LADY SINGS THE BLUES

US, 1972, 120 minutes, Colour.
Diana Ross, Billy D. Williams, Richard Pryor.
Directed by Sidney J. Furie.

Lady Sing the Blues is the biography of noted jazz singer. Billie Holliday, who died at the age of forty four years in the 1950's. The film is said to be a watered down version of her life. Nevertheless, audiences will find some of the sequences rather harrowing. Billie Holliday began life in a Harlem slum and her working life in a brothel. She was able to break out of this background to singing success only to be trapped in the despair of drug addiction. The film captures this, especially by making use of film flashbacks from a demented, imprisoned Billie. The fact that Billie was black in the U.S. of the 30's is also brought to the fore.

This film marked Diana Ross's film debut. Well known with her group, The Supremes, and then as a solo singer, she makes her mark as an actress and received an Oscar nomination in 1972. Her singing receives prominence - she was at pains to explain that she was singing Billie Holliday songs in her own right and not merely trying to imitate the original singer.

Director is Sidney J. Furie, maker of such films as The Leather Boys; The Ipcress File; The Naked Runner; Little Fauss and Big Halsey. The film is a mixture of standard Hollywood musical biography sequences, some 70's realism and some moving dramatic episodes.

1. What are your general impressions of Billie Holliday as a person?

2. Was the flashback technique effective? What were your impressions during the credits with the prison atmosphere; Billie in the padded cell, remembering?

3. Some critics have said that, although the atmosphere of the story is strong racism, drugs etc., basically the film is no different from any Hollywood musical biography. Do you agree?

4. Billie's background - Harlem, lack of opportunity, cleaning, the brothel, prostitution, visiting the cafe, her mother, walking out of the brothel. How did this influence Billie's life?

5. Billie as a singer - bluff, talent, collecting money during her songs, self-respect, not giving in to Louis at once, the restaurant and dancing? How did this transform her? Why was she successful?

6. How much did she love Louis, and he love her? What kind of man was he?

7. Was Billie right to go on the tour? How did the visit to the South change her - the hanged man, the Ku Klux Klan? Impact on the audience?

8. Why did she take drugs? The influence of the musician? Was her personality weak, was she addictive? How did all this change her as a singer?

9. The influence of Louis? What more could he have done?

10. The radio audition and Billie being ignored? The song at the restaurant climaxing in the dramatic scene with Louis and her readiness to kill him?

11. The effect of her years in prison and her rehabilitation? The support she had when she came out? Was the style of the film effective here?

12. Was the refusal of a New York license because of her past?

13. the possibilities of the tour and her success? How much was Louis' absence a cause of the breakdown? why did she take the drugs? Why didn't the pianist stop her? Was his death unnecessary? Its effect on Billie?

14. The irony of the offer from Carnegie Hall at this juncture? Billie's success at Carnegie Hall counterpointed by the license refusal, her further drug difficulties, death?

15. The effect of the songs and Diana Ross's singing and performance?

16. Was this film too American for our audiences or has it world-wide appeal?