Klarinet Archive - Posting 000356.txt from 1996/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: I'm hiding under a blanket so no one will see my embarassment.
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 23:21:13 -0400

Today is Wed., May 15, and I spent the afternoon hiding under a blanket.
I have a cold and was lying on the couch drinking tea with honey and
watching old movies when suddenly one film ended and a new one began.

It was "The Benny Goodman Story." It has been years since I've seen it.

So why was I hiding under a blanket?

Have you seen that movie?

Are you as embarrassed about it as I was?

Is it as atrociously awful and I think it to be?

Does it have every conceivable cliche associated with movies from the
50s or 60s?

Does it present Benny Goodman as a brainless wonder or is that my
imagination?

Is Steve Allen the worst actor (to say nothing of an incompetent imitator
of a person playing the clarinet) who ever lived including the lead
tomato in "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"?

Except for Benny Goodman playing at the height of his powers when the
movie came alive (as long as I kept my eyes closed), and Teddy Wilson
and Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton, and Harry James were involved,
that may have been the worst movie made since "Glen or Glenda."

And Donna Reed!!!!!!!!!!!!! O Blessed Donna Reed.

When Steve Allen/cum Benny Goodman plays a version of the last movement
of K. 622 (one throws up at the cuts and changes they made to get the
work down to 3 minutes), she is passionate in her love and understanding
of this music. I think she is passionate. I am not sure. Her expression
is always set at Miss Virgin, 1943.

It was like I was watching a cobra. I couldn't watch and I couldn't not
watch. I was mesmerized by that piece of garbage.

And the cliched ethnic stereotypes were particularly disgusting.

Surely Benny Goodman could not have had any control over what they did to
him, which was to make him look like the chief idiot in the entire western
world.

In another two weeks, I'll take the blanket off my head. In the meantime,
they are going to show it again on "AMC" which stands for "A Movie Channel."
Make a serious effort to miss it because if you watch it, you will look into
the eyes of the cobra.

At least the movie where Benny sings "Paducah, Paducah; It rhymes with
bazookah" is not the life of Goodman so he is on and off in 10 minutes
allowing enough time for Carmen Miranda with the fruit on the hat to
do a Latin cha-cha.

Better the movie should have been called "The Death of Benny Goodman."

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================