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Lady Sings the Blues

Lady Sings the Blues – 1972
Director
Sidney J. Furie

Writers
Chris Clark
Suzanne De Passe

Cast
Diana Ross
Billy Dee Williams
Richard Pryor

Review by Wayne Malin

Worth seeing for Ross,

First off this is NOT a factual biography of Billie Holiday…a lot of her dark side is ignored. That aside, this is a pretty good movie. It follows Holiday from a little girl all the way up to her debut at Carnegie Hall. Along the way she deals with drug addiction, rape, prostitution etc etc. That’s the big problem with the movie–it’s too depressing. Holiday is a victim again and again and again. It wears one down seeing this woman just torn apart over and over. Also, the movie is too long–2 1/2 hours.

Still, it’s worth seeing for Diana Ross performance (Oscar-nominated). She sings like Holiday and (sometimes) looks like her. She never strikes a wrong note is her acting–she’s letter perfect in every scene. So watch it for her and the music. Otherwise, it’s pretty depressing. Also, there’s a good supporting performance by Richard Pryor.

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70s Films

A tour through the great and not so great films of the seventies The seventies saw a huge change in styles and genres from the advent of the slasher horror movies like Halloween and the blockbuster summers films started by Jaws. More...

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