Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

As biopics go, "The Benney Goodman Story" is seldom seen these days on classic movie channels. The 1956 Universal International picture deserves a look, not only for the story itself, but for the historical events depicted in the film. Directed and written by Valentine Davies, it takes the viewer to one of America's best musician, Benny Goodman, to his humble origins in Chicago and culminating in his milestone January 16th 1938 jazz concert in Carnegie Hall, a venue considered the mecca for classical music until that time.Benny Goodman was an innovator. He discovered American jazz to be one of the most original forms of music, dedicating his life to what he knew best, giving the public pleasure with his many recordings during his lifetime. He had a talent for surrounding himself with the best musicians, as proved with the people he had in his orchestra. Gene Kruppa, Fletcher Anderson, Ted Ory, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Ziggy Elman, and even his own brother Harry were among the people who either played, arranged music, or just influenced him.The story involves his romance with Alice Hammond, a rich woman, way out of Benny Goodman's league, who became a fan after a disastrous first encounter. Alice recognized Benny's talent and fell in love with him. Alice and Benny met through her brother John. He was a record producer who recognized Benny's talent from the start. Steve Allen, seen as Goodman, makes an impression for the way he got the essence of the musician. Donna Reed is wonderful as Alice, the sweet lady that was the love of Benny.

Having cleaned up with The Glenn Miller Story (a bio-pic of a trombone playing band leader) the previous year, Universal decided to cash in on what they hoped might develop into a trend with a second musical bio-pic but this time centred around a clarinet playing band leader. Accordingly they tapped the writer of the Glenn Miller Story, Valentine Davies to write the follow-up and even allowed him to direct what turned out to be his only movie. Alas, he opted for the wrong clarinet playing leader and gave us Benny Goodman instead of the far superior Artie Shaw, thus losing out on non-musical color (Shaw was a serial husband, urbane, and a polished writer whilst Goodman was a bad nowhere to a blancmange without a clarinet in his hand). Even as a musician Goodman lagged far behind Shaw, so what we are left with is one or two well-known tunes - One O'Clock Jump, Stompin' At The Savoy, Avalon, Don't Be That Way - and appearances by musicians long past their sell-by date such as Kid Ory, Harry James, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton and the ubiquitous Ben Pollack who'd probably been sleeping in a dark corner of the Sound Stage since The Glenn Miller Story was wrapped a few months earlier. On the other hand it could and did get worse, Drum Crazy (The Gene Krupa Story) anyone? See if for the music.

It is was interesting to figure out what footage was the movie and what footage was from the actual 1938 performance at Carnegie Hall. There are two ways to figure it out: watch the color of the piano and what type of shot is taken by the camera. In close up shots with Steve Allen as Benny, the piano is brown. In far away shots, the piano is black. The far away shots are the actual 1938 footage. And of course, if you see Steve Allen (the close up shots), it is the movie footage. Without knowing that the original 1938 performance was spliced in with the 1955 movie footage , the viewer might see this as a continuity error.Although Steve Allen was not a clarinetist, one can see by his "performance" that he went to a lot of trouble to look as if he was actually playing (spoiler: Benny Goodman himself was actually playing clarinet off camera with the other musicians in the movie). As a musician and music historian, I am often annoyed when an actor or actress pretends to play a musical instrument: his or her performance usually looks fake. Excellent movie for all musicians! Very seldom do you see movies with so many great performances. It was also terrific to see some very famous musicians like Gene Krupa and Harry James.

The Goodman story looks terribly contrived and schmaltzy here in enlightened 2000. Yet schmaltz was what Hollywood was all about in 1955. So Donna Reid smiles and simpers, black man Kid Ory walks unchallenged into an NBC studio (in 1937???) and you just know the movie will end with a "and they all lived happily ever after." But maybe the Hollywood of 55 wasn't that bad. There was no heavy breathing, no f-words, no bare butts but lots of superb music by now deceased masters. The ultimate test? My wife and I really enjoyed watching it! But that doesn't seem to be the reason they make movies these days.