Too Late Blues

Trailer—Too Late Blues

Too Late Blues_720p(480P)

source: Too Late Blues

John Cassavetes was better in front of a camera than behind. By basically giving up acting he probably cheated us of several classic performances. This, his first effort as producer, writer, director, for a major production company (Paramount) should have convinced everyone he was wrong for the tasks. While some of the themes he attempted were well-intended, they were rarely stated clearly or succinctly enough to be fully convincing. John's writing was mostly formless, meandering, and often unfocused - sometimes it rambled on till the vital energy of a scene was totally crushed, leaving only a shallow framework to limp forward till it collapsed. In attempting to gain an avant-garde style he constantly pushed each scene beyond its strengths, till some of the performers and most of the audience had lost interest. If ever there was a movie maker who desperately needed someone else to call "cut" it was him. Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens as jazz musician and would-be singer are quite believable within their characters' limited personas - they strive to extend interest but are at the mercy of a somewhat contrived script. Darin went on to far better things in his tragically short life, while beautiful Stevens was mostly typecast in the Monroe vain. Veteran cinematographer Lionel Linden captures it all beautifully in gorgeous B/W - with some well known jazz muso's playing the score by respected David Raksin. These limited interest productions seem to attract attention from people who believe that 'less is more' or would-be movie-makers who hide behind minimalism as an 'art' form. Cassavetes went on to making films with his drinking buddies - most of these productions looked like they were sponsored by Alcohol and Cigarette companies. Everybody constantly drank and smoked, they also tended to feature pack shots and labels blatantly facing camera wherever possible (John, sadly was an alcoholic and chain smoker and these addictions eventually contributed to his death, way too early) If you can last the distance you might just be eligible to become a new fan. The Olive label is to be commended for making it available in such a fine quality DVD transfer.

My ever-present gaps of awareness are a given, so playing like a new release at that citadel for great film prints, the Museum of Modern Art, was "Too Late Blues." Yes, it's the first Cassavettes film I have seen. "Shadows" was running in the other projection room. I hope to see that one day. "Too Late Blues" is an uncompromising look at two people, Stella Stevens, to whom I think Tim Curry owes a lot, and that pudgy faced icon, Bobby Darin, whom I recognized as a great jazz singer during the time of Bobby Rydell...I have seen one photo of Bobby Darin, with Johnny Mercer as one of the "Two of a Kind" combo, which is a fun musical album. Johnny Mercer is his own jazz vocal stylist, apart from his creation of casually elegant lyrics... "and they commute by stratasferry, my, they love to fly... " Bobby Darin was up for singing with Johnny Mercer and was certainly up for acting in this harrowing Cassavettes movie. Seeing it, you will be a witness to his full range of disarming facade and insecure anger, as well as hers. If you've seen her standing around in Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor you'll think that Stella Stevens makes no sense in her harrowing range here. She's amazing. This is a human drama, brilliantly documented. There are wonderful aerial shots of party rooms. There's a bizarre lighting moment of Ms. Stevens backing into the bathroom while turning on the light. The locations were simple. The uses of space transformed them, such as the pool hall, which the director uses like an enormous landscape of varied canvases where no limit of trouble can transpire... Let's see, in the film Ms. Stevens moves from one man to another and in her career she moved from one vocal icon to another, Elvis Presley, also a fine actor, in Girls Girls Girls...a very different musical cinema riot. Look here also for a menacing performance by the actor who played the TV doctor, Ben Casey. This film's music is by the composer of the "Laura" theme. At the end of this film you may agree that, while you may have never seen it before, other movie makers did. I would call this an influential film. Coming back to Stella Stevens, I'm also reminded of Candy Clark's performance in the Man Who Fell to Earth... It is not a far leap to view the talented musician as alien. Let's run down the list of who could handle music icons. Well, Nicholas Roeg, in addition to filming David Bowie and Mick Jaggar, got a great performance from Art Garfunkel, who was already in Carnal Knowledge. I suppose Frank Sinatra and before him, Bing Crosby, already paved paths that included a jump from singing to acting. Prince has Purple Rain. Dean Martin did a great job in all those great movies other than the Silencers which Stella Stevens was also in. Keannu Reaves in... I don't know. I best remember John Cassavettes in "The Fury.".. If ever Mahler wrote a great film score, that one has it. And Cassavettes was in -- I have got to see this entire film, I actually only have a middle reel of it in French -- Rosemary's Baby. Stella Steven's last name in "Too Late Blues" was Polanski. You'll see that both Roman and John found the world within the four corners of individual rooms. The scene where Stella Stevens backs into the bathroom and turns on the light, I half expected she'd return to the apartment in Rosemary's Baby and that John Casssavettes would be on the floor playing scrabble. By drawing all these parallels I have avoided confronting the uncomfortable intimacy in an ultimately uplifting movie. I hope this review was helpful to you...

"a jazz musician (bobby darin) compromises his values for a pretty blonde (Stella Stevens)" Wrongo. It seems they both compromise what they want (themselves) for mistakes made during and after a pool hall brawl.

