Birth of the Blues

It’s set in the American Deep South in the late 1930s so of course there are going to be unsavoury racial overtones, but in some ways this films strives to suggest that by using jazz music and the wholesomeness of Bing Crosby, there might be some green shoots of desegregation starting to emerge. The young “Jeff” is a pretty prodigious talent, but is regularly strapped by his father for playing with “darkie bands” in New Orleans. Undeterred, he grows up (into Bing Crosby) and establishes his own multi-racial and multi-talented band. They struggle to overcome the prejudicial attitudes on the city, though, and it’s only when they hook up with songstress “Betty Lou” (Mary Martin) that they start to get hired. Somewhat predictably, he falls for her but so does his best mate - their cornet player “Memphis” (Brian Donlevy). This latter love-triangle element is what passes for the plot and we’ve seen that play out loads of times. This thrust of film is really all about the plentiful and varied musical numbers that frequently get the toes tapping, and maybe encourage a 1941 audience to look beyond colour and see talented human beings strutting their stuff to produce a great sound (except for Dunlevy who clearly isn’t playing anything!). The songs themselves are all a bit album-tracky so you might not recall them for long, but they do their job here as the USA starts to look towards a turbulent next few years and the charismatic Bing gets to remind us why he was a star.