Lady Sings the Blues

I would be the first to agree that it was standard fare as far as a musical bio...and Cabaret was a superior film. But Diana Ross' performance was a stunning film debut. This is the kind of overlooked performance that makes it so clear that pure ability is not what the Academy Awards are all about. I tend to think really great acting always sneaks above the voting members scope of being able to truly reccognize great acting.

But anyone who hasn't seen Diana Ross' performance in Lady is in for a treat. To think that she went through so many transitions within the film: from youngster, to a drug addict, to a grand singer...it's a truly great performance.

The first question that would run across the mind of anyone who'd watch this movie is: "Can Diana Ross act?" The answer, I'm glad to say, is an unequivocal "Yes." And I think that's what the director wanted to clear up right from the very first scene, with a flash forward to Billie Holiday's drug bust while the credits were still on. Ms. Ross, devoid of make-up and with "crazy hair," put on an extremely convincing performance of heroin (or coke) withdrawal, replete with howling.

Her performance is the highlight of the movie, which unfortunately felt like it ran way too long, and I found myself constantly checking the run time. It wasn't bad as a musical. As I had read previously, Ms. Ross didn't seek to imitate Billie Holiday's style, and instead created a distinct and appropriate - yet similar - jazz style of her own just for the movie (check out "Good Morning Heartache"), and I, being a fan, didn't mind the song interludes.

What dragged the movie was the constant focus on Holiday's drug addiction (to showcase more of Ms. Ross's acting?). It felt like there was scene after scene of her being drug-addled, whining, and screaming, which began to abrade after a while. It's too bad, since with better direction and screenplay, coupled with Ms. Ross's capable acting and singing, this could've been one of the truly great musical biopics.

Diana Ross is quite superb as jazz singer Billie Holiday, but even so this clichéd bio-drama of the drug-addicted torch diva from the 1930s is hardly convincing. After an enjoyably overwrought prologue (with Holiday brutally incarcerated like a gangster out of a Jimmy Cagney flick), the movie sputters along familiar territory, and the burnished, brackish look of the picture--probably meant for prestige--is a visual downer. The tone wavers at times (a comedic sequence with Scatman Crothers is either a distraction or a relief), and the film's flashback structure is a cheap gimmick (you know you're in for it when the filmmakers start super-imposing headlines across the screen--it's movie shorthand for "we're running out of time"). Ross is a spectacular drawing card, but this vehicle for her debuting acting talents leaves much to be desired. **1/2 from ****

Diana Ross put in a very fine performance playing a very difficult role. Sadly, that role was not Billie Holiday and this is my big problem with this film. Any film with a musician as its subject should have loads of that musician's art. Diana Ross does sing some songs, but the MUSIC is not the focus of the film. The unhistoric life of Lady Day is: her experiences as a prostitute, her first gig, getting discovered, touring with a white band, Strange Fruit, etc. They are all thrown together into a hapless hodge-podge lacking continuity or even a semblance of a timeline. An even greater sin is that Lady Day did not develop in a vacuum as this film would have you believe. She was a vital part of the larger jazz scene of the 30s and 40s, a scene she shared on an equal footing with such giants as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, and most importantly John Hammond, the famous producer and talent scout who discovered Lady Day in a small Harlem club. None of these people appear in the film in any way, shape, or fashion. That's not just ridiculous, it's criminal. I don't know if there was a permissions problem in portraying them on film (some of them were still alive when the film was made), but their absence is sorely felt.

Amadeus is also criticized as unhistoric, which it is, but it made the best of Mozart's life by putting his music at center stage. (It also helps that the events it portrayed were in chronological order.) The same could have maybe rescued LADY SINGS THE BLUES, but the opportunity was missed. Other than Diana Ross's harrowing portrayal of a heroin addicted singer (who could have been anyone but Billie Holiday), there is nothing to recommend this movie. Go watch Ken Burns' JAZZ series instead.

Diana Ross stars in this pseudo-biographical film about the great singer Billie Holiday, who died in 1959. Although the film is clichéd and melodramatic in many ways, Ross overcomes these shortcomings with a performance that captures the tragedy of Holiday's life and conveys the enormity of her singing talent. There are many classics crammed into the film but none so well done as "Good Morning Heartache" and "God Bless the Child." ---from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association. 2013