The Benny Goodman Story (1956)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

best movie i've ever seen.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The fun of watching this movie is the music, of course, but other than that, it's a typical 50's whitewash kind of film. All the issues that existed at the time are glossed over. 1. No mention is made of the fact that Alice was married when they met, that they had an affair, and that her British husband divorced her for infidelity. She's portrayed (charmingly by Donna Reed) as an innocent rich girl. 2. The fact that Benny is Jewish and she's not is alluded to one time, but not even mentioned outright. 3. Race is completely ignored. There's this illusion that the black musicians were accepted everywhere, hotels, restaurants, 5th Ave. mansions. The Benny Goodman Story could be made today and tell the realities of the integration of the bands, and it would be a great story. The good parts--well, seeing Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton portray themselves. All that talent on display! That was great. One last thing, the costumes. It was fun to see Alice's gorgeous 1950's dresses. But the movie was set in the 30s! WHY didn't they bother to put the cast in 1930's clothing? That part is just laugh out loud odd.

Having cleaned up with The Glenn Miller Story (a bio-pic of a trombone playing band leader) the previous year, Universal decided to cash in on what they hoped might develop into a trend with a second musical bio-pic but this time centred around a clarinet playing band leader. Accordingly they tapped the writer of the Glenn Miller Story, Valentine Davies to write the follow-up and even allowed him to direct what turned out to be his only movie. Alas, he opted for the wrong clarinet playing leader and gave us Benny Goodman instead of the far superior Artie Shaw, thus losing out on non-musical color (Shaw was a serial husband, urbane, and a polished writer whilst Goodman was a bad nowhere to a blancmange without a clarinet in his hand). Even as a musician Goodman lagged far behind Shaw, so what we are left with is one or two well-known tunes - One O'Clock Jump, Stompin' At The Savoy, Avalon, Don't Be That Way - and appearances by musicians long past their sell-by date such as Kid Ory, Harry James, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton and the ubiquitous Ben Pollack who'd probably been sleeping in a dark corner of the Sound Stage since The Glenn Miller Story was wrapped a few months earlier. On the other hand it could and did get worse, Drum Crazy (The Gene Krupa Story) anyone? See if for the music.

If you like the jazz/swing music of yesteryear you will really enjoy this movie. Steve Allen plays the part of Goodman almost like two different people. He is extremely awkward in anything not related to music and unbelievably comfortable where music is involved. This might have been a true representation of Goodman himself. Donna Reed is wonderful. She has the clean cut beauty that you really don't see in many of the female stars of today. I believe many men could fall in love with her. The thing that makes this movie is the music. How often to you get to hear and see the great jazz/swing artists that have parts in the movie. I particularly enjoyed Teddy Wilson. He was a great artist. Although the movie took many liberties on Goodman's life it's typical of this time in Hollywood.

The Goodman story looks terribly contrived and schmaltzy here in enlightened 2000. Yet schmaltz was what Hollywood was all about in 1955. So Donna Reid smiles and simpers, black man Kid Ory walks unchallenged into an NBC studio (in 1937???) and you just know the movie will end with a "and they all lived happily ever after." But maybe the Hollywood of 55 wasn't that bad. There was no heavy breathing, no f-words, no bare butts but lots of superb music by now deceased masters. The ultimate test? My wife and I really enjoyed watching it! But that doesn't seem to be the reason they make movies these days.