Year of Release: 1961Country of Origin: USA
Director: Martin Ritt
Cast: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong, Diahann Carroll
Plot outline: Two jazz musicians deal with romantic problems in Paris (IMDb).
The jazz is hot, the romance is not so hot. The middlebrow drama never has a sense of where it's going and what it wants to say about music, racism or love relationships. Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) is a trombone player and Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier) a tenor man in the same jazz band. Ram is studying music and aspiring to be a "serious" composer, while Eddie escapes American racism to be in a city that respects the love he has for his kind of music. American tourists Lillian Corning (Joanne Woodward) and Connie Lampson (Diahann Carroll) are on a two-week holiday in Paris and begin a casual romantic fling with the two jazz men that turns more serious as the days go by. It becomes a question if Ram will leave his music to return home to be with Lillian and will Eddie also return home because his love for Connie is so great. On the plus side there's the wonderful score by Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong's amazing rendition of "Battle Royal." Otherwise it's dross. The movie never gets around to probing America's racism that caused many blacks to seek shelter in the much friendlier confines of the City of Lights, as it instead focuses around the white Newman character's uninteresting problem if he's good enough to be a serious musician and still cut it as a jazz man. (DS)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
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