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John Cassavetes and the fear and desire of the mainstream studio, the 16mm bebop of Shadows gels into Paramount composing. (Lewis is concurrent on the lot with The Errand Boy.) The quandaries of an indie auteur, "playing jazz for deaf-mutes" before elbowing through a party of screwballs and phonies, a very Los Angeles picture. The melancholy chanteuse (Stella Stevens) vocalizes in the corner but can't keep up with the pianist's tempo, the struggling bandleader (Bobby Darin) sees her and follows a slew of cocktails with a declaration of love. "I just don't believe in fairy tales." "I promise you will." She pines for self-worth and he has issues with trust, a bond grows while the resentful agent (Everett Chambers) tries to squash it. Stubbornness in love and stubbornness in art, the recording booth as the perilous terrain that separates breaking through and selling out. The ultimate Cassavetes horror, blink and you're a nightclub gigolo. "When did you turn into a critic?" Darin's compact doggedness, Stevens' wounded fuzziness, Chambers' superb bitterness, all integral elements of a stinging vision of integrity and compromise. The intense labors of any craft and the various thorns of any relationship, the muse with runny mascara, the drinking game that's always a beat away from a brawl. Swing High, Swing Low and In a Lonely Place and Look Back in Anger. (The suicide attempt in the bathroom sink, with its drain-level close-up like a serrated iris shot, goes into Faces.) The torn couple and the disbanded quintet are reunited painfully and musically, suddenly Darin's line about talent reverberates: "You can waste it on something ordinary, or you can dream a little." With Nick Dennis, Vince Edwards, Val Avery, Marilyn Clark, and Seymour Cassel. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |