March 24, 2020 – A Song is Born (1948) The Criterion Channel
This was a fun movie, perfect to escape from our pandemic woes. A Song is Born is Howard Hawks’ musical remake of the great screwball comedy Great Balls of Fire, about a group of linguists whose lives and work on an encyclopedia of slang are disrupted a fast-talking floozy played. In the remake, it is a group of ethno-musicologists who are doing an encyclopedia of music. The encyclopedia’s field research (and the movie’s soundtrack) features appearances by Louie Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and many other jazz greats of the age. The movie loses steam in the last third when it is less music and more plot. But the first half to two-thirds of the movie are so good, you barely notice.
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