thinker1691 Writer, director Valantine Davies took on this musical challenge as a testimony to the legendary impresario Benny Goodman and what was then called 'Swing' music.' The film itself is called " The Benny Goodman Story " and it features the late great comic Steve Allen. The movie does a good job of incorporating the early life of the famed musician and the life-struggles he encountered. Striving from an early age to learn his instrument and then later to adapt it to create what he called a 'special' type of music for the era of Early Swing and later Jazz age. The movie does not lend itself any of Goodman's foibles or controversies as there were little in his life. Still it does take a few liberties with his personal history, but nothing which detracts from the established music which he help to initiate. Indeed, his ability to play his clarinet and entrance his audiences is what makes this movie and then the cast which includes Donna Reed, Berta Gersted and Barry Truex as Benny Goodman (at 16), is what marks this Bio-pic as a musical Classic and the late great Gene Cruppa on drums. In addition for any who love the legendary sounds of the Big Bands in the age which started them all, you can do no better than sit and enjoy this musical rendition which is a tribute to that era. Easily recommended. Well done.

schell-7 He was born in the spring of 1909, and beginning with his first hit recording, "Moon Glow" in 1934, he routinely scored a dozen top-ten hits on a yearly basis. Some regard his title, "The King of Swing," as insulting to the African-American tradition that became America's indigenous art form, jazz. It's true that Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, and Fletcher Henderson probably deserved the title, but Benny Goodman was also deserving, and moreover an admirable, seminal representative of the historical period that became known as the "Swing Era." Moreover, in his 1938 Carnegie Hall concert he broke both the "cultural" barrier that insisted on privileging classical European music over "vulgar" American popular forms as well as the color barrier that made it unusual, unlikely, and often impossible for white and black musicians to play on the same stage. Benny was a great musician, as in command of a classical repertory as of jazz, but he was also an ambassador and an example, making the public aware of the music of Billie Holiday (he also introduced Peggy Lee), Lester Young, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and the beauties of a music that was a sophisticated American music as well as a highly swinging one.Forget the plot of this adequate but conventional love story. You'll have to look long and hard to find a movie with this much great American music. And give some thought to the revolution that began in the 1950s and changed the American landscape in the 1960s after the "British invasion." Goodman looked like a boring banker. He wore suits and ties--and he played clarinet! How could he have been adopted by a primarily young generation as a hero if not major pop star? Steve Allen is a bit better looking (and far more clever and articulate) than Goodman, but he won't explain the revolution that made hair, guitars and grubby jeans more worthy of our time, attention, and money, tons of it, than a genteel adult like Goodman. Benny instead introduced us to a guitarist who was black, wore suits, and became known as the "Father of the Jazz guitar," Charlie Christian. Benny Goodman was about sophistication, civility, and competence--and that's exactly what you get, and in abundance, from the musically hip Steve Allen.Thanks to this movie, I developed a lifelong love of jazz. I'm still swinging, and I'm still left puzzled by the sounds of distorted guitars, of groups that can't perform without vocals, and of drummers who are clueless about the subtle, airborne groove of a 4/4 walking bass, a tight hi-hat, and a shimmering ride cymbal. And I still fail to grasp the entertainment value of performers who wear torn jeans, earrings and tattoos while commanding tens of thousands for a single performance. If you can't hear music unless the beat sounds like an amplified, mechanical drill hammer, you probably won't like this movie.

CatchyJ-1 I enjoyed the music in this film immensely but the thing that drove me absolutely crazy was the costumes. This film is supposed to take place from 1910 - 1938 yet Donna Reed is in full 1950's dress including her hair and makeup. It actually screws up your whole perception of when the story takes place. Would it have killed them to dress her and the other women in period dress? There is one sad attempt at a 20's outfit where Donna is at a speakeasy and has on a cloche hat with her bangs in spit curls but of course her dress is a total 50's Dior 'New Look' with a cinched waist and huge skirt. It's also sad that original Benny Goodman vocalist, Martha Tilton, is only on film for like 1 minute singing one short refrain.

rube2424 THE BENNY GOODMAN story, the half brother of the GLENN MILLER STORY and the GENE KRUPA STORY and the first cousin of THE FABULOUS DORSEY'S is a made to order biopic that lacks ooomph because of the reticence of the title character. Steve Allen's Goodman doesn't have the boyish enthusiasm that James Stewart had as Miller, but rather a quiet nerdishness that although possibly respresenting the person correctly, doesn't make for thrilling cinema. Because of this, Allen treads water valiantly, while all Donna Reed has to do is look lovingly at him and look as beautiful as, well, Donna Reed. (The real find in the film is Berta Gerstein, of whom I had never heard, but who I gather from reading the IMBD database, must have been a Yiddish theater/cinema star, as Benny Goodman's mother. She is so real that she makes the rest of the actors seem like cardboard.) But what a treat it is to see and hear Kid Ory, Harry James, Martha Tilton, Lionel Hampton, Ziggy Elman, Urbie Green and to hear Goodman himself.Where the film shines is in its music and never more so than at the halfway point's Paramount Theater engagement and the ending's Carnegie Hall concert of 1938. In these two spots the film soars. AND THE ANGEL'S SING is classic and SING SING SING will blow the top off your DVD player.So, THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY, usual biopic with some amazing music. (Want a great double feature? No, not THE GLENN MILLER STORY which is fun, but rather the 1947 NEW ORLEANS with more jazz greats including Louis Armstrong. Now, as Cole Porter would say, you has jazz!)!!!!!!!!