It’s to the benefit of her legacy that the Anita O’Day documentary is not all that great. Keeps the mystery alive.
(Not glad that it was out of frame, but getting used to that by now.)
Interviews with talking heads providing no insight. Couldn’t they call up Chris Connor? Or MySpace her? Will Friedwald slams it though—who’d’a guessed he was so young?
Old twelfth-generation footage mostly seen before. Maybe O’Day was just an ordinary person? But NO! shouts the film: she was a WHITE jazz singer on HEROIN! Zzzzzzz. I’m scouring libraries for her book instead while newbies get seduced by the angle. More people listening to Anita O’Day = cannot complain.
Bryant Gumbel getting shut down is worth the ticket price.
.“That’s Just The Way It Went Down, Bryant!”
