Lady Sings The Blues (1972), is loosely based on Billie's autobiography which she wrote with William Duffy just before her death at the age of 44. The term "loosely" is well employed here. About 90% of this film is pure invention. The film opens in 1936 when Billie is thrown in jail for possession of narcotics. She is so strung out that she needs to be put in a straight jacket. The film then flashes back to when she was 14, working in Baltimore as a cleaner in a brothel, where she listens to jazz records all day long while she cleans, singing along to the records. A traumatic event occurs which sends Billie to New York, where she ends up cleaning in another brothel. She tries to get a job singing but is told she is not pretty enough. So, she goes to work as a prostitute until one day she has enough and finally does get that singing job where she gets paid in tips.
Her debut is a little shaky until she sees a handsome man, Louis McKay (Billie Dee Williams) sitting in the audience. Piano Man (Richard Pryor) warns her about McKay but Billie goes out with him anyway. They fall in love but she is offered a job singing on the road with a white band. She goes, hoping that it will help her to get a job singing at a club downtoan back in NY. While on the road, she gets hooked on heroin by one of the white musicians. McKay dumps her when he finds out. After her mother dies, Billie resolves to get off the drugs and goes into rehab where she is arrested.
After she finally gets out of jail, she resolves to quit singing but McKay knows that it is in her blood. Because of her arrest, her cabaret license is revoked so she has to go out on the road again. Her new agent tells her if she gets good reviews, he'll get her booked into Carnegie Hall. Out on the road, she relapses and Piano Man gets killed by men he owes money to. Again, she resolves to go cold turkey when she gets the hoped for concert in Carnegie Hall. The film ends with her singing at Carnegie Hall, while newspaper clippings are flashed on screen giving details of the rest of her life.
This movie seriously suffers from biopic disease. The screenplay squishes about 21 years of Holiday's life and career down to about 3 years. Billie always claimed that she didn't start using hard drugs until the 1940s and her drug arrest was actually in 1946. She didn't marry Louis McKay, a mafia enforcer until 1952, and while he did try to get her off drugs, he was also abusive as were her other two husbands. Far from being the saint she's portrayed in the film, Billie's mother Sadie also worked as a prostitute along side her daughter in Harlem and they were both arrested when Billie was 15.
There's very little sense of the period in this film, apart from the obligatory Klu Klux Klan scene and also a scene where Billie stumbles upon a young black man who has been lynched. The song "Strange Fruit," an anti-lynching song is sung shortly afterwards, but there is no historical context as to how she came to sing the song (which was written by Abel Meeropol, a white jewish schoolteacher who later adopted Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's two sons). At no time is it mentioned that most of the clubs in Harlem were for white patrons, and run by the mob. Nor is it mentioned that Billie's father was a jazz musician.
Anyone watching this film would be hard pressed to know why she was so famous and revered. The impression given is that she sang and did drugs and that's it. There's no mention of her appearances at the Apollo Theatre, that she sang with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, that she made a film with Duke Ellington. The Carnegie Hall concert was her comeback, not to show that she had finally made it. It's barely mentioned that she wrote several songs including "God Bless The Child" or what made her singing so unique.
Diana Ross is at her most effective when she is strung out on drugs, less so in her other scenes. She sings the songs beautifully but with none of the grit or heartache that Billie put into her music. Billie Dee Williams as Louis McKay is required to do little more than look handsome, dress well, and be smooth. There are no scenes about what he actually does for a living.
Of course the film plays up that a white musician gets her hooked on drugs, while the patient, long suffering black man tries to save her. Billie spent a great deal time around musicians both black and white. Marijuana and heroin were part of the culture. Richard Pryor as Piano Man basically encompasses every musician that she knew. Again, there is no mention of Lester Young, the tenor saxophonist who actually started calling her Lady Day or John Hammond the man who discovered her when she was eighteen.
The final scene sees Billie performing at Carnegie Hall, the first black artist to do so, and as Diana sings "God Bless The Child," press clippings are shown that reveal yet more tragic incidents in Billie's life after this triumphant event, revealing there was, in fact, no happy ending for Billie. In fact, the original ending had Louis walk out on Billie's life while she's still performing on stage. Billie's agent asks Louis, "What do I tell her?" Louis replies, "Just goodbye, Billie will understand." This was cut from the ending, and in the film, all you see is Louis, emotionally affected, watching Billie perform.
Diana and the film went on to be showered with awards, which included three NAACP Image Awards, Actress of the Year, Motion Picture of the Year and Actor of the Year for Billy Dee Williams. Diana also scooped the Golden Globe Best New Star Award. The icing on the cake, was being nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Not only that but Chris Clark, Suzanne De Passe and Terence McCloy were nominated for their screenplay. Michel Legrand for the music score and Gil Askey for the orchestration.
As far as the Academy Awards were concerned, the only awards won by a black actor was Sidney Poitier, and Hattie McDaniel was the recipient of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1939 classic "Gone With The Wind." This was the first time in the Academy's history a black woman had been nominated in the Best Actress category. The forty-fifth Annual Academy Awards were held on 27 March 1973 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Diana attended with her husband (Bob), Berry Gordy, and her mother and father, Ernestine and Fred Ross. Sadly, Diana lost out to Liza Minnelli for "Cabaret", but, nonetheless, Diana had made her mark.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
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Let's not waste time and enjoy the three short documentaries concerning Billie Holiday, plus the short film: "Symphony In Black: A Rhapsody Of Negro Life" with Duke Ellington And His Orchestra (1935), where we get the chance to enjoy Billie Holiday performing in the sequence: "A Triangle: Dance, Jealousy, Blues!" Plus, an extra documentary on Diana Ross, titled: "The Story Of The Songs" and Diana Ross performing live in Glastonbury in 2022!!
And we continue with our 60s-70s comedy sitcoms plus our cartoon delight and last but not least the last remaining chapter of The Batman! You're not gonna miss it, are you?
The Main Feature:
Title: Lady Sings The Blues
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Cast: Diana Ross / Billy Dee Williams / Richard Pryor
Release Date: 1972
Country: United States
On Your Way Out:
As our motto goes: "Grab 'em, Use 'em, Enjoy 'em". You all know by now this section is here to hopefully, enhance your experience of viewing today's flick. The pictures, the reading material plus the listening extras, all have one common goal: pleasure through learning!
Cheers.
Shade.
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