with Jigger's drummer and bassist. They hear a prisoner singing a blues song and are inspired to set out for New Orleans where they hope to learn how to perfect an authentic bluesy sound. There they meet fast-talking trumpeter Leo and his wife Character who is a talented singer. Together, the quintet rides the rails, honing their technique in dive bars across the country.
One day while sheltering in a boxcar they meet a mysterious stranger named Del who first robs them and then, impressed by their camaraderie, offers them a job in a New Jersey roadhouse called The Jungle. The group discovers that the roadhouse is actually owned by Del's former partners in crime, aspiring singer Kay, accomplice Sam and her crippled sidekick Brad. Del has escaped from jail to retrieve his share of a robbery the three committed, but when Kay tells him they have spent all the money, he decides to take over The Jungle and transform it into an illegal gambling club. Kay tries to rekindle her past romance with Del, but he rejects her and she turns her attention to Leo. Although the band is happy playing their brand of jazz each night at the club, Character is worried about Leo and Kay. Jigger reveals to Leo that Character is pregnant and he decides to give up Kay. She soon sets her sights on Jigger who is secretly in love with her. When Sam tries to get her to alert the police to Del's whereabouts, she tells Del and Sam is killed by Del's henchmen. Del orders her to leave The Jungle so she convinces Jigger to quit the band and go to New York City to join a commercial, mainstream jazz band.
Although successful, Jigger is unhappy in his new life, feeling he is not playing authentic jazz. Kay finally grows bored of life with Jigger and leaves him when he tells her he is quitting the band. He descends into alcoholism and has a mental breakdown. His friends find him and help nurse him back to health, hiding the fact that Character's baby has died. They return to The Jungle where Jigger begins playing again, but Kay shows up without any money looking for help. She and Del have a quarrel which begins to turn violent but Jigger comes to her defense, fights with Del. During that struggle, Kay gets Del's gun shoots and kills him. Jigger decides to protect Kay and help her escape from the police, but Brad hears their plans and realizes that Kay is leaving forever. The band shows up and try to talk Jigger out of leaving with Kay, revealing that Character lost the baby. They compare Jigger's mental problems with Brad being a cripple, stating that Brad has no choice about how he will end up but Jigger does have a choice. Brad overhears the band. He joins Kay in Del's car where she was waiting for Jigger. Brad drives away with her into a violent storm, deliberately wrecking the car so they are both killed. The band resolves to leave The Jungle behind and they return to their life on the road, happy to again be playing their preferred version of jazz.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence

Review:
Jazz musicians, gangsters, stool pigeons, and canaries populate Anatole Litvak's interesting -- and little seen -- story of a pianist who tragically attempts to transform an off-key singer (Betty Field, over-the-top and enjoyable as all get-out) to replace the pregnant vocalist (Priscilla Lane).
All of the performances are interesting (Lloyd Nolan, especially), and the face-off between Lane and Field is worth a look.
Also in the cast (and band) is Jack Carson, future director Elia Kazan and Priscilla Lane (who does wonders with the thankless 'good girl' role).
The film is beautifully directed in gorgeous black and white by Anatole Litvak--he makes good use of his low budget and has some very nice sequences using light and shadows.
Also there's some really great music in here.So...great music, good acting, beautiful photography...and just an OK story.Still, well worth seeing.Strange thing about this film--everybody seems to know about it, but it's almost never shown!
It defies genre classification -- both a musical drama and a sort of missing link between the Warners gangster movies of the 1930s (mugs, molls, and rat-a-tat dialogue) and 1940s film noir (femme fatale, dark shadows, smoky atmosphere, seamy underside of life).
It's a genuine one-of-a-kind movie that deserves to be much better remembered than it is.However, one commenter here needs to refresh his memory; BLUES IN THE NIGHT has nothing whatever to do with the career of Jimmy Lunceford or any other famous musician of the period.
It's about a small jazz combo, not a big band, and they begin and end the movie as obscure journeymen living from hand to mouth between gigs..
