alr

King of Jazz

Directed by John Murray Anderson.
With Paul Whiteman, John Boles, Laura La Plante.
US, 1930, DCP, color, 98 min.
DCP source: Universal

Among the more exciting rediscoveries in recent film preservation history is King of Jazz, a lavish, two-strip Technicolor extravaganza celebrating the hugely popular, and allegedly regal, bandleader Paul Whiteman. A hugely expensive production, The King of Jazz was an unusual “prestige picture” for Universal and a pet project of Carl Laemmle, Jr., who, as head of studio production, shepherded some of the Depression era’s most fascinating films. This is certainly true of King of Jazz, which has an unstoppable, almost overwhelming energy, unfolding Arabian Nights-style, one eye-popping performance after another shaded all the while in shimmering emerald green and candy-apple red. The show must and does go on, and on, but it is well worth the price of admission, which includes performances by a young Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys as well as George Gershwin himself. While offering a vibrant document of American popular music, King of Jazz also proposes a novel, and rather troubling, “history” of jazz that is as bizarre as many of the eccentrically staged numbers themselves. Broadway director and onetime filmmaker John Murray Anderson stages many pre-Busby Berkeley moments, most pointedly in his spectacular Art Deco rendition of that infectious classic “Happy Feet.”

Part of film series

Read more

Busby Berkeley Babylon

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

Read more

Ben Rivers, Back to the Land

Read more

Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

Read more

Make Way for Tomorrow. Carson Lund’s Eephus

Read more

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue

Read more

David Lynch, New Dimensions

Read more

Museum Hours: Mati Diop’s Dahomey

Read more

Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained

Read more

Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy