St Louis Blues (1958)

It’s actually the fictional biography of W. C. Handy the Grandfather of Blues, a talented composer who translated the voice of his people into timeless music, a scholar and savvy business man who in real life was among the first to publish and record the music of Black Americans. But like most Hollywood musical biopics, what ends up on screen ignores truth in favor of a scripted drama that has no other purpose than to string together a parade of top vocal talent of the day interpreting the man’s works.

Nat “King” Cole was breaking down racial barriers with his hit television show, shy demeanor, and a mellow silky voice that melts your spine in the most pleasing way. A movie vehicle for the star based around an internationally recognized songbook seems like a good idea. So what if it didn’t tell the true story of a Black composer who fought racial prejudice and uncompromisingly presented some of the greatest music ever played.

There’s a decent script here about a young Black man devoted to elevating the music of his people despite the tirades of his overbearing father, a stereotypical minister who represents a self-imposed yoke of deprication and subserviance. Torn between these two extremes the sweet-natured Cole is crippled by a fit of hysterical blindness that reduces him to writing hymns and playing the organ in his father’s church. Like Job he is miraculously healed during an uplifting spiritual sung by Mahalia Jackson (who wouldn’t be?). He eventually confronts the narrow-minded pastor, pursues his destiny as a great composer, and sees his music “legitimized” by a concert at the Eurocentric New York Symphony Hall.

It’s a contrived melodrama to be sure, but it is the first film made for mainstream audiences to feature an all Black cast. Despite a low production budget that always plays it “safe”, St Louis Blues boasts such an embarrassment of riches: Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Ruby Dee, Pearl Bailey, Billy Preston as a boy, and Cab Calloway who gets to play a scheming jealous club owner as a nice change of pace from his wiggly-jiggly Hi-Dee-Ho band leader. But the movie belongs to the commanding presence of Eartha Kitt.

As Gogo Germaine, a no-nonsense sweet-voiced Creole chanteuse with an hourglass torso sculpted by costume goddess Edith Head, Kitt drives the plot with single-minded ambition and a cold detachment to the conflicted characters around her. Not only does Gogo Germaine stand in complete defiance to oppressive religion — cutting down the pastor with a lecture on prejudice, she defies the timeline in sleek and modern dresses while scolding a befuddled Ruby Dee who stands in the kitchen wearing old fashioned starched lace — as though a Black from the future has come to chastise the Black of the past! It’s a boldly anachronistic performance for it’s setting, but also for Hollywood, showing a career-driven woman who won’t be derailed by love (manipulative boyfriend Cab Calloway), society (Juano Hernandez’ disapproving pastor), or sentimentality (the blind Nat “King” Cole).