Interesting film by director Anatole Litvak creating film-noir with a musical.Two future excellent directors, Richard Whorf, who bore a strong resemblance to Robert Taylor, and Elia Kazan star.
A group of musicians led by Jigger (Whorf) meet up with gangster Lloyd Nolan while hitching a ride on a train.
We have some great musical settings here and the various montage depiction is excellent.The film is extremely well paced.
He moves beautifully from film noir to musical and back to film noir again.In addition, there is a terrific performance by Bette Field as a Road House girl in love with Nolan, who spurns her.
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.
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.
Still, I think noir would have been the best vehicle for her.Priscilla Lane plays the female opposite: the wholesome-looking good gal ("Character") who just wants the band to click and for everybody to be happy.
Obviously the same can be said for another member of the band in this story: "Nickie," played by Elia Kazan, who classic film fans know as a very famous director.When all is said-and-done, actors Lane and Lloyd Nolan ("Del") seemed to be the most "real" in this film, and those two were the ones who had the best careers of this cast, particularly Nolan.
Kudos to director Anatole Litvak for some good closeup shots and interesting camera angles and use of light, in that scene and others in the film.
Familiar actors like Jack Carson, Priscilla Lane, Lloyd Nolan and Wallace Ford are here, but there is also a starring role by the relatively unknown Richard Whorf as well as a supporting role by Elia Kazan--before he made a REAL name for himself as a director.
And while none of these folks are huge stars, they do a fine job and the film has the usual high quality and polish you'd expect from the studio.This film is sort of like a fairy tale about a group of musicians who love Blues, though it's NOT exactly the same style you'd find in Black America--it's more like a big-band/Hollywood idea of the Blues!
This film took me by surprise because it is a musical black and white film with fast movement of the camera and goes from Jazz and Blues music smack into a drama and murder.
The film starts out with a piano player named Jugger, (Richard Whorf) who wants to organize a band and he has as his female singer, Ginger Powell, (Priscilla Lane) and her husband, Leo Powell, (Jack Carson) his trumpet player.
Del Davis, (Lloyd Nolan) is an escaped convict who runs into this jazz band in a box car and decides to hold them up for all their money.
A jazz/blues band forms out of St. Louis after the members spend a night together in jail.
Things really start going over the top with the arrival of Betty Field as Kitty, fugitive Lloyd Nolan's ex-girlfriend, a tough exterior over a brittle interior.
The band, led by future director Richard Whorf and featuring clarinetist (and future director Elia Kazan) is fairly interesting, though the characters are not that believable.
'T ain't What You Do, it's The Way ThatYou Do It. The above tune, one of Jimmie Lunceford's first, has nothing to do with BLUES IN THE NIGHT, but I think it fits perfectly the film.
T'AIN'T WHAT...etc., is EXACTLY what I feel about the job done by the Warner Brothers, Tolya Litvak, Betty Field, Lloyd Nolan and all the film celebrities who made long and fruitful careers after WWII.
I'm sure that if the brothers Warner had known that Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer would give this film a score that would include This Time The Dream's On Me and the title song Blues In The Night, they would have found a better film for the score to be in.
It's the story of a jazz combo consisting of Jack Carson, Elia Kazan, Peter Whitney, Billy Halop, girl singer Priscilla Lane and their tempestuous leader Richard Whorf.As is the usual in real life and films these musicians are barely making a subsistence living until they meet up with Lloyd Nolan, a gangster on the run who puts them into a steady gig at a Jersey roadhouse he's got an interest in.
His help is Howard DaSilva, Wallace Ford, and Betty Field.Field is some piece of work, she transitions nicely from her bad girl role in Of Mice and Men to this film.
Nolan's on to her, Ford's a faithful stooge, but for Whorf she sends him for quite a tumble.In fact Blues In The Night becomes something of a prequel for The Lost Weekend.
