[Dixielandjazz] Jack, The Good For Nothing?

[Anton Crouch]

Hello Gary

I can't remember the question being asked before on the DJML - it's a 
beauty!

Your fear, that the movie is lost, is probably correct. The American 
Film Institute Catalog lists it but does not record it as having been 
seen by Institute staff. From the plot summary we see that the movie is 
a "city vs country" piece. The cast list given by the AFI does not 
include the members of the ODJB and the only firm data is the release 
date. Perhaps significantly, the number of reels and copyright details 
are not given.

Your reference to the "1914 Chaplin film of a similar name" puzzled me, 
until I realised that /The good for nothing/ is an alternative title for 
the well-known /His new profession/.

All the best,
Anton


On 31/01/2013 16:16, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
> Forgive my asking what has likely been asked 10,000 times already on this
> list, but I'm late to the party: I was reading the recollections of Nick
> LaRocca in that old 1960's book on the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and
> arrived at the part about the band's cameo appearance in the 1917 silent
> film "Jack, The Good For Nothing" -- in the book they mistakenly confuse
> this with the 1914 Chaplin film of a similar name, and while I can find the
> Chaplin film all over the internet, to my shock and horror, I can't even
> find a single still frame from the 1917 Carlyle Blackwell film, and indeed
> some sources say "Survival status: unknown"
>
> Is this true? Has not even the twenty-first century located a viewable copy
> of this precious piece of jazz history?
>
> it is a interesting (e)book, some details to be taken with a grain of salt
> I suppose (hiring a drunk to shout "Jass it up!"?) and supports what was
> said here earlier about 4/4 vs cut-time in the context of that 'jazz'
> music, but with a rather different take on the history of the influx of the
> copy-cat bands and the ODJB's subsequent tour of England.