John Cassavetes' Too Late Blues stands as one of the best jazz movies I've ever seen—not a movie necessarily about jazz or even featuring jazz, but a movie that attempts to emulate the very genre itself: its spontaneity, its atmosphere, a capriciousness between ebullient joy and helpless despair. Too Late Blues centers on the self-destructive relationship between "Ghost" Wakefield (Bobby Darin) and Jess Polanski (Stella Stevens), two struggling jazz artists who are perfect in their incompatibility for each other. Seemingly incapable of not hurting each other, they sabotage what little hope they have for making the big time. Cassavetes always managed a curious tension in his films between extreme emotional volatility and insouciant improvisation, two elements which rarely mix. Somehow Cassavetes managed to incorporate impromptu baseball games and drinking contests into this film without damaging its emotional velocity. The result plays like a superb jazz solo: unpredictable and sublime, perfectly constructed without seeming planned out.
7/10
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