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<DIV>‘King of Jazz’ Is Back, Burnished for a New Generation of Movie Fan
</DIV>
<DIV>by J. Hoberman</DIV>
<DIV>New York Times, May 11, 2016</DIV>
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<DIV>A significant movie restoration not only can return a film’s patina of
newness but its place in film history as well. That may be the case when the
musical revue “King of Jazz” (1930), brought back to something of its original
splendor, emerges from the vaults in the soft, shimmering red and green tones of
early Technicolor.</DIV>
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<DIV>The refurbished “King of Jazz,” which was elevated to the Library of
Congress’s National Film Registry in 2013, will have its world premiere on
Friday at the Museum of Modern Art, the opening attraction in the series
“Universal Pictures: Restorations and Rediscoveries, 1928-1937.”</DIV>
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<DIV>An old-fashioned prestige picture, “King of Jazz” required a newfangled
prestige restoration that was thought by some close to the project to be among
the most expensive ever.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Material from a partly complete original negative was digitally matched
with material culled from three other prints. “We don’t comment on specific
costs,” Peter Schade, who leads Universal’s preservation team, said, while
allowing that, compared with other restorations, the one for “King of Jazz” was
“definitely on the higher side.”</DIV>
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<DIV>Looking like a million, as might have been said in 1930, “King of Jazz”
celebrates the truism that Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley were America’s gifts to
20th-century world culture, even as the film revels in the unexamined prejudices
and show-business segregation of the day.</DIV>
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<DIV>The movie -- which takes its title from the sobriquet attached to its star,
the portly bandleader Paul Whiteman -- is an entertainment spectacular that,
among other things, features the first Technicolor animation, a novelty act in
which “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is played on a bicycle pump, and the
Whiteman orchestra performs perhaps the most famous of symphonic jazz
compositions, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” (Because “blue” was not an option
in two-color Technicolor, the performance is shot in shades of silvery
teal.)</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The first reviews were generally positive. The New York Times critic
Mordaunt Hall praised the director John Murray Anderson, a Broadway producer and
first-time filmmaker, calling “King of Jazz” a “marvel of camera wizardry,
joyous color schemes, charming costumes and seductive lighting effects.” But,
released six months after the stock market crash, with a glut of musical revues,
“King of Jazz,” which cost around $2 million and was likely Universal’s most
expensive production to date, did poorly at the box office. It was recut for
rerelease and fell into obscurity.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Financial fiasco or not, “King of Jazz” is a remarkable artifact. Whiteman
was one of the nation’s most popular entertainers, responsible for furthering
the careers of many white jazz musicians, including Bing Crosby, who appears in
the movie as part of the Rhythm Boys trio. He was also a celebrity, according to
the jazz critic Gary Giddins, comparable to Babe Ruth or Mickey Mouse.</DIV>
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<DIV>Mr. Giddins calls the film “a Rosetta stone of early American pop,”
emphasizing that the musicians were “all top professionals,” and pointing out
that Mr. Anderson’s elaborate stagings anticipate the production numbers
associated with Busby Berkeley. (Nevertheless, Berkeley had greater film savvy
and was more inclined to move the camera than rotate the set.)</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>“King of Jazz” also preserves the attitudes of 1930. Many of the movie’s
comedy skits are anxious projections of female sexual independence. No less
pathological is the guilty coyness with which “King of Jazz” simultaneously
acknowledges and effaces jazz’s African-American origins.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Barely has the movie begun before a cartoon Whiteman travels to Africa,
charms a lion into shouting “Mammy” and is consequently crowned king. Later, the
film’s only individuated black performer, a girl around 5, appears perched on
Whiteman’s capacious lap. The joke is a creepy one.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Whiteman introduces “Rhapsody in Blue” by proclaiming that “jazz was born
from the African jungle to the beating of voodoo drums,” but the movie’s grand
finale, “The Melting Pot of Music,” is a lengthy series of acts that attribute
the art form to an amalgam of British, Italian, Scotch, Irish, Austrian,
Spanish, Russian and French sources.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This Eurocentric origin story is sung and danced on a set that, with its
Doric columns and smoking caldron, suggests a cross between Albert Speer’s
design for the Nazi Party Nuremberg rally and Maria Montez’s altar in the later
Universal movie “Cobra Woman.” It also contradicts an earlier number in which
the Rhythm Boys sing “So the Bluebirds and the Blackbirds Got Together,” which
can be interpreted as a confused plea for integration.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>“King of Jazz” is not the only restored musical in the MoMA series.
“Broadway” (1929), by Paul Fejos, is included -- complete with Technicolor final
reel. Both films, along with Universal’s 1930 adaptation of “All Quiet on the
Western Front,” were part of the ambitious slate of Universal movies initiated
by Carl Laemmle Jr.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The son of the studio’s co-founder, Carl Laemmle, Junior Laemmle, as he was
called, is a largely forgotten figure who facilitated some of Hollywood’s most
audacious films. Taking charge of Universal production on his 21st birthday in
1928, he was often compared to another so-called boy genius, Irving Thalberg,
who had worked at Universal before joining MGM.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The MoMA curator Dave Kehr, who organized the series, considers Junior
Laemmle the “anti-Thalberg.” Mr. Kehr points out that where Thalberg made his
reputation reining in the imperious and profligate Erich von Stroheim, Laemmle
began his career by hiring Fejos, another art-minded, free-spending
European.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>While the middlebrow Thalberg looked to the Broadway stage for inspiration,
Laemmle was drawn to more sensational fare, producing “Dracula” and
“Frankenstein” as well as the adultery melodramas directed by John M. Stahl.
Laemmle also sought out literary Europeans like Stefan Zweig for material, and
allowed an offbeat director like James Whale to flourish.</DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Many of these pictures made money, but Laemmle also overspent, and it was
another lavish, ambitious musical, Universal’s 1936 version of “Show Boat,”
directed by Mr. Whale, that proved his Waterloo. “Show Boat” (included in the
series) ran over budget, burdening Universal with additional debt. The elder
Laemmle lost control of the studio and Junior was fired.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Not yet 30, his career was essentially over; although he lived out
his remaining 43 years in Hollywood, he never made another movie. MoMA’s series,
it would seem, is not only about the “King of Jazz” restoration but Junior
Laemmle’s rehabilitation.</DIV>
<DIV>-30-</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000"><BR><BR>Bob
Ringwald piano, Solo, Duo, Trio, Quartet, Quintet <BR>Fulton Street Jazz Band
(Dixieland/Swing)<BR>916/ 806-9551<BR>Amateur (ham) Radio Station K6YBV<BR><BR>I
joined a health club last year, <BR>spent about 400 bucks.<BR>Haven't lost a
pound.<BR>Apparently you have to go there.
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