Blues in the Night

Anatole Litvak: Blues in the Night (US 1941). Billy Halop (Peppi, drums), Peter Whitney (Pete Bassett, bass), Priscilla Lane (Ginger ‘Character’ Powell), Richard Whorf (Jigger Pine, piano), Elia Kazan (Nickie Haroyan, clarinet). The song is the melancholy "This Time The Dream's On Me". Notice the empty chair with the trumpet only. Absent is the trumpet player Leo Powell (Jack Carson), the husband of the pregnant singer. Absent are also the Black artists to whose music the white actors are synching.

US 1941. Prod.: Warner Bros. Pictures. 

    Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce Hot Nocturne di Edwin Gilbert. Scen.: Robert Rossen. F.: Ernie Haller. M.: Owen Marks, Don Siegel. Scgf.: Max Parker. Mus.: Heinz Roemheld. 

    C: Priscilla Lane (Ginger ‘Character’ Powell, singer), Betty Field (Kay Grant, member of Del's gang), Richard Whorf (Jigger Pine, pianist), Lloyd Nolan (Del Davis, gangster, racketeer), Jack Carson (Leo Powell, Character's husband, trumpeteer), Wallace Ford (Brad Ames, guitar player), Elia Kazan (Nickie Haroyan, clarinetist), Peter Whitney (Pete Bassett, bassist), Billy Halop (Peppi, drummer), Howard Da Silva (Sam Parayas, member of Del's gang), William Gillespie (singer in jail cell).

    88’. Bn.

    Not released in Finland or Sweden.

    DCP from: Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research

    Concession by Park Circus

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: The World of Anatole Litvak.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly with e-subtitles in Italian, 28 June 2024

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue): " Anatole Litvak’s ninth and final film for Warner is a crime musical, a gem about the joys of jazz and the corruption that threatens the American dream. Here, the dream is to find the pure musical expression, the “real blues”."

"A group of broke jazz musicians, hoboing their way across the States, hook up with a fugitive criminal who sets up a roadhouse for them to play in, but the toxic atmosphere (illegal gambling, a femme fatale) breaks up the camaraderie between band members. The film went into production under the working title Hot Nocturne. In a twist of luck, the title track by the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra (in a cameo appearance) became a hit even before the film came out so the studio opted for Blues in the Night as the title on release. It was later nominated for the Best Song Oscar."

"Even in Litvak’s non-musical films, music and dance were often an integral part of narrative, summoning up communal bonds and establishing character dynamics quickly and concisely. Further, music in relation to ideas of artistic recognition, integrity and selling-out was partly touched upon in City for Conquest. Blues in the Night, first written by Litvak regular John Wexley, then entrusted to Robert Rossen after Wexley’s draft was rejected, contains echoes of Rossen’s vivid voice throughout. Here, as well as in the anti-fascist metaphor he wrote for Litvak in Out of the Fog, commonplace dictator figures in the guise of organised crime crooks serve as sharp commentary on the crushing impact of a society run on profit."

"Rossen’s script uses jazz language correctly and convincingly and deliciously combines it with crime film jargon (“When he plays tremolo, there’s going to be a big fight”) while establishing fascinating rituals, such as lighting a cigarette to endorse musicianship. Thanks to Rossen and a frenzied edit of montage sequences by future director Don Siegel, the film lets Litvak’s expressionist and poetic realist streaks stay exhilaratingly and continuously in the groove." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue)

AA: In Anatole Litvak's Blues in the Night a band of white players is travelling across America in boxcars in search of its identity, and they believe they find it in a New Orleans jail, where they hear a black prisoner sing "Blues in the Night".

It is a potent story, relevant to American music, also told in Walter Hill's Crossroads, and perhaps most convincingly in Elvis Presley biopics, including Baz Luhrmann's recent version.

It is supposedly a story of authentic jazz vs. more commercial entertainment. I understand what is being attempted, but to my ears even the theme song "Blues in the Night" is sanitized to a high degree. Missing is the edge, the abyss, the jolt of desolation of real blues.

But I like the joy of play in "Hang On To Your Lids, Kids" played on a moving train, and the opposite number, the melancholy "This Time The Dream's On Me".  "You are never alone", Jigger Pine the band leader says to Character, agonized about the absence of her husband, the trumpetist Leo (Jack Carson).

Priscilla Lane sings her own vocals, and behind the screen the players are top jazz musicians: Jimmy Lunceford (band leader), Snooky Young (trumpet), Frankie Zinzer (trumpet), Stan Wrightsman (piano) and Archie Rosate (clarinet), all black, I guess, synched by actors all white.

Priscilla Lane and Betty Field are great in the female leads. Litvak failed to cast the actors he wanted for the male leads, of the caliber of James Cagney and John Garfield, and had to make do with what he got. The film suffers.

The original songs of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer have become beloved standards.

Shot by maestro Ernest Haller. The visual quality in the digital transfer is uneven, starting what looks like struck from a source of low definition / dupe, but the definition turns quite agreeable later.