Histrionic 1966 picture about a struggling musician has worthy ambitions but is deeply unhip
Time has not lent much to this histrionically earnest issue picture starring Sammy Davis Jr from 1966, in which the life of a troubled African American jazz hepcat is quaintly imagined by the husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Lester and Tina Pine; the director is industry stalwart Leo Penn (father of Sean), who had been blacklisted in his former career as an actor after refusing to testify to the red-baiting Huac. Well, the film certainly challenges the all-white consensus, and a supporting cast including Cicely Tyson and no less a figure than Louis Armstrong gives it substance.
Davis plays Adam Johnson, a brilliant but mercurial jazz musician and singer, facing casual racism from the cops and stricken with depression and alcoholism after a car crash killed his wife and child and blinded one of his own musicians. His wild...
Time has not lent much to this histrionically earnest issue picture starring Sammy Davis Jr from 1966, in which the life of a troubled African American jazz hepcat is quaintly imagined by the husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Lester and Tina Pine; the director is industry stalwart Leo Penn (father of Sean), who had been blacklisted in his former career as an actor after refusing to testify to the red-baiting Huac. Well, the film certainly challenges the all-white consensus, and a supporting cast including Cicely Tyson and no less a figure than Louis Armstrong gives it substance.
Davis plays Adam Johnson, a brilliant but mercurial jazz musician and singer, facing casual racism from the cops and stricken with depression and alcoholism after a car crash killed his wife and child and blinded one of his own musicians. His wild...
- 8/10/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Easily the best family-oriented black experience movie of the early 1970s, the Third World Cinema Corporation’s first film features Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones in a funny, endearing saga of life in the welfare system, with human feeling and compassion to spare. But the triumphant socially progressive movie fails the 2020 diversity test — its primary producer, cameraman, writers and director are white. Are we still allowed to enjoy it?
Claudine
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1052
1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 13, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Tamu Blackwell, David Kruger, Yvette Curtis, Eric Jones, Socorro Stephens.
Cinematography: Gayne Rescher
Film Editor: Louis San Andres
Original Music: Curtis Mayfield
Written by Lester Pine and Tina Pine
Produced by J. Lloyd Grant, Hannah Weinstein
Directed by John Berry
In 1974 Claudine impressed this viewer quite a bit. I hadn’t seen many really good...
Claudine
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1052
1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 13, 2020 / 39.95
Starring: Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Tamu Blackwell, David Kruger, Yvette Curtis, Eric Jones, Socorro Stephens.
Cinematography: Gayne Rescher
Film Editor: Louis San Andres
Original Music: Curtis Mayfield
Written by Lester Pine and Tina Pine
Produced by J. Lloyd Grant, Hannah Weinstein
Directed by John Berry
In 1974 Claudine impressed this viewer quite a bit. I hadn’t seen many really good...
- 10/17/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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