Unconventional Hard Hitting Slice of Jazz Musician Life from Edgy Director Cassavetes, who always seemed as Nervous as His Films.

The Second Film from the Adverse to the Studio System Auteur was Made from within and as such He Never Thought Much of it.

It was done at a Strange Time in Pop Culture. Race Relations and Integration were Percolating and Hollywood was mostly Late to the Struggle usually Steering way Away from anything Provocative or Controversial.

Cassavetes seems to be in Their Face Right-Off with an opening Scene that Literally Fills the Wide Screen with the Black Faces of Children Contrasted to the White Jazz Group.

The Script also makes more than one Reference to Interracial Relationships, Dope, and Prostitution. Bobby Darin is Fine as a Songwriter/Piano Player who Leads the Combo, but it Never in the Right Direction. Stella Stevens is also Superb in a Teary Role as an Insecure Singer with a Killer Body.

The Movie's Narrative is Not very Tight and Motivations are at times Lacking but the Film has an Offbeat, Gritty Style among its Perfect Hair and Shiny Suits with Skinny Ties. It was Not a Hit and the Director Scurried from Hollywood and Nobody Cared. He wasn't meant to be there anyway.

Overall, Worth a Watch to See what John Cassavetes did within the System and to See Bobby Darin's Acting and Stella Stevens' Range. The Story is Real and Rough and a Movie that was Removed from just about anything On Screen in 1961.

Cassavetes knew how to compose with the wide ranges of human emotions like so many notes on a jazzman's partition, showing them at their rawest with a fascinating mix of razor-sharp precision and cool jazzy detachment but the virtuosity that made "Shadows" such a revolutionary classic, pulverizing cinematic grounds, seemed to lack in in "Too Late Blues", a sincere story but without that face-slapping intensity that became the director's trademark.

I guess it took some time for Cassavetes to find his way, he was a natural observer of human relationships but his talent didn't pop out of nowhere, I guess it is only by hitting the same vein over and over again that such gems like "Husbands" or "A Woman under the Influence" could implode to our "faces" (pun intended),but in the 60's, Cassavetes, hit a chord with "Shadows" but was still looking for the right note. His second feature "Too Late Blues" is no masterpiece but it does have that detached energy that drove "Shadows".

The film follows a guy nicknamed Ghost, he's the leader of a jazz band where we can spot the face of Seymour Cassel, and maybe Cassel would have been a more interesting choice, but he was no rock icon by the time. Ghost is too baby-faced to really strike as a charismatic protagonist, on which the heaviness of emotions can rest on, he looks like the 'dream lover' he sung actually. He's a good actor, but there's something that doesn't just fit. Cassavetes wanted Montgomery Clift and Gena Rowlands as lead actors, that would have been a satisfying vision.

This is not a comment on Darin and Stella Stevens' appeals, actually, they're meant to be that way since he's a wannabe top singer who's got a notion of success coming to him and she's a struggling and rather mediocre girl with thin vocal capabilities, quite a pair! He obviously develops a liking on her and she's responsive, but he's so wrapped up in a misleading ego and she's so pitiful about herself, passing it as lucidity that their relationship is corrupted from the start.

There's something poignant in the pair formed by these two misfits but the film quickly loses its breath by going round in circles, despite a promising cast, Val Avery made an interesting music manager and I wish Rupert Cross had more screen-time, there's something so irresistible about this actor, there are also a few colorful characters like a Greek bartender (Nick Dennis) and a thug played by Vince Edwards, although I could see Tim Carey playing that part. Yet we're asked to care about the least interesting people in the film.

The character of the Agent, played by the sly and jealous Everett Chambers was a fascinating antagonist: this is a man who promotes a guy he totally despises, which says a lot about his cynicism, much more, he wants his failure because he stole his girlfriend, which he loved just out of territoriality, he didn't think she had any talent, but she was supposed to lean on him. This creates an atmosphere, as the New York Time review pointed out: "sordidly fascinating", a sort of no way out where we know birds will lose their feathers, and this is why the film is never as absorbing as in its first and last act, where it manages to reaches some peaks of greatness.

And Ghost's personality gets more complex as he reveals himself to be a coward, unwilling to fight, and until we found out this is a man with certitudes over his talents, but that's where it ends.Had the film not lost its way in the middle act and dragged on too long for some gratuitous bar scenes, it could have been onto something really special, on the same vein than Martin Scorsese's debut "I Call First" or "Mean Streets", Bobby Darin is no Harvey Keitel but he came very close to it. Reading the trivia about the film, I found out the shooting was rushed because of productions issues, Cassavetes didn't go through the same problems than for his next movie "A Child is Waiting", but his struggles with Paramount might have convinced him that he wasn't fit to work for a studio.

After 1963, it would take him half a decade to come up with his first masterpiece: "Faces". Because he knew he needed the right actors, and he'd make as many films and money so HIS movies would be made. Cassavetes pioneered independent cinema because he wanted independence and it's very appropriate that the character of "Too Late Blues" seek the same independence, wrapped up in a complex position about himself, his character's arc closes when he realizes that he still needed a band to survive and he clearly gets his comeuppance, maybe it was Cassavetes' way to show that you can't go on your own in this business and what counts more is relationships.

No wonder the director would only make movies with his friends Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and his muse will be no other than his wife: Gena Rowlands. You have germs of a growing talent and "Too Late Blues"'s pessimistic mood is only the opposite reflection of Cassavetes' artistic choices.

John Cassavetes produced and directed "Too Late Blues", as well as co-writing it, in 1961. It was his second film, after "Shadows", but he never really rated it, feeling the studio imposed restrictions on his 'style' and that the end result was too conventional. It wasn't. It may not be quite in the same class as "A Woman Under the Influence" or "Opening Night" but it is still remarkable in its free-wheeling, semi-improvisational way.

It's about jazz musicians and in particular Bobby Darin's pianist and Stella Steven's singer and their on-again, off-again romance. They are both terrific, particularly Stevens, (I think it's one of the great overlooked performances by an actress in the movies),and there is an equally brilliant performance by Everett Chambers as Darin's Machiavellian agent. Indeed the entire supporting cast are outstanding confirming, even at this early stage, that Cassavetes was a great director of actors. The superb black and white photography is by Lionel Lindon and naturally there is some great jazz on the soundtrack.