Whorf goes through the same kind of trip Ray Milland went through and the cinematic techniques showing his lost mind are quite similar.Blues In The Night got an Oscar nomination for Best Song, but lost to The Last Time I Saw Paris which was not written specifically for Lady Be Good the film it appeared in.
He campaigned himself to get the rules to state clearly the song must be an original one written specifically for a film.It's an average B film, still Blues In The Night has achieved its own immortality through its musical score..
Jazz pianist Richard Whorf (as "Jigger" Pine) puts together a swinging 1940s band, with handsome young Billy Halop (as Peppi) on drums, law student Elia Kazan (as Nickie) playing clarinet, and cell-mate Peter Whitney (as Pete) handling the bass fiddle.
But, trouble reigns as Mr. Nolan supplements nightclub success with a gambling racket, and involves sexy femme fatale Betty Field (as Kay Grant) with the group.This adaptation of the jazzy play "Hot Nocturne" is astonishing in a couple of ways.
While other characterizations are curiously lacking, Nolan and Ms. Field make the most of their parts.******* Blues in the Night (11/15/41) Anatole Litvak ~ Richard Whorf, Betty Field, Priscilla Lane, Lloyd Nolan.
A refreshing change from musical comedies, this one has some very recognizable actors from Hollywood's Golden Age, including Priscilla Lane, Lloyd Nolan, Jack Carson and Wallace Ford.
The nominal star of the picture is a not-so-recognizable name, Richard Whorf, perhaps best known for playing Sam Harris, James Cagney's song writing partner in "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
You can also see a youthful Elia Kazan, before he became more famous as a director."Blues In The Night" has some excellent musical numbers, especially for jazz fans, and you can get a rare look at Jimmy Lunceford and his band, who were riding a wave of popularity about this time.
But the number I liked best was "This Time The Dream's On Me", sung by Priscilla Lane (unless she was dubbed), the 'band canary' for the group.There is very little down time here as director Litvak keeps the picture moving at a good clip.
Notice how up-tempo are the dialogue delivery and camera moves-- it's a super-charged atmosphere even as the the night hangs heavy over their vibrant little spark.Things go downhill once they hook up with The Jungle and Betty Field.
Nonetheless, there's a really compelling image that stays with me-- the band making with the blues in a boxcar as the train rolls on through the night, going who knows where.
Part film noir, part musical, part thriller...doesn't really know what it wants to be.
One writer noted that Betty Field and Lloyd Nolan were both in PEYTON PLACE years after this, but they had no scenes together.
The final minute is what I would have expected from the entire film: dark, slow, some blues music, and moody.
And the story lacks focus.A troupe of blues musicians never quite gets around to playing much blues music.
But as soon as the angry, brittle Kay (Betty Field) appears, about a third of the way through the film, the story's emphasis seems to switch to her.
But at least it gives what is probably a fairly accurate representation of film sets used during the Great Depression.Overall, "Blues In The Night" is disappointing, mostly because of a script that is too talky and so rigidly plot bound that the intended musical blues theme gets smothered..
Unfortunately the music keeps getting interrupted by the sort of sappy story that Hollywood usually attached to films that were billed as musicals.Down and out musicians, riding the rails like hobos, decide to form a band at Depression's end, but they keep getting involved with gangsters, stupid club owners and a woman of very questionable morals who would break up their happy family.
Oh, what's the use--no one would watch this for the story or to see Jack Carson or Lloyd Nolan or the rest of them.If only there had been more of the music and less of what some might call "drama," and what I would call fast talking, poor acting treacle..
While I'd love to see the 1941 b&w movie (is it even available?), I saw the more recent musical adaptation at the Seattle Center some years back, and have listened to the CD recording of the Sheldon Epps 1987 production (Carol Woods, Debby Bishop, Maria Friedman, Clarke Peters) innumerable times since then.While the band may have been Jimmy Lunceford's, the vocalists were meant to portray Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and perhaps Ma Rainey, blues stars of the 20s and 30s "race records" and industry standards.As a strong supporter of the performing arts in high school, I would love to see this as a musical production (with some word replacements in the script), but don't think it is available for high schools - more's the pity..
