Customer Reviews
very good 
2008-09-07
although a B movie peggy lee and ella are WOW and the music great plus the little bit of a young jayne mansfield really brings this flic up several notches, it was great to see it again after all these years
A 50s favorite! 2008-08-23
Saw it new as a child, loved it for some strange reason - music, acting, Peggy Lee, Ella, Andy Devine, Lee Marvin, Jack Webb's crewcut? I dunno, but I've seen it a dozen times in my life and still treasure it as one of my all-time 50s favorites!
Webb's Pete based on another Pete? 
2008-08-18
Apparently, when Jack Webb was creating PETE KELLY he would regularly watch Hollywood-based cornetist PETE DAILY and his band to assimilate the mannerisms and attitudes of a similar musician. Recordings by Matty Matlock's band were so popular that the group made concert appearances billed as PETE KELLY'S BIG SEVEN supported, ironically, by PETE DAILY'S DIXIELANDERS!Great to have PETE KELLY'S BLUES on DVD after all these years, in any format. Now what about re-releasing the PETE KELLY BIG SEVEN recordings? Not to mention those infectious PETE DAILY & HIS CHICAGOANS tracks.
la carendi le me cantos! 2008-07-31
of course jack webb is master of monotone one liners, yes janet leigh carries him,yes he's not much of an actor, but story and nostagia make this par excellance. with webb's impeccable timing and imagination for those one liners makes the movie move on. o yea, give ella bout a dozen kisses!
Great Dixieland Jazz 
2008-07-30
PETE KELLY'S BLUES has finally made it to DVD and a fairly enjoyable issue it is too mostly because of the music - which I'm sorry to say -
there isn't an over abundance of. From a lean enough screenplay by Richard L. Breen it was, nevertheless, well directed by the star of the picture Jack Webb. The light plot has cornetist Pete Kelly (Webb) -
leader of a Dixieland jazz band in 20's Kansas - going up against racketeer Fran McCarg (Edmond O'Brien) who wants a "piece" of the band.
Trouble ensues when Kelly's drummer Joey Firestone (Martin Milner) objects
and pays for his objection with his life (In classic old Warner gangster movie style he is mowed down in a back alley in the teeming rain by Tommy Gun from a passing limousine). A stoic Webb tells Rudy, the night club owner, "get someone to bring Joey in - it's raining on him". The picture
ends with Webb taking on the gangsters in a well executed shootout in a
deserted ballroom.
In between all the drama and gunfire there are some fine jazz numbers
"played" by the on-screen band ghosted on the soundtrack by popular jazz
band of the day Matty Matlock's Dixieland Jazz Band. Matlock himself ghosted for Lee Marvin on clarinet while Dick Cathcart doubled for Webb on
cornet. It is reputed that Webb - an avid jazz fan - based the band in the
movie on his favourite group Eddie Condon's Dixielanders. But the jazz
aspect of the picture is somewhat disappointing in that there isn't enough numbers played in the film. We could have tolerated and endured
quite a few more of them from Matlock's great band.
However to compensate in some way there are also some terrific songs in the film. The great Peggy Lee gives us her wonderful and unique renditions
of such standards as "Sugar" and "Somebody Loves me". Then there's a
marvellous cameo by the First Lady Of Jazz herself the inimitable Ella
Fitzgerald belting out "Hard Hearted Hannah" and the title tune "Pete
Kelly's Blues". Interestingly Peggy Lee won an Acadamy Award nomination
for her fine portrayal of McCarg's drunken Moll.
Not too bad a movie really saved mostly - as I've said - by the music.
But it is stylishly photographed in Cinemascope and colour by Hal Rossen
and has some clever rapid-fire dialogue. Thanks to Webb's expert direction
he embues the film with an exceptional jazz-era atmosphere and his knowledge of Dixieland jazz helps it along. Dixieland jazz was the pop
music of yesteryear, hearing it here and in the light of what we have to
contend with today - it's a great pity it still isn't. Hmm!
Now a word about the DVD! Although it is in a well defined 2.35 widescreen
format I must say I am hugely disappointed in Warner's presentation of
PETE KELLY'S BLUES! There are no extras to speak of! Just a silly short about the early days of motoring and a Looney Tunes cartoon. Surely they
could have scraped up from their archives some short about jazz or at least something jazz related. No?? Also why was there no attempt to have a commentary? And to add salt to an already blistering wound - guess what-
there isn't even a trailer. For shame Warners!
