Reviews

Alec Guiness is Mozart to Marlon Brando's Beethoven. Arguably, the two finest actors of the 20th century, they are poles apart. While it is impossible to see Guiness as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, it is equally impossible to see Brando as Jock Sinclair in Tunes of Glory.

Both roles are deeply masculine, but Tunes of Glory reaches subtleties of character that Waterfront never approached. And Guiness was probably the only actor that could carry it out so well.

I won't repeat what others here have already said so well, but only to encourage the reader to see this masterpiece of acting, setting, and story. The emotional crescendo to Guiness'es final brilliant, devastating denouement is as powerful and profound as it was over 40 years ago.

This movie is for adults only - in the best sense.

Marlon Brando gives a performance that ranks among the best ever from any actor in film history - two of the others are his own roles in "Streetcar" and in "Waterfront".

Robert DeNiro is without peer as the young "Don" in 1900 New York.

James Caan excels as the heir-apparent Don.

The many character actors in this film are simply the best ever.

The production values have never been equalled, and Francis Coppola's direction is probably the nearest to perfection as a movie can be.

As a reflection of reality, however, the movie gets a Z minus. The Mafia was never like this, folks. I grew up in an area that had many "wise guys", and they were nothing like their portrayals in this movie. Without exception, they were incredibly dumb, but they had a talent for brutality. The notion that they were great organizers, negotiating like statesmen at their meetings, is completely absurd. What they did do well was beat up people - usually other Italians who simply wanted to make a living. They were, and are, thugs - pure and simple.

The way they treated their women makes the Taliban look like feminists.

So watch the movie, but beware, it's a MOVIE.

The anachronisms fly in this Hollywood rendition of the beginnings of Rock and Roll (a genre best defined as the introduction of black Rhythym and Blues music "crossing over" to white teenage audiences in the early and mid-fifties).

The subsequent discovery of the economic power of these teenagers buying the records would change popular music forever.

The movie is redeemed by some energetic youthful performers and the exuberance that was such a feature of the time. But nowhere near enough credit,however,is paid to the original black harmony groups who were overwhelmingly responsible for this explosion of a new popular culture without precedent in US history. They are overshadowed by white single performers who Freed never played.

The movie stars Tim McIntyre, son of renowned character actor John McIntyre, delivering a sensitive portrayal of Freed. A pretty Fran Drescher is here before she assumed her affected froggy-voiced caricature so familiar today. Jay Leno is here also, sincere as always, and quite good as Freed's chauffeur.

Framed around the payola scandals, an ill-disguised attempt to destroy the music and its too-black associations, Freed was convicted of what was hardly a major offense (a common practice in the industry at the time), lost his job, and died a few years later. It's hard to convey today how virulent was the opposition to this music by the moral majority of that time.

One has only to listen to the Chesterfield's ersatz performances in the movie imitating Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, which are workmanlike, and then listen to the original. It is probably the best way to understand how this movie doesn't quite measure up to the reality it is trying to describe (what Hollywood movie ever does?). The real Frankie Lymon had a voice that was simply unbelievable, and a stage presence that awed Bing Crosby (!). Frank Sinatra, uncharacteristically, said he had never seen nor heard anything like him. (Crosby and Sinatra had been invited to the Apollo to see Lymon). Frankie Lymon died tragically about a decade later - long forgotten, and a microcosm, perhaps, of the black groups who started the whole thing.

Worth watching, but for a more truthful approach to the music itself, and much grittier, catch the earlier rock movies from 1956 with the real Alan Freed and the great original artists. Not much plot, but - oh! what performances!