Product Description

A Kansas City singer and his jazz band bow down to pressure from a local gangster and take on the thug's alcoholic girlfriend as a singer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14272 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-07-22
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 95 minutes

Customer Reviews

50's Icon
I've loved this movie since it's release. Peggy Lee is the greatest lady pop/jazz singer of the mid 20th Century, and she gets into the 1920's mode as if it were a svelte gown. Her renditions are immaculate, as we always expect them to be, but less expected is her portrayal of the exploited artist in the speakeasies. She chews up the scenery, and stands tastefully right in between Jack Webb's unemotiveness and Edmund O'Brien's ham. An interesting contrast movie of about the same year which allows O'Brien to roast his ham with color is "The Girl Can't Help It", a rock and roll movie starring Jane Mansfield, and featuring the entertainers of the hour, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, et alia. The cast of "Pete Kelly's Blues" also includes young Lee Marvin and Martin Milner as sidemen in Pete Kelly's band. The best song in the flick is the cameo by Ella Fitzgerald, of whom we would wish to see and hear more, if only her part was bigger in the script. A nice evocation and snapshot, if symbolic, of the world of Bix and Bing, Ruth Etting and Moe the Gimp.

All that love of jazz
Jack Webb loved jazz and the jazz age. That comes through loud and clear in Pete Kelly's Blues. I liked this movie immensely because it's a labor of love. Despite it's flaws (Jack Webb tends to be stiff at times) the movie works and works well. Meticulous attention to detail, Peggy Lee in a dramatic role as well as her glorious singing, Andy Devine as a cop along with the great Ella Fitzgerald and some of the best jazz music ever recorded plus a strong supporting cast, make this movie well worth savoring again and again.

Charles Albrecht

C'mon Warners, GIVE!
Given that this has already been remastered in letterbox/stereo for Laserdisc, why isn't this available on DVD? Webb loved 20s jazz and that is reflected in the terrific soundtrack and meticulous attention to period detail in every frame (wonderful Cinemascope production design!). Ella sings as only she can and acts as only she couldn't; Peggy Lee's heartbreaking performance as a torch singer on the skids was rightfully nominated for an Oscar (and oh yeah - "she sings"). This was one of the ten top-grossers of 1955, just behind "East of Eden," and its not available ten years into the DVD era?!