Film Screening: The King of Jazz @ Library of Congress
July 5, 2008 by Svetlana 
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| July 15, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm |
free
details here: http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/pickford/pickford-current.html
The King Of Jazz (Universal, 1930). Dir John Murray Anderson. Wrt Edward T. Lowe, Jr. With Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, John Boles, Laura La Plante, Glenn Tryon, Jeanette Loff, Merna Kennedy, Stanley Smith, Slim Summerville, Otis Harlan, William Kent, Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys. (101 min, color, 16mm)
Paul Whiteman was probably the most well-known, easily recognized and most frequently caricatured musical performer anywhere during the 1920’s. He had a meteoric and exponential rise to fame commencing with his Victor recording contract in 1920. His commissioning of “A Rhapsody in Blue” in 1924 and the discovery and fostering of great talent such as Bing Crosby and Bix Beiderbecke carved out a commercial and artistic immortal niche for Whiteman. His fame was at its peak and crest when he signed with Universal to make the motion picture The King of Jazz .
Shot in two-strip Technicolor, The King of Jazz was easily the best of the “revue” genre of early sound films trotted out by all of the major studios during the first years of the talkies. John Murray Anderson’s direction deftly combines the talents of the Whiteman Orchestra, animation, lavish sets and costumes and Paul Whiteman’s own natural, unaffected camera presence.
Of special interest are appearances by Bing Crosby (his first in motion pictures), Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang and virtuoso comic instrumentalist Willie Hall (trombone, violin and bicycle pump). (DS)
The screening will be introduced by jazz historian and Grammy nominee David Sager.
