From the 1950s: Pete Kelly's Blues

1955 Musical Drama
From Warner Bros.
Directed by Jack Webb

Starring 
Jack Webb
Janet Leigh
Edmond O'Brien
Peggy Lee
Andy Devine
Lee Marvin
Ella Fitzgerald
Martin Milner
Than Wyenn

Jack Webb and his Mark VII Productions decided to venture away from his popular Dragnet series and try something new.  He would direct, of course, because he could not bear someone else telling him what to do, and he would star because he could not bear the thought of someone else getting all the attention.  

Webb had been a long-time aficionado of jazz, with a slight bent toward Dixieland jazz, and Pete Kelly is (a cornet player and) the leader of a little band of seven merrymakers working in a local dive in 1927 Kansas City.

The drama comes just as it often did back in those good ol' days... a mean-ass thug, Fran McCarg (Edmond O'Brien) insinuates himself into the band and nitery for a 25% shakedown.  O'Brien brings along several henchman and his alcoholic songbird, Rose (Peggy Lee), who is losing her grip on reality.

Kelly is undecided about what to do.  He doesn't want McCarg's involvement but saying no to him has even more unpleasant circumstances.  Before Kelly ultimately decides to take the offer, band members are shaken up, too.  A clarinetist (Lee Marvin) and a young drummer (Martin Milner) don't take kindly to McCarg's busting in but they handle it quite differently.  Marvin's character decides to leave the band to avoid trouble and Milner cannot contain his rage and ultimately makes some costly mistakes that wind up with him in a wet alley at night with lots of machine gun bullets in him.  (WB, with all their old crime caper flicks, sure knew how to work this scene.)  

When his young drummer is killed, Kelly comes to the conclusion that the only way he's going to be free of the thug is to kill him.  It doesn't work out quite as he planned... no, it works out better.  How this film comes out with a happy ending is beyond me.  It isn't just Pete Kelly's blues, hell, everyone in this is blue... down-and-out runs rampant.  These were not happy times.

One who appears to be happier and lighter than the others is rich, society girl Ivy (Janet Leigh) but, of course, we know that her madcap, booze-swilling, party girl ways are masking her own emptiness. 

If there's nothing else to recommend this movie for some, what stands out above all else, at least for me, is the presence of two of the best singers of the 40s (or ever), Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.  The wily director sure exercised the right moves on this casting.  Neither singer made many movies but they both rocked in this one.

Lee nabbed an Oscar nomination and it was well-earned.  Her broken-down singer who suffers physical and emotional cruelties from McCarg is very touching.  My eyes were wet in the mental institution scene, clearly the one that warranted that Oscar.  Lee said she loved acting but all anyone ever wanted from her was singing which is understandable. 

Webb, who was friends with Lee, wanted no one else for Rose except her.  He obviously knew that lost little girl sound in her singing voice was so right for Rose.  He had a friend write Sing A Rainbow, the song she sings in the institution. He also gave her two others to sing, Sugar and He Needs Me.  I swear that when she sang-- ever-- I always wanted to cry. 

The role of Maggie who runs the speakeasy, Fat Annie's, sings for the customers and has eyes and ears everywhere, went to Fitzgerald.  That magical voice lifted two songs, Hard-Hearted Hannah and the title tune, to the rafters.  Fitzgerald and Lee recorded songs from the film.

Checking it over with the director

Leigh, believe it or not, also has a song, the first one in the film.  How brave she was.  Her role (not her acting, which was good enough) was perhaps the main thing about this film that simply didn't work.  It was poorly written, intrusive and her relationship with Pete makes no sense.  She is terribly in love with him and against all probabilities, he seems in love with her as well.  But these two would not have been attracted to one another.  He's too poor and at loose ends for her rich girl sensibilities and he would never have tied himself down with any woman, much less her.

Ivy takes up a lot of screen time and it would have been better served beefing up some of the other characters.  Leigh covers making the film in two sentences in her autobiography.  That can only mean it wasn't a happy experience for her.  

O'Brien was always best as a villain and this role shows him off to great advantage.  It is maddening to see how he treats everyone, especially Lee, how he snaps his fingers when he wants someone, how he sweats and how he takes over the band.  

Marvin made lots of movies in the 50s, most of which featured him as a bad guy.  He was a decent, good guy here. Watching him makes one think of what the film might have been had more time been spent with this character.  Funny to see him practically cower at the thought of O'Brien being around considering seven years later he beat the holy stuffing out of O'Brien in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  

Milner had made 20 movies by the time he did this one but he was still working in small roles.  Here his hot-under-the-collar drummer sets the violence in motion.  I found him most engaging.  Webb formed a warm friendship with Milner and would employ the actor in a TV series or two or three or more.

Big ol' Andy Devine (who would also join up for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) has a couple of scenes as a no-nonsense lawman, an unusual role for him because there's not a lick of comedy or that whiny, raspy voice.

Webb had played Pete Kelly on the radio before he ever did Dragnet and always had in mind to do a film on the same character.  I was forced to watch Dragnet as a kid (oh that family night around the tube) and hated every minute of it.  As Mart Crowley said in The Boys in the Band, he wouldn't show any emotion in a plane crash.  Webb spoke in an annoying and pompous monotone and took stoicism to heights never reached before.  Did he ever have a big laugh?  To me he rarely even cracked a smile.

I have never seen him in anything but Dragnet and Pete... never wanted to.  I saw this movie, as I've said, because of Lee and Fitzgerald and because I've always loved 20's crime stories.  And with all my badmouthing of Webb, he wasn't bad in this film.  He wasn't good either but way more fun than Dragnet.

Where I will throw him a compliment or two is in his direction and in all the other bossy things he did.  The movie is oozing with atmosphere... the yummy music, decor of the speakeasies, costumes, brutality, attitudes, weariness.  And while I liked the flick, I've always known it was a Jack Webb vanity project.  He simply swapped the badge for the cornet, maintained his drill sergeant style of acting and included that tedious trait he was so famous for... narration.

By the way, the eight guys who were really performing all that gorgeous music are Dick Cathcart (he was on The Lawrence Welk Show and married to a Lennon sister), Jud De Naut, Nick Fatool, Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller, Moe Schneider, Ray Sherman and George Van Eps.

Oh yes, who remembers Jayne Mansfield as a cigarette girl?  She's a brunette here but still easy to spot.

Well, there you are... just the facts, Ma'am.  Thank you Ella.  Thanks Peggy.  I always enjoy a journey through the Roaring 20s.  And... okay, okay, um, er, don't push, I'm going to... thanks Jack.  I had fun.

Here's a song for the road...

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