Starring: Jud De Naut, John Dennis, Andy Devine, Herbert Ellis, Nick Fatool Directed By: Webb, Jack Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: July 22, 2008 Running Time: 95 minutes Theatrical Release Date: July 31, 1955
Product Description: A Kansas City singer and his jazz band bow down to pressure from a local gangster and take on the thug's alcoholic girlfriend as a singer.Running Time: 92 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS UPC: 883929003280 Manufacturer No: 1000035849
very good although a B movie peggy lee and ella are WOW and the music great plus the little bit of a young jayne mansfield really brings this flic up several notches, it was great to see it again after all these years
A 50s favorite! Saw it new as a child, loved it for some strange reason - music, acting, Peggy Lee, Ella, Andy Devine, Lee Marvin, Jack Webb's crewcut? I dunno, but I've seen it a dozen times in my life and still treasure it as one of my all-time 50s favorites!
Webb's Pete based on another Pete? Apparently, when Jack Webb was creating PETE KELLY he would regularly watch Hollywood-based cornetist PETE DAILY and his band to assimilate the mannerisms and attitudes of a similar musician. Recordings by Matty Matlock's band were so popular that the group made concert appearances billed as PETE KELLY'S BIG SEVEN supported, ironically, by PETE DAILY'S DIXIELANDERS!Great to have PETE KELLY'S BLUES on DVD after all these years, in any format. Now what about re-releasing the PETE KELLY BIG SEVEN recordings? Not to mention those infectious PETE DAILY & HIS CHICAGOANS tracks.
la carendi le me cantos! of course jack webb is master of monotone one liners, yes janet leigh carries him,yes he's not much of an actor, but story and nostagia make this par excellance. with webb's impeccable timing and imagination for those one liners makes the movie move on. o yea, give ella bout a dozen kisses!
Great Dixieland Jazz PETE KELLY'S BLUES has finally made it to DVD and a fairly enjoyable issue it is too mostly because of the music - which I'm sorry to say - there isn't an over abundance of. From a lean enough screenplay by Richard L. Breen it was, nevertheless, well directed by the star of the picture Jack Webb. The light plot has cornetist Pete Kelly (Webb) - leader of a Dixieland jazz band in 20's Kansas - going up against racketeer Fran McCarg (Edmond O'Brien) who wants a "piece" of the band. Trouble ensues when Kelly's drummer Joey Firestone (Martin Milner) objects and pays for his objection with his life (In classic old Warner gangster movie style he is mowed down in a back alley in the teeming rain by Tommy Gun from a passing limousine). A stoic Webb tells Rudy, the night club owner, "get someone to bring Joey in - it's raining on him". The picture ends with Webb taking on the gangsters in a well executed shootout in a deserted ballroom.
In between all the drama and gunfire there are some fine jazz numbers "played" by the on-screen band ghosted on the soundtrack by popular jazz band of the day Matty Matlock's Dixieland Jazz Band. Matlock himself ghosted for Lee Marvin on clarinet while Dick Cathcart doubled for Webb on cornet. It is reputed that Webb - an avid jazz fan - based the band in the movie on his favourite group Eddie Condon's Dixielanders. But the jazz aspect of the picture is somewhat disappointing in that there isn't enough numbers played in the film. We could have tolerated and endured quite a few more of them from Matlock's great band. However to compensate in some way there are also some terrific songs in the film. The great Peggy Lee gives us her wonderful and unique renditions of such standards as "Sugar" and "Somebody Loves me". Then there's a marvellous cameo by the First Lady Of Jazz herself the inimitable Ella Fitzgerald belting out "Hard Hearted Hannah" and the title tune "Pete Kelly's Blues". Interestingly Peggy Lee won an Acadamy Award nomination for her fine portrayal of McCarg's drunken Moll.
Not too bad a movie really saved mostly - as I've said - by the music. But it is stylishly photographed in Cinemascope and colour by Hal Rossen and has some clever rapid-fire dialogue. Thanks to Webb's expert direction he embues the film with an exceptional jazz-era atmosphere and his knowledge of Dixieland jazz helps it along. Dixieland jazz was the pop music of yesteryear, hearing it here and in the light of what we have to contend with today - it's a great pity it still isn't. Hmm!
Now a word about the DVD! Although it is in a well defined 2.35 widescreen format I must say I am hugely disappointed in Warner's presentation of PETE KELLY'S BLUES! There are no extras to speak of! Just a silly short about the early days of motoring and a Looney Tunes cartoon. Surely they could have scraped up from their archives some short about jazz or at least something jazz related. No?? Also why was there no attempt to have a commentary? And to add salt to an already blistering wound - guess what- there isn't even a trailer. For shame Warners!
However, classic line from PETE KELLY'S BLUES......The deadpan Webb in a confrontation with gangster O'Brien "I've heard about you McCarg - down South they say you've got rubber pockets so you can steal soup".
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