Birth of the Blues Reviews

Here's a jazz film that begins with Dixieland and ends with The Dorseys, Duke Ellington, Ted Lewis, George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman, and Louis Armstrong. It also has Bing Crosby singing several numbers, playing a romantic clarinetist, showing the others how to run a band, etc. Further, you've got Donlevy as sort of a white Satchmo and Mary Martin and Rochester and a host of terrific secondary players. Never mind the hoked-up plot of the gangsters (Naish) and a riot and a lot of other unbelievable filler. This picture crams loads of fun into 80 minutes and even though it attempts to tell the story of "how jazz came up the river from New Orleans" and doesn't quite make it, you'll smile from start to finish. Lots of comedy, almost wall-to-wall music, it makes you just want to go down to the levee (I said "to the levee!"). The music adaptation was good enough to warrant an Oscar nomination for Dolan.