St. Louis Blues (1958)

St. Louis Blues (1958)

Directed by Allen Reisner with a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Robert Smith this fictionalized biography-drama of jazz songwriter (Will) W.C. Handy loaded with his music features a terrific cast that includes Nat ‘King’ Cole (who plays the blues composer) Eartha Kitt as singer Gogo Germaine Cab Calloway as her wannabe boyfriend and club owner Blade Ella Fitzgerald as herself Mahalia Jackson as choral singer Bessie May Ruby Dee as Will’s pretty girlfriend Elizabeth Juano Hernandez as his stern father Reverend Charles Handy and Pearl Bailey as Will’s supportive Aunt Hagar. An eleven year old Billy Preston who briefly plays Will Handy as a boy of similar age in the film’s opening sequences is among several musicians who also appear. Conductor Constantin Bakaleinikoff as himself and Roy Glenn as a bartender also appear uncredited.

Like a lot of leading edge songwriters who helped to shatter the prejudices of their time W.C. Handy had to overcome the existing conservative mores like his Reverend father’s belief that there are only two kinds of songs – hymns which praise God or music for the Devil – to be heard. Johann Strauss’s waltzes had ‘opened up’ Vienna in the mid 19th century an era which had previously shunned his type of music in public (along with kissing one’s spouse!). Fortunately for Will a singer named Gogo at a Memphis speak easy called the little Red Rooster owned by Blade recognized his visionary talent for what it was and encouraged him to pursue his gift. Reverend Handy disapproved of his son’s activities and threw him out of the house despite his live-in sister-in-law’s protestations. Even earning $900 for one of his song’s record with which Will had purchased a piano for his father’s house didn’t salve the conflict. But after declining to go with Gogo to New York she plans to make it big singing Handy’s songs he loses his eyesight. Convinced it’s the devil’s way of showing his son that he was on the wrong track the Reverend allows Will to move back in. Led by Elizabeth Will then writes beautiful hymns which are sung soulfully and enthusiastically by Bessie May.

But Will’s sight returns its loss presumed to have been psychosomatic and he leaves home to go on the road performing and writing the kind of music that’s inside him. His music receives growing recognition leading to the final sequence during which W.C. Handy’s jazz song St. Louis Blues is conducted by Constantin Bakaleinikoff and the New York Symphony before a sold out house. Gogo had convinced Elizabeth to help get the Reverend and Aunt Hagar to the city where father and son share a hug a brief reconciliation reunion after the performance.