[Dixielandjazz] King of Jazz

[Patrick Skiffington]

Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society is hosting a benefit showing and gala
in Sacramento. Tentative date is 2/22/17.

On Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> King of Jazz
>
> ‘King of Jazz’ Now Playing -- Once Again -- in Living Technicolor
>
> “King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman’s Technicolor Revue.” By James Layton and
> David Pierce. Media History Press. 302 pp. $50.
>
> by David Robinson
>
> Washington Post, November 23, 2016
>
>
> In 2013, when the Library of Congress inducted “King of Jazz” (1930) into
> the National Film Registry, it turned out that there was no complete or
> technically authentic copy for the Library to acquire. Such national
> recognition, however, encouraged ­NBCUniversal to finance a digital
> restoration from the scattered elements that had come to light in the years
> since the 1950s, when all that seemed to survive was a four-minute trailer
> that did not even include a sighting of an engaging screen debutant, Bing
> Crosby -- the only face that today’s audiences are likely to recognize
> among the movie’s still scintillating but long-departed stars.
>
>
> Landing us firmly back in musical Broadway of 86 years ago, “King of Jazz”
> now looks so bright and fresh and easy-flowing that it is hard to believe
> it had to be painstakingly reassembled from fragments in 14 collections,
> public and private, in the United States, Britain, Russia, Denmark, Sweden,
> Germany and the Czech Republic. The restoration premiered in May at the
> Museum of Modern Art in New York and will have its Washington premiere on
> Dec. 3.
>
>
> The restoration also inspired this appropriately glamorous and exhaustive
> book by James Layton and David Pierce. With an infectious mix of scrupulous
> scholarship and undisguised delight in the film, they chronicle its
> participants and turbulent history.
>
>
> That history is inextricably linked to the story of Universal Pictures,
> established in 1912 by a German immigrant, Carl Laemmle, who left his job
> in a Wisconsin clothes factory to go into the nickelodeon business in
> Chicago. He came to prominence with his successful opposition to the Motion
> Picture Patents Company and its oppressive control over filmmaking.
>
>
> As Ogden Nash put it, “Uncle Carl Laemmle / Has a very large faemmle” --
> many members of which found employment at Universal. In 1928, Laemmle put
> his 20-year-old son, Julius, in full charge of production. Inevitably, this
> youngster, baby-faced and bandbox elegant, was mistrusted and permanently
> disparaged with the nickname “Junior.”
>
>
> Layton and Pierce’s book illuminates that injustice. Junior was determined
> to raise the quality of Universal’s “A” pictures, and his personal projects
> included “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930), the great horror cycle
> that began with “Frankenstein” (1931) and “Dracula” (1931), the triumphant
> “Show Boat” (1936) and “King of Jazz.” If he believed in a film, he
> supported his artists and bravely faced escalating budgets -- a virtue
> that, in the end, was his undoing. By 1936, Universal was virtually ruined,
> and Junior’s career ended at 28, though he was to survive another 43
> wretchedly unfulfilled and chronically hypochondriac years.
>
>
> But “King of Jazz” was his. The screen revue had seen a vogue in 1929 as
> sound became more confident and flexible. Universal came late to the genre,
> but “King of Jazz” was the first to be shot wholly in the still-evolving
> “two-strip” Technicolor process. It also had the biggest musical star of
> the 1920s: Paul Whiteman, with his 35-piece dance band -- all named and
> credited, many introduced personally on screen. Whiteman, an incorrigible
> clown looking very much like Oliver Hardy, hardly gives the impression of a
> sophisticated musician and an inspired conductor, but he unquestionably
> was. His development of symphonic jazz and his association with George
> Gershwin, from whom he commissioned “Rhapsody in Blue,” left a permanent
> mark on American music. If his writings and the film “King of Jazz” itself
> largely ignore the African American contribution, it was more the fault of
> social pressures than of any racism on Whiteman’s part. He worked
> enthusiastically offstage with friends such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller,
> Fletcher Henderson and Eubie Blake.
>
>
> The first directors and writers assigned to the project tried vainly to
> come up with a romantic plot that might in some way work with their plump
> protagonist. Finally, Junior settled on the screen revue format and handed
> direction to John Murray Anderson, the supreme director of Broadway revues
> and the live stage shows that frequently complemented major first-run
> films. Anderson brought with him his regular collaborator, the Dutch-born
> architect and designer Herman Rosse, whose art direction won an Oscar for
> “King of Jazz.” The 300 illustrations in Layton and Pierce’s book, most
> published for the first time, include many of Rosse’s original designs
> alongside stills that show how faithfully they were realized in the film.
>
>
> The shooting was not without its difficulties and delays. One minor
> inconvenience was that Bing Crosby, one of Whiteman’s “Rhythm Boys” trio,
> had to be escorted daily from jail, where he was serving a four-week
> sentence for drunken driving.
>
>
> “King of Jazz” was finally finished, however, and, after a good deal of
> trimming and reordering, had its Los Angeles premiere on April 19, 1930,
> and its New York premiere at the Roxy on May 2, 18 months after Whiteman
> had signed with Universal.
>
>
> It was a disaster at the box office. Audiences diminished rapidly, even
> though the Roxy offered a stage presentation with the Whiteman band and
> Gershwin playing “Rhapsody in Blue.” Meanwhile, Junior’s other major
> production of the year, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” was to fill
> theaters and conquer at the Academy Awards.
>
>
> Times had changed. October 1929 had seen the start of the Great
> Depression. Audiences had had their fill of revue films, and the swing era
> was already on the way. The 1930s were to see Whiteman’s popularity and
> income diminish markedly. In 1934, Universal issued a reedited version of
> “King of Jazz,” cut by 40 minutes but with no better success than the first
> release.
>
>
> So how does the film look today, and does it justify a book of this size,
> range and study? If we had seen “King of Jazz” as recently as 30 years ago,
> we might have admired its technical achievement but otherwise laughed off
> much of it as kitsch, with its period singing styles, its unrestrained
> sentiment, its gigantic piano that holds an orchestra and the long-legged
> high-kickers (the Russell Markert Girls, later to become the Rockettes).
> Seeing it now, however, at this remote distance in time, we can recognize
> it as art in its own right, enhanced by the exquisite soft hues of early
> Technicolor (which couldn’t do a good blue, so the “Rhapsody” is here in
> green).
>
>
> As Michael Feinstein puts it in his preface, “With an audacious
> co-mingling of film, art, Broadway, vaudeville, mixed music, and social
> attitudes, it’s striking in the way it evokes both the sophistication and
> innocence of the era.”
>
> __________
>
>
> David Robinson is former film critic of the London Times, director
> emeritus of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and author of a number of
> books on film history.
> On Dec. 3 at 1:20 p.m., David Pierce and James Layton will host a showing
> of “King of Jazz” at the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre, 8633
> Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, Md. For information call 301-495-6700. -30-
>
>
>
> Bob Ringwald piano, Solo, Duo, Trio, Quartet, Quintet
> Fulton Street Jazz Band (Dixieland/Swing)
> 916/ 806-9551
> Amateur (ham) Radio Station K6YBV
>
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>
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