Paris Blues

Continuing to make my way through the movies I recorded from Paul Newman's turn as Star of the Month on TCM, this time out I watched Paris Blues.

Newman stars a Ram Bowen, an American trombone player living in Paris and working at a jazz club with his friend Eddie (Sidney Poitier). The famed American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong (who surprisingly although really playing himself is given a character name of Wild Man Moore) is coming to Paris for some performances, so Ram goes to the train station to meet him since apparently the jazz community is still small enough that everybody knows everybody.

At the station Ram also runs into Connie (Diahann Carroll), a young American who is on a two-week vacation to Paris along with her friend Lillian (Joanne Woodward). When she sees Ram, you can tell the sparks are going to fly between them. Meanwhile, you can probably guess that Connie is going to see Eddie at the club and those two are going to fall in love too. And of course you'd be right.

However, it's not going to be an easy relationship for either pair. Lillian is an independent woman who lives life her way, with two kids and a man out of the picture. (Nothing is said about how young the kids are and why she left them behind to go on a jaunt to Paris.) Ram, for his part, seems married to his music. As for Connie and Eddie, that's even more complicated. Eddie came to Paris to get out of America since he was tired of being a second-class citizen as a black American. Connie sees that a change is coming, if slowly (the movie ws made in 1961), and she doesn't understand how anybody can abandon their home the way Eddie has. Eddie, for his part, is sick and tired of the "race question".

While the two couples are trying to work things about between themselves, there are a couple of other subplots going on. I mentioned that Ram seems married to his music. That's because he's not just a trombonist, but a would-be composer. He thinks he's finally got a good song, and he even gets an interview with promoter/publisher René Bernard (André Luguet). The other subplot involves the guitarist at the jazz club, "Gypsy" (Serge Reggiani), who has a decided cocaine problem. Along the way, Louis Armstrong also comes to the club to do an improv session with Ram and his combo.

The plot of Paris Blues is nothing new, although there will certainly be some historical and cultural interest considering the movie's position at a time when the US civil rights movement was really beginning to gather steam. There's also the Paris location shooting with a paucity of shots of the Eiffel Tower. In some ways it would be nice if this were in color, although the color photography back then would probably make Paris look richer than suits a story like this, which is almost a starving artist story. The performances are good and do nothing to detract from the movie.

To be honest, however, the real reason to watch Paris Blues is for the music, which was written by Duke Ellington and is the star of the show here. If you like jazz, I have a feeling you'll really like this movie. (Now watch the jazz afficionados tell me the movie gets it all wrong. I'm not one of them, so I wouldn't notice.) The music is enjoyable, and Armstrong is as energetic as in any of his other movie performances I've seen.