Here is a documentary that is far from being uninteresting. Cab Calloway is an outstanding musician-singer-dancer whose reputation is - quite unfairly - inferior to that of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. It was therefore legitimate to make this exceptional being better known, for his sense of rhythm, the staggering swaying of his enthusiastic body always in motion, his humour and contagious joie de vivre. Even if we know little about Cab, we haven't forgotten "Minnie the Moocher", well representative of his 1930s style, with its audacious lyrics, rich in the slang of the time (often tackling openly the subject of drugs). But who remembers, apart from the specialists, that from 1948 Calloway gave up his orchestral activities to devote himself to the musical? And in important works at that ("Porgy and Bess" to name but one title). Rediscovered by John Landis, Calloway triumphed afresh in the cult "Blues Brothers" at the end of the 1970s before falling again into (relative oblivion) afterward. Nowadays, at least in France, he is still too little known.
In this respect, the director Gail Levin can call her mission accomplished. In front of her camera appear witnesses, critics and family members and thanks to them, it is undeniable that we learn things, notably the existence of Blanche, his singer -composer and even orchestra leader-sister, just as crazy as Cab himself. But the big problem with this film is that it is talkative, too talkative. Most of the time, people describe what Calloway's personality and style are while the illustration of their words comes second (if at all!). Too often, we are told how great Cab is, and... we hardly see him! The viewer takes their word for it naturally, but would nevertheless like to judge on performance! Not even the contemporary dance sequences and the scenes about the cartoonist who sketches Calloway's portrait, talented as they are, can be fully enjoyed in that they distract us from the essential.
All in all, a documentary as informative as it is frustrating. But to be seen in spite of everything for its wealth of information.
