TCM's prime time lineup tonight before Silent Sunday Nights is a pair of movies starring Jeff Bridges. I've blogged about the first movie The Big Lebowski (8:00 PM), back in 2017, so now it's time to do a post on the other movie of the evening: The Fabulous Baker Boys, at 10:15 PM.
Jeff Bridges stars as Jack Baker, and as the movie opens he's getting out of bed in the morning with a woman he clearly doesn't know well and only picked up as a one-night stand. He proceeds to get dressed in a tux, because, well, he needs it for his job that evening. He's been one half of the titular Fabulous Baker Boys, a jazz piano duet of him and his older brother Frank (Beau Bridges) that has been performing in lounges around Seattle for 31 years now. Other than that, Jack doesn't have much of a life. He drinks, goes to a jazz dive bar from time to time, and helps look after little Nina, a girl who lives upstairs and whose single mother seems to have a succession of boyfriends.
For Jack, being in a duo with his brother is a sort of "what might have been". But for Frank, it's what pays the bills and allows him to have a modest house in tract housing and raise a family. And because of that, Frank is fairly unsympathetic as to doing things with an end to actually making a living, high art be damned. If the two brothers have to play "Feelings" for the 84723th show, so be it. Jack goes along with it largely because he doesn't seem to have much ambition. Do just enough to put food on the table and feed his dog, and enjoy the free time.
But this sort of piano jazz duo is no longer paying the bills, at least not for the managers of the hotel lounges where the Baker Boys get booked. The implication is that they're going to need a singer if they want to keep getting bookings. So, in a standard trope, the brothers audition a series of women who range from "don't quit your day job" to "hilariously bad". That is, until the audition is supposed to be over, when walking in late is Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer), who naturally wows the brothers over with the high quality of her singing.
Not that being in this sort of trio is what she necessarily had in mind. She doesn't much care for Frank's businesslike attitude, even if it is what's getting them gigs. She complains about the shoes and outfits he's picked for her, and later complains about the music sets they have to play, too. But in the meantime, Susie's vocals are a minor hit, enough so that the three are able to get a gig at a swanky resort over the New Year's holiday.
It's there that Jack and Susie realize they've got feelings for each other. When Frank has to return to Seattle for a couple of days when his kid gets sick, that's when Jack and Susie act on those feelings. This even though Frank doesn't want that to happen since he knows that if it does happen, it's going to put a new sort of tension into the act that the act just doesn't need. And sure enough, that's what happens, although even then Jack still doesn't have the courage to go any farther with Susie.
The Fabulous Baker Boys is, to be honest, a fairly thin story, and one of a sort that we've seen before. And yet, somehow, the movie is successful, which I think comes down entirely to the acting performances, which are quite good. Not that you'd expect any less from three seasoned pros. Pfeiffer also did her own singing, and does have a capable voice.
I didn't get to see The Fabulous Baker Boys when it was originally released, and was surprised to see it was not a box office hit at the time. But I'm glad I've finally gotten around to watching it.
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