Loud mouth,loud clothes,no class,awful make-up,etc.etc.Some of the musical performances are good,especially the title song,sung by the black guy in jail,the appearance of the Jimmie Lunceford Band and the one song that Priscilla Lane gets to sing after they start their gig at the roadhouse.
It also boasts one of the worst musical performances I've ever seen on film, when the band goes to visit Jigger at his new gig and that blonde with the back-up singers does that weird song where she's making a lot of faces.
"From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to Saint Joe, Wherever the four winds blow, I've Been in some big towns, I've heard me some big talk, And there is one thing I know...." The music has real blues feeling, and the lyrics are as good as you'll ever find in a popular tune.So why is it that a movie which is named after the song and repeatedly alludes to it in its soundtrack never actually lets us hear the entire song from start to finish?
A good job, too, but cut short so we can return to the silly plot.There's also another good Arlen / Mercer song, totally different in spirit: "This Time the Dream's on Me." It's nicely sung by Priscilla Lane.There are interesting montages at two points in the movie, both created by Don Siegel.
Litvak's little-known musical drama looks forward to film noir.
Richard Whorf is their leader; trumpeter Jack Carson and canary Priscilla Lane (whose character's name is `Character') are man and wife; and among the rest is the young Elia Kazan.
On the road complications ensue: Lane, pregnant, thinks the free-and-easy Carson will take a powder if he knows a kid's coming; riding the rails, they hook up with a lammed-up mobster (Lloyd Nolan).
But Field's not through with him yet, or, for that matter, with Nolan....The film is full of surprises.
It's a significant milestone in the formation of the noir cycle, and why it isn't better known remains one of cinema's mysteries: Blues in the Night is an involving, inventive musical drama..
The Film Noir Musical.
What an interesting idea: a film noir musical.
While some of the acting was a bit over the top by today's standards, this film is a masterpiece of classic noir with great music, as well.
I loved the song Bacall sang in THE BIG SLEEP, but BLUES IN THE NIGHT makes brings the music to the forefront, giving the viewer/listener a fuller experience.
Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity", Jane Greer in "Out of the Past" and Lizabeth Scott in "Dead Reckoning" owe everything to this performance, because once they saw it, they probably agreed that to tone down the insinuations of psychosis in their characters which was the best way to play it because Field is entirely over the top.Of course, the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer song will attract your attention from the moment a black group of jail inmates begins to sing it and band member Richard Whorf decides to take it on as his theme.
This is about a blues group that travel by box car, are held up on a train, and end up friendly with their friendly neighbor thief (Lloyd Nolan) who sends them to his shanty honky-tonk run by the hard as nails Howard da Silva where they meet the unforgettable Field.
Lots of interesting credits from Anatole Litvak who was nothing if not eclectic shooting stuff as diverse as Mayerling, The Snake Pit, Sorry, Wrong Number, Anastasia and The Deep Blue Sea. Robert Rossen who wrote the screenplay was one of three future directors involved in the project the others being Richard Whorf and Gadg who weighs in with a frenetic acting performance.
Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer provided two all-time great standards though neither one, This Time The Dream's On Me and the title song gets a workout worthy of them.
The cast is a movie buff's dream with the likes of Howard da Sylva, Betty Field, Lloyd Nolan, Prisscilla Lane and Jack Carson all emoting for local 802.
I recorded this film on spec because I was interested to see Richard Whorf in a starring role.
That's only the beginning of what I thought was one of the famous write it as you go WB films, like when They Drive by Night (1940) takes an unexpected turn into Bordertown (1935).
Nope, he falls for the dame Carson should have gotten, a no-good twist, play brilliantly by Betty Field.
The band is bumming a ride in a box car when Lloyd Nolan, obviously a gangster on the run, hops aboard.
The music is great with Whorf (or someone dubbing his playing)is really brilliant on the piano.
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.
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.