[Dixielandjazz] Movie stardom

[John Farrell]

Larry said :

"A couple of years ago I was in a made for TV movie (snip)  I sat
around all day in tie and tails that were too small and they ended up
catching my knee, fleetingly.  Oh well that's show biz."

I know the feeling Larry. Way back in the '60s (or was it the '70s?)  I was
in a movie, the Rank Organisation made a series of shorts entitled "Look At
Life" one of which had a sequence shot in a famous London jazz club (Eel Pie
Island, tragically it burned down long ago). At the time I was on piano with
the Brian Green band which was featured in the movie, the film people asked
us to turn up wearing scruffy clothes - presumably to portray the
degenerating influence of jazz.

The camera was on me for at least half an hour, When the movie was released
my family and I went to the local  picture palace, sat through a long,
excruciatingly boring main attraction about Hawaii's pineapples, then at
last "Look At Life" came on. My kids nudged each other whispering "Dad's in
this!" - I was on screen for about five seconds - but only my hands were
shown playing the piano. The ultimate humiliation was that the soundtrack
played a different tune from the one I was performing on screen - I have no
idea who the pianist was.

Since then I have waited in vain for Hollywood to beckon.

John Farrell
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm