1h 29min | Drama | 18 February 1965 | b/w, fs
Director: Paul Henreid
Stars: Ray Charles, Tom Bell, Mary Peach.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058935/
Watched out of sequence because disc just arrived today.
13 songs in the Soundtracks, 12 performed by RC. Most famous: What'd I Say?, Hit The Road Jack, Unchain My Heart.
This poster, for an alternate title used in the US, is highly misleading. Click on it to see the text above RC's name, and it makes this sound like it's all about romance. It is not.
Similarly, the synopsis (by an IMDb user) is very wrong. The "family" consists of mother and son, and mother has a boyfriend. Boyfriend is shown indulging in alcohol when frustrated, but I think it was only once. Don't remember that they discussed this as a pattern of his. Similarly, the family is not particularly down-on-their-luck. The mother is widowed, but I don't remember money being a big issue. She didn't want her son keeping the Braille watch RC gave him because it was expensive, but the kid is pretty young (6-8?), and I'd expect him to break it fairly soon.
The mother is very fearful and overprotects her newly (6 mos) blinded son. The boyfriend expresses frustration about this, as does RC as he gets to know the family. (He met the boy at the school for unsighted children where he did a solo concert.)
Her son wants mom to treat him more normally, and even goes out at night with a similarly-aged girl (her mom is his babysitter tonight, she's asleep) to the venue where RC is performing. When they find he's already gone, they go to his next destination: a nightclub where boyfriend is performing. He's a pianist/composer; mom's a dancer, and had invited RC to come hear him play. RC likes his stuff so much, he hires him as an arranger.
So RC gets more and more attached to the family, and contacts an expert eye surgeon to look at the kid. We end the movie without knowing the final result of the surgery.
I liked the story, but the acting wasn't great. RC is playing a character named Ray Charles, with his skills and songs, but I found it difficult to get involved with the mother & boyfriend. Then again she was over-reacting to everything, including the bf's desire to make them a family now that he had a steady gig. So maybe I just didn't like the people being portrayed, and they did a good job of it.
The 2nd disc was a cd of 5 songs, 4 of which nothing to do with this film. But it's a good, albeit very short, cd.
Fox (and other), dir. Henreid; 7
