Anti-Semitism, race relations, coming of age, and fathers and sons: in Baltimore from fall, 1954, to fall, 1955. Racial integration comes to the high school, TV is killing burlesque, and rock and roll is pushing the Four Lads off the Hit Parade. Ben, a high school senior, and his older brother Van are exploring "the other": in Ben's case, it's friendship with Sylvia, a Black student; with Van, it's a party in the WASP part of town and falling for a debutante, Dubbie. Sylvia gives Ben tickets to a James Brown concert; Dubbie invites Van to a motel: new worlds open. Meanwhile, their dad Nate, who runs a numbers game, loses big to a small-time pusher, Little Melvin; a partnership ensues.
Writer/Director: Barry Levinson
Stars: Adrien Brody, Bebe Neuwirth, Joe Mantegna, Ben Foster.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165859/
disc just arrived
4th Baltimore film from Levinson.
I cannot fathom the Music tag; no one writes/performs/aspires to music in any form. 4 characters attend a James Brown performance, but nothing in the plot relates to music other than a white character discovering black music. Maybe the contributor thought running a burlesque house was a music career. I'm gonna classify it as non-musical for my records, but not fight it on IMDb.
The black female character is the daughter of a physician, very uppermiddleclass. The sons of the burlesque&numbers proprietor (JM) will be the first generation of the family to go to college.
Best moment in the film: when the black drug dealer decides to take the son (BF) hostage, the physician's daughter refuses to leave him; they were on a semi-date (each took a friend to the James Brown concert to meet there; her father doesn't want her seeing a white boy). This moment was doubled down when the dealer demands the son grab her breast.
In the featurette, BL confirms the sign at the swimming pool "no Jews, no dogs, no colored people" was factual. This film has several incidents of American antisemitism.
Although this is a topic of interest to me, the film makes me shrug. The extra feature of interviews with cast and director is brief and unsatisfying.
Rated 7.1 (6,083)
distr. Warner, dir. Levinson; 6
