321w3b

“He’s more a painter, maybe, than a director. He probably doesn’t even know. First, to me, he is a continuator of the Harry Langdon, Buster Keaton, and Chaplin tradition. He’s working with space; he’s not tracking like all those so-called 'modern' movie makers and making fancy with the camera. He’s just interested in framing, and he’s a very good framer, like great painters. He has a lot of sense of geometry.…I think he should be ed, and I’m one of his ers.”

—Jean-Luc Godard on The Dick Cavett Show, October 1980

I watched this again for the first time since I was a kid and it's really not as bad as everyone says. The half-hour k-hole near the end is spectacular.

Truly one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Full of awkward silences, shots that run on too long too long for no reason, and other general signs of incompetence. Goodman touches a clarinet for the first time in his life and moments later is jumping on stage to expertly improvise with Kid Ory (that's really Kid Ory). Lionel Hampton, appearing as himself, is the owner, waiter, and busboy of a roadside diner who entertains patrons on the vibraphone and is then ushered onto the bus to the band. It just makes no sense from beginning to end. Worth watching.