Klarinet Archive - Posting 001154.txt from 2003/03

From: Kenneth Wolman <kenneth.wolman@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Benny Goodman Story
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 22:21:50 -0500

At 06:13 PM 3/27/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>The Benny Goodman Story has just been issued on DVD. To see the front cover
>art of this sappy DVD, go to this Amazon.com site:
> http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00008DDRU.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
>
>I can't believe they would do this!

Oh I can:-). I grew up on those pictures. I don't think even then I was
naive enough to believe that the Benny Goodman portrayed in the flick was
really anything like the real Benny Goodman. Or that Glenn Miller
was...who DID play him in the movies, Jimmy Stewart? We were over this
ground before a couple of years ago and I was disabused of the idea that
Steve Allen could actually play the clarinet. Some of those movies creaked
beyond belief. Someone says to the onscreen Goodman, "Oh Benny! Don't BE
that way!" It's actually a verbal leitmotif. Then all of a sudden there
he is writing this song.... It was like another of those bandleader
movies, I think about Bob Crosby (WHY???), where some woman insults him by
calling him a "Big noise from Winnetka." Lo and behold, a song is born.

"The Great Caruso" had as much to do with Caruso the tenor as "A Night At
The Opera" lined up with "Il Trovatore."

It's funny that musicians used to have movies made about them back in the
40s. Benny Goodman, Dorsey, at least one Crosby. All those classical
music flicks with Cagney and John Garfield. I guess the trend stopped when
musicians became overtly notorious. Charlie Parker? Miles? CHET
BAKER? God help us:-). Oliver Stone's movie about The Doors was a
travesty, and I--who both remember the Sixties AND was there--loved The
Doors. I suppose you need a dose of adulation in a movie about a musician,
and the age we are in is not given to adulation or making someone larger or
better than life. Buddy DeFranco's memories of Benny Goodman "rightsize"
him by turning him into the bastard he may have been, for all I know, but
they're not the music...and that finally is far more momentous that the way
Goodman treated his sidemen.

Still...the sight of Donna Reed as Mrs. G. sends me rushing for the insulin
bottle....

ken

----------------------------------------
Kenneth
Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com

If we all carry a little of the burden, it will be lightened. If we share
in the suffering of the world, then some will not have to endure so heavy
an affliction. It evens out.
-- Dorothy Day

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