That's Entertainment

 

LIVE AT MISTER KELLY'S (B+) - Back to Chicago and back in time for this fond remembrance of the famed Rush Street nightclub that hosted some of the biggest singers and comedians of the postwar era. (This is also a long-overdue return to the Santa Fe Film Festival for us, the only one we caught this year; time was, we would catch 4 or 5 titles per day during the festival's heyday in the Aughts.)

Journeyman Ted Bogosian works with David Marienthal, the son of one of the brothers who ran Mister Kelly's and sister club London House, to conduct a deep dive into the archives of not just the two venues but also the history of comedy and jazz in Chicago between 1953 and 1975. Experts in music, comedy and photography (our friend Richard Cahan) add critical context to the era and convey what made the clubs special in the Second City. 

The film is packed with talking heads -- from the famous to the not-so-famous -- who look back fondly on their days performing at Mister Kelly's. Barbra Streisand (by audio only) talks about her getting her big break there in 1963. We also see Lainie Kazan (who was performing the night one of the two notorious fires broke out), Bob Newhart, Herbie Hancock, Robert Klein, Ramsey Lewis, the comedy team of Tim Reid and Tom Dreeson, Shecky Greene (still alive!), local folkster Bonnie Koloc, and interviews with a trio of entertainers no longer with us: Dick Gregory, Fred Willard and Mort Sahl. Grumpy David Mamet even shows up, for some reason.

 

Bogosian and his crew really do their homework on this one, and they pay fine tribute to Oscar and George Marienthal, who worked hard to bring top talent to the clubs, which served as the host to a good share of live albums, by the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Flip Wilson, Woody Allen and Freddie Prinze. It can be a kick to watch such a parade of stars in the clips do their shtick and then reminisce about a special place. Points off, though, for hiring the ubiquitous Bill Kurtis to narrate. His over-the-top diction is a distraction, though he does disappear for a good chunk of the middle of the film. 

This gets the job done in less than an hour and a half and should lift the spirits of anyone with even a vague memory of the '60s. Note: The venue eventually would be converted to another city institution, Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse.

JUST DON'T THINK I'LL SCREAM (2019) (B) - Almost too overwhelming to truly comprehend in one sitting, this documentary is a visual diary created by French filmmaker and musician Frank Beauvais as he chronicles a challenging year in his life. Reeling from the death of his father and the terrorist attack at a Paris club in late 2015, Beauvais seeks exile in the small-town strangeness of the Alsace-Lorraine region, an apt no-man's-land on the German border, as he proudly dons the cloak of the outsider.

The filmmaker, who also just ended a relationship, is suffering from writer's block, and he engages in a sort of post-terror lockdown that presages the COVID crisis.  "My Stockholm syndrome," he calls it, "like bailing out a boat." He is also weighed down by his massive tranche of stuff -- books, CDs and DVDs -- which he liquidates via the internet. 

To further pass the time and keep from going off the deep end psychologically, he engages in a massive binge of four to five movies a day, every day. He refers to it as "film bulimia." Beauvais takes those movies -- which fall broadly across genres and eras -- and chops them up, using specific scenes to illustrate his running narration about the psychic trauma he is trying to work through.

And therein lies one of the main problems with the movie. The images change and flash every few seconds, with no let-up, as Beauvais drones on in French, requiring subtitles, which are hard to keep up with while you are racing along with the pictures. The filmmaker probably would consider this heresy, but it would have helped a lot to have had the voice-over dubbed in English, which would have saved viewers the stress of trying to keep up.

Despite this challenge, Beauvais' observations and working-man's philosophy can be fascinating to watch and experience. His use of images is clever, utilizing deep cuts from a lot of films you've likely never heard of. In some ways, this shares a kinship with John Wilson's gonzo semi-autobiographical HBO show that wanders New York City and seeks answers to some big questions about existence. It's a neat experiment, but it can be quite a stress test, too.

BONUS TRACKS

Our title track:

And from the end credits of "Just Don't Think I'll Scream," Bonnie Prince Billy with "I See a Darkness":

And Sarah Vaughan, live at Mister Kelly's in 1957 with "How High the Moon":