However, classic line from PETE KELLY'S BLUES......The deadpan Webb in a
confrontation with gangster O'Brien "I've heard about you McCarg - down
South they say you've got rubber pockets so you can steal soup".
Just viewed this and it is indeed widescreen 2008-07-27
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.Running Time: 92 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS UPC: 883929003280 Manufacturer No: 1000035849
WIDESCREEN 2008-07-07
According to several other sites I have looked up (key word "Pete Kelly's Blues Anamorphic" ) PKB will be wide-screen with a new digital sound-track. It only makes sense: this was a wide-screen showcase for Warner, so why re-issue without showing the whole movie? Also, there are several shorts included with the DVD.
Just so one is aware... 2008-07-05
With regard to what "Captain Nemo" has posted, this quoted from the reverse label of the Warner Brothers DVD packaging:
"Widescreen version presented in a "widescreen" letterbox format preserving the "scope" aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Enhanced for widescreen TVs." In addition, "Soundtrack remastered in Dolby digital 5.1.". The theatrical trailer is included, as well.
LOVE THE MOVIE.... BUT 2008-06-30
I CONCUR WITH ALL THE GOOD THINGS SAID ABOUT THIS MOVIE.GREAT MUSIC, GOOD STORY, FINE CAST AND A GOOD LOOKING FILM.
HOWEVER,PLEASE NOTE THIS DVD RELEASE SCHEDULED FOR JULY 22 IS FULL SCREEN ACCORDING TO THE PRODUCT DETAILS PROVIDED BY AMAZON.
I WAS ABOUT TO ORDER IT UNTIL I NOTICED THAT LITTLE FACT.I HAVE THE WIDESCREEN LASER DISC IN STEREO SO WHY BUY IT AGAIN? WHEN THEY RELEASE IT IN WIDE SCREEN I'LL GET IT FOR THE UPDATED 5.1 SOUND. IN THIS DAY AND AGE WHY RELEASE A WIDE SCREEN PICTURE IN THE OLD FULL SCREEN FORMAT? MAKES NO SENSE. HEY WARNER BROS. EVER HEAR OF HD? THOSE TV SCREENS ARE A CHANGIN.
BOTTOM LINE IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THE MOVIE OR JUST WANT A COPY YOU PROBABLY WILL STILL BUY, BUT WHY WARNER RELEASED IT THIS WAY IS A MYSTERY. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER AND RECEIVED AN UNQUALIFIED RECOMMENDATION.
Just the sax, ma'am, just the sax. 2008-05-02
Pete Kelly's Blues is everything people used to go to the movies for - a great cast speaking great dialogue in a good story imaginatively told and well paced without a single dull moment. Great music, too.
Pete Kelly (Jack Webb) is a hard-bitten jazzman in the Bogart mode, albeit with the added and very visually striking ability to walk without moving his arms. We know that there's a heart of gold under his stone-face because he keeps a bird in his apartment, but he's having none of it: "I'm nice to him because I may get hungry some day and have to eat him. In the meantime, he can hit G above C so I keep him around."
Set in the Prohibition era when musicians were thrown out of hotels because they had an instrument case ("If it had been a machine gun it would have been alright"), Kelly's Big Seven soon find themselves the latest clients of Edmond O'Brien at his meanest ("They say you got rubber pockets so you can steal soup"), a violent racketeer who is moving into the agent business. His first act as their representative is to kill one of the band and add a singer to the lineup - an Oscar-nominated Peggy Lee as his alcoholic girlfriend who ends up in the asylum - making Joe Esterhaus' infamous complaints about Michael Ovitz pale into insignificance.
And that's all without his difficult romance with society dame Janet Leigh - she wants to be married before she's so old that the confetti knocks her down, but he thinks they're incompatible because he doesn't know where his next meal's coming from and she doesn't know where her next country's coming from. Add endlessly quotable dialogue ("Rudy's a puny little guy - sew an extra button on his vest he'd fall down."), some great faces in the supporting cast (Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, even Jayne Mansfield) and a terrific and very credible gunfight finale in a deserted ballroom with a killer of a last line from O'Brien's bodyguard and they don't come much better than this.
Beautifully designed for the CinemaScope screen in the days when CinemaScope was CINEMAScope and with a great stereo soundtrack, don't let the cult movie tag put you off - this is solid mainstream entertainment at its best and terrific with it. If you love movies, you'll probably love Pete Kelly's Blues.
