I suppose a script would need to be twice the length in order to smoothly bring a group of characters out of New Orleans and up the river to Chicago to parallel the development of jazz from the start of the century to World War II. So this one jumps from cliché to cliché (including some well- meaning but dated portrayals of black people) as actors meet and re-meet with a quantity of coincidence that would make Dickens shake his head. The actors sell the situations, though, under Dieterle's sure hand. (And he helps out at one point, in a short fantasy sequence, with a touch of pure old German expressionism.) Not everything is a cliché: there is a stereotype-breaking lady pianist, and there is a bitter attack on punctilious big-band jazz of the Paul Whiteman style-- a little surprising in a movie that celebrates the variety of style and interplay in black, white, southern, and urban traditions. Most of all, though, there is a soundtrack of remarkable music, including a moment that might be the most impressive tour de force by Gene Krupa ever captured on film.
Review of Syncopation