John Cassavetes creates an eternally unique drama with his chronicle of an idealistic jazz musician played by crooner Bobby Darin, and his relationship among his fellow band members and his object of affection, a beautiful would-be singer who comes between him and his band members, played by Stella Stevens in an honest, humanly extreme performance clearly directed by Cassavetes and cementing an argument that she could have held her own as a star. Darin, as Cassavetes surely intended, brings a realistic contribution to his character from his life in the world of the era's music scene, as a dogmatically philosophical band leader who takes tremendous pride in seeing a profound, transcendental beauty in a mellow, instrumental school of jazz that he, with the exasperated tolerance of his fellow players, finds ideal to play to empty parks to communicate with nature and birds when he isn't playing gigs at old people's homes and orphanages. What is irrelevant in this film is how we feel about the music he feels most personally in tune with (no pun intended) in comparison to the commercially accessible music that would welcome him into a successful career. Like all Cassavetes films, Too Late Blues is about a character whose proclivities are beyond us, and what keeps it from being subjective or affected is that the rest of the characters share our feelings. The key to our understanding and relating ardently to Darin's character is his unrelenting obstinacy, which becomes Bobby Darin uncannily, borne by the pride that absorbs all of his perceptions into what is of use only to him. As this dooming characteristic rears its head, an internal conflict between his true passions and what will gain him the recognition that deep down he wants more than anything else, we come to dislike him and find ourselves on the side of his band members and his girl Stevens. Full of far-seeing insight and relentless individuality, it is not well-recognized film, which in itself is a testament to the artistic truth it presents. This is in some sense a shame though, because it is really a moving film in spite of all the expectations accompanied by an audience's perception of a music film. There are many great scenes where we simply hang out with the band in their regular hang-out spot with an entertaining bar owner, or we indulge in their impulsive diversions, or we react in unusual ways and we must step out of our regiments and make an endeavor out of looking further.

***SPOILERS***Fast music and hard drinking film directed by the late John Cassavetes, who himself died of acute alcoholism at age 59, with singer actor in his first dramatic role Bobby Darin as jazz musician John "Ghost" Wakefield. It's "Ghost" who ends up losing his Mojo, artistic talent, and never able to get his groove back, in playing jazz music, when he meets and falls heads over heels for pretty blond Polish American Princess Jess Polanski, Stella Stevens, who ends up screwing him or screwing up his head in more ways then one. "Ghost" who took his music very seriously and considered himself a serious jazz musician started to lose his interest in jazz as well as his band by trying to make Jess the band's, who plays only instrumental music, lead singer. The fact that Jess couldn't carry a note she just hummed her way through a song had "Ghost's" fellow jazz musicians leave in disgust and start a band of their own without their former band leader "Ghost" Warefield. Menawhile the emotionally unstable, in knowing she's a no talent when it comes to music, Jess loses it and ends up as a B-girl picking up guys who buy her drinks and spend the night with her in cheap bars and hotel rooms mostly on the city docks to support herself. "Ghost" in the end realized what a first class creep he is and tries to make up with his band, who want nothing at all to do with him, as well as Jess who by then became suicidal. With his life and career in music now in shambles "Ghost" can only look back at the past and see what a mess he made of his life, and those around him like Jess, and start all over again in possibly another profession like prize fighting or professional wrestling. P.S This was the last film that Vince Edwards made before he hit it big on network TV as the kind understanding and non violent, he only raised his scalpel not his fist on the show, top neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Casey. This was totally opposite to the character that he played in the movie the hard drinking and brawling neighborhood sh*t-kicker Irish Tommy Sheehan. It was Tommy who not only was able to out-drink wine drinking champ Nick Boboleuos, Nick Dennis, under as well as over the table but still be able to stay on his feet and take on the entire bar of hard drinking dock workers until help, the police, arrived.

Coming after "shadows" and preceding "a child is waiting" ,"too late blues" is some kind of arithmetic mean between them.Not overtly avant-garde ,but never really mainstream,unlike the 1959 movie ,it has a screenplay and most of the dialogues are not improvised:actually they sometimes seem "carefully" written. Stella Stevens gives a wistful sad performance ,diametrically opposite to later parts such as those of "girls girls girls" (!)or 'the silencers".Her singing -or that of the singer who dubs her?- looks like a moaning which stunningly blends with the boys' music. "Too late blues" keeps a rather loose plot,but "a child is waiting "would take its "conventional " side and tighten it up:as a result ,Cassavetes would disown "a child..." and go back to less accessible works such as his debut.

This may be the best movie ever made about jazz, at least by a mainstream Hollywood company. John Cassavetes had not yet dropped out of the L.A. scene to write and direct his own indie movies, and Too Late Blues represents one of his final attempts to try and do something different and ofbeat within the framework of The Big Time of movie-making. He pretty much pulls it off, with only one problem - because he and the film company refused to pull any punches, and offered a realistic rather than a romantic portrait of the jazz scene, what they ended up with was a pretty fine movie that was so totally depressing, no one wanted to go see it. Bobby Darin, just then trying to kick off a movie career a la his idol frank sinatra, plays the lead, "Ghost," a talented jazz musician with a fine band that just might make waves as they refuse to compromise for commercial success. Then Bobby meets a depressed but gorgeous young blonde (Stella Stevens, the most underrated actress of her generation) and shortly will do everything and anything he needs to do to win her. She's no simple femme fatale, though, and the full dimensionality of her character is essential to why the film clicks - in a notably downbeat way. As Bobby must choose between getting the girl or getting the gigs, he faces the great threat of every artist, jazz or otherwise. The mood and atmosphere is vivid, convincing, memorable in a noir kind of way. Catch this if you want quality - but not if you want some easy going escapism.