Birth Of The Blues

Here's a jazz film that begins with Dixieland and ends with The Dorseys, Duke Ellington, Ted Lewis, George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman, and Louis Armstrong. It also has Bing Crosby singing several numbers, playing a romantic clarinetist, showing the others how to run a band, etc. Further, you've got Donlevy as sort of a white Satchmo and Mary Martin and Rochester and a host of terrific secondary players. Never mind the hoked-up plot of the gangsters (Naish) and a riot and a lot of other unbelievable filler. This picture crams loads of fun into 80 minutes and even though it attempts to tell the story of "how jazz came up the river from New Orleans" and doesn't quite mak...