"The King of Jazz" - Restored 1930 Technicolor Musical

[bucketfoot-al]

Well, I've been waiting for about 6 years to see the restored version of this seminal, epic musical review starring the greatest bandleader of the time, Paul Whiteman. 1920s Revues channelled into the 21st century to bring us a glimpse of what the artform was like - no story, just music, songs, comedy skits, and dance numbers. Saw it last night and I am floored, astounded and joyful. Will watch again tonight.

THIS is the movie that started it all in terms of musical extravaganzas- costing a staggering $2,000,000 to produce, it lost money because the Depression hit 6 months before its release. (The approximate buying power of $2M in 1930 dollars equates to about $300M today (you can't just use the inflation index to figure this out. You need to use the ratio between the average household income of the time to get a true understanding of the cost - the average household income in 1930 was $1970 - A YEAR!!!)

The sets, costumes, pep and outright kitschy zaniness of this movie would never be repeated. That is why it was a gift from Heaven that a pristine Nitrate negative of the film was found in the Library of Congress. It took over 6 years to restore. You can get the Blueray DVD on Amazon - but I would seriously urge you to do a little reading on this motion picture as background so that you can fully appreciate what you are seeing. Wikipedia would be a good start.

And now, here is a link to the Trailer to the restored version that might just blow your mind (it did mine - I had seen the sad decayed and faded version of the film before):

https://vimeo.com/247574759

[temperflash]

Looks great!