Basil Dearden the director or someone got the clever idea to reset Othello in swinging jazzy London. Unfortunately with the exception of one good performance the film is pretty much a bust.
Only Patrick McGoohan as the scheming Iago like drummer Johnnie Cousin, really gets into the spirit of the thing, the rest of the cast which includes actual musicians playing themselves are pretty flat as they say.
Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Keith Christie and John Dankworth ("where's Cleo" someone says) don't make any kind of an impression. The jazz they play is that kind of semi straight stuff that mainstream films were the most comfortable with, no Miles or Coltrane allowed in this film.
An example of a minor talent overreaching himself with an idea he really didn't have the skill to pull off. A real letdown.
91 minutes
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment