Lady Sings the Blues is a movie based on the life of the 1930s Jazz singer, Billie Holiday, and her turbulent childhood, roadblocks to fame, including racism, drug addiction and arrests, and achieving her ultimate goal: to sing at Carnegie Hall. The “glitzy” scene that best encapsulates the main idea of the movie, portrays Billie and her struggles after she is bypassed to sing for a radio commercial selling soap. Faking a smile, tears in her eyes, and quivering voice, Billie sarcastically jokes to Harry, one of the band leaders she toured with around the country and the first person to introduce her to drugs, “Look, you fellows don’t have to explain it. I understand. They’re trying to sell soap, right? Everybody knows we don’t use it. Get a bright complexion…pretty white hands.” She is devastated by this and needs a fix. Lewis McKay, the man who adores Billie and does everything in his power to help her, takes her to his house and she darts for the bathroom for her kit, but Lewis attempts to stop her. Billie is so intent on getting a fix, she throws a metal pot at Lewis, runs into the bathroom and they fight. She finds a straight-edged razor and threatens him with it. Lewis, processing the situation, watches Billie as she sits on the commode, desperately strapping her arm tightly with a tourniquet, preparing to shoot up. Lewis pauses and despairingly walks away. When he returns her head is bobbing, eyes are rolling up in her head, and her body is motionless and limp as if she is a puppet without a puppeteer. +Lady Sings the Blues is a heartbreaking biographical drama starring Diana Ross in which she and her cast show a very strong message: the power of drug addiction and what drugs can do to a person’s life, relationship, and career. *The plot is poignant and memorable, the characters are well-developed and strong-willed, the suspense is tense and emotional, and the choreography is comical and a welcomed relief.
The plot is poignant and memorable. This biographical movie portrays the rise and fall of Billie Holiday. It captures her young, horrifying childhood, her start as a successful singer and its exhausting and demanding touring schedule. The movie exposes the beginning of her drug addiction and her love for drugs over her handsome and loving Lewis, a successful and powerful businessman. Billie is hopelessly in and out of rehab. Due to her arrests and drug possessions, Billie loses her license to sing in New York City clubs. Sadly, her friend, Piano Man, is murdered because of a drug deal gone wrong and this contributes to the major downfall of her life and career. For example, Billie’s agent and Lewis call her in California, excitedly yelling and shrieking over the phone “We got it. We got Carnegie Hall. Billie, did you hear me? We finally got Carnegie Hall.” This is her life’s dream. Billie returns to New York and performs at Carnegie Hall but the New York License Commission denies her of another singing license due to drugs. Billie Holiday dies at 44 years old from drugs.
The characters Billie Holiday and Louis McKay are well-developed and strong-willed. Billie Holiday, played by Diana Ross, is strong-willed when she needs a fix. Lewis McKay, played by Billy Dee Williams, is strong-willed when it comes to his love for Billie. Both fight for what they want. Both characters are well-developed in the movie shown through their fierce dialogue, emotional facial expressions, and intense body language. For example, when Billie needs her fix and fights Lewis for it, she raises a straight-edged razor to him and he solemnly remarks, “You’d kill me for it, wouldn’t you?” Roger Ebert, a famous American film critic, comments in his review (January 1, 1972) confirming Diana’s acting ability as a heroin addict: “The opening scene is one of total and unrelieved anguish; Billie Holiday is locked into prison, destitute and nearly friendless, and desperately needing a fix of heroin.” They are well-developed and fulfill their character roles as two people who absolutely love each other, but one who picks the addiction of drugs over the other. Billie is addicted to opiates who tries to get herself clean with the help of Lewis paying for rehab and promising to marry her if she stays clean. Billie’s addiction is too strong; she never changes. Lewis never changes his love and support for Billie. Diana Ross does an extraordinary job acting as someone addicted, high, withdrawing, and detoxing from heroin.
The suspense is tense and emotional. A Black female singer in the 1930s faced many hardships. For example, while Billie is on tour in the South with The Reg Hanley Band she is excited to see the beautiful trees. Within minutes she is horrified: she witnesses a Black boy hanging from a tree. The lyrics to the song “Strange Fruit” plays in the background: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze…” Another emotional and suspenseful scene is Billie singing “Good Morning Heartache.” The way Billie hopelessly sings this song sounds as though she is singing about her addiction, not a heartbreak: “Stop haunting me now. Can’t shake you, no how. Just leave me alone . . . Might as well get used to you hangin around. Good morning, heartache, sit down.”
The choreography is comical and a welcomed relief. The choreography is a welcomed relief because the movie starts off with Billie in jail for drug possession. While in jail, she flashes back to her difficult childhood when she worked in a brothel cleaning, when she was raped, and when she became a prostitute herself. For example, the Harlem Cotton Club night club audition is hilarious, well done, and allows Billie to accomplish her goal: successfully landing a singing audition for Jerry, the nightclub’s owner. Before her singing audition, she tries out as one of the dancers because she is tired of prostituting herself. Her dancing audition is disastrous. The other dancers are all in rhythm and in synchronized dance steps. Their postures are similar and their techniques are perfected. Billie, on the other hand, prances directly to the middle of the show girls and does her own thing. She twists, she turns, she stomps her feet, and claps her hands all without noticing or caring what the other dancers are doing.
In conclusion, Lady Sings the Blues deals with a broken person who is dependent on drugs to make it through each day. Lewis tries everything to make the relationship work: he pays for her rehab, trusts her to tour again with the band, and supports her passionately. The movie validates how relationships, careers, and lives are damaged when drugs are involved. The plot, characters, suspense, and choreography are a huge reason why this movie is so successful and plays out so well. Since this is based on Billie’s real life, the plot seems so intense that one has to question why would someone with so much talent, so much love and admiration from another, especially a Black woman with so much potential in the 1930s, throw it all away. The characters are champions in their portrayal of Lewis and Billie. The suspense is gripping and mind-blowing that draws the audience in until the very end, where the audience is wide eyed, gapping mouths and looking exhausted and in disbelief. The choreography helps to make it memorable because there is really only one comical scene which lightens up the tension and drama. Diana Ross’s performance in the comical scene is outstanding and extremely funny. Drugs can negatively affect the rich or famous, Black or white, male or female, and young or old.
Allie's Blog 