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Histrionic 1966 picture about a struggling musician has worthy ambitions but is deeply unhipTime has not lent much to this histrionically earnest issue picture starring Sammy Davis Jr from 1966, in which the life of a troubled African American jazz hepcat is quaintly imagined by the husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Lester and Tina Pine; the director is industry stalwart Leo Penn (father of Sean), who had been blacklisted in his former career as an actor after refusing to testify to the red-baiting Huac. Well, the film certainly challenges the all-white consensus, and a supporting cast including Cicely Tyson and no less a figure than Louis Armstrong gives it substance.Davis plays Adam Johnson, a brilliant but mercurial jazz musician and singer, facing casual racism from the cops and stricken with depression and alcoholism after a car crash killed his wife and child and blinded one of his own musicians. His wild fits of anger on and off stage bring him close to meltdown; but then he meets and falls in love with the charismatic and beautiful civil liberties campaigner Claudia Ferguson (Tyson) whose grandfather is the much-respected jazzman Willie Ferguson (Armstrong). Adam’s life looks like it’s taking an upward path, and he is also mentoring a young white musician called Vincent, played by a very callow Frank Sinatra Jr, who – unlike Davis – does not convincingly master the art of miming to other people’s horn playing. But then Adam is forced to go on a tour of the south by his exploitative and arrogant recording company boss, played by Davis’s fellow Rat Packer Peter Lawford. This character’s name happens to be … erm … Manny. Some stereotypical thinking here? Continue reading...