dizozza Review of Too Late Blues

Too Late Blues (1961)

I'm just to happy to report here that the film exists...

[10/10 · 4 July 2008]

My ever-present gaps of awareness are a given, so playing like a new release at that citadel for great film prints, the Museum of Modern Art, was "Too Late Blues." Yes, it's the first Cassavettes film I have seen. "Shadows" was running in the other projection room. I hope to see that one day. "Too Late Blues" is an uncompromising look at two people, Stella Stevens, to whom I think Tim Curry owes a lot, and that pudgy faced icon, Bobby Darin, whom I recognized as a great jazz singer during the time of Bobby Rydell...I have seen one photo of Bobby Darin, with Johnny Mercer as one of the "Two of a Kind" combo, which is a fun musical album. Johnny Mercer is his own jazz vocal stylist, apart from his creation of casually elegant lyrics... "and they commute by stratasferry, my, they love to fly... " Bobby Darin was up for singing with Johnny Mercer and was certainly up for acting in this harrowing Cassavettes movie. Seeing it, you will be a witness to his full range of disarming facade and insecure anger, as well as hers. If you've seen her standing around in Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor you'll think that Stella Stevens makes no sense in her harrowing range here. She's amazing. This is a human drama, brilliantly documented. There are wonderful aerial shots of party rooms. There's a bizarre lighting moment of Ms. Stevens backing into the bathroom while turning on the light. The locations were simple. The uses of space transformed them, such as the pool hall, which the director uses like an enormous landscape of varied canvases where no limit of trouble can transpire... Let's see, in the film Ms. Stevens moves from one man to another and in her career she moved from one vocal icon to another, Elvis Presley, also a fine actor, in Girls Girls Girls...a very different musical cinema riot. Look here also for a menacing performance by the actor who played the TV doctor, Ben Casey. This film's music is by the composer of the "Laura" theme. At the end of this film you may agree that, while you may have never seen it before, other movie makers did. I would call this an influential film. Coming back to Stella Stevens, I'm also reminded of Candy Clark's performance in the Man Who Fell to Earth... It is not a far leap to view the talented musician as alien. Let's run down the list of who could handle music icons. Well, Nicholas Roeg, in addition to filming David Bowie and Mick Jaggar, got a great performance from Art Garfunkel, who was already in Carnal Knowledge. I suppose Frank Sinatra and before him, Bing Crosby, already paved paths that included a jump from singing to acting. Prince has Purple Rain. Dean Martin did a great job in all those great movies other than the Silencers which Stella Stevens was also in. Keannu Reaves in... I don't know. I best remember John Cassavettes in "The Fury.".. If ever Mahler wrote a great film score, that one has it. And Cassavettes was in -- I have got to see this entire film, I actually only have a middle reel of it in French -- Rosemary's Baby. Stella Steven's last name in "Too Late Blues" was Polanski. You'll see that both Roman and John found the world within the four corners of individual rooms. The scene where Stella Stevens backs into the bathroom and turns on the light, I half expected she'd return to the apartment in Rosemary's Baby and that John Casssavettes would be on the floor playing scrabble. By drawing all these parallels I have avoided confronting the uncomfortable intimacy in an ultimately uplifting movie. I hope this review was helpful to you...