Charles
Mingus, Dave Brubeck, John Dankworth and a dozen of their contemporaries play
original music in this cool jazz Othello
set during an after-hours jam session in London.
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Paul
Harris as Aurelius Rex (Othello) in Basil Dearden’s All Night Long (1962).
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Othello
in this story is Aurelius Rex (Paul Harris). Rex is a regal bandleader modelled
after Duke Ellington (the musicians play their own music; Rex sits down to In a Sentimental Mood and Mood Indigo on a piano). Rodney ‘Rod’ Hamilton
(Richard Attenborough as Roderigo), a wealthy jazz enthusiast, throws a
surprise first wedding anniversary party for Rex and his wife Delia Lane (Marti
Stevens as Desdemona) in his spacious warehouse loft.
Delia
was a jazz singer, but she agreed to give up her career when she married the
jealous Rex. American drummer Johnny Cousin (Patrick McGoohan as a tea-smoking
Iago) wants to restart his stalled career by cutting a record with Delia on
vocals. Johnny’s scheme implicates Cass Michaels (Keith Michell as a Cassio), Rex’s
alto sax player, faithful friend and business manager; Rod’s party gives Johnny
the excuse to invite booking agent Lou Berger (Bernard Braden) to hear Delia’s
‘comeback’ song. As Johnny tells Cass: ‘Maybe you want to blow sideman for the
rest of your life while somebody else takes the bows and the loot. I’m 35 years
old and I’m nowhere.’
This
Othello retelling is unique in that nearly everyone at the party is a working
jazz musician. In addition to the Philip Green’s original theme All Night Long, there are new numbers by
Green, Mingus, Brubeck, Dankworth, Tubby Hayes, Kenny Napper and Johnny Scott.
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Richard Attenborough hosts Charles Mingus in All Night Long (1962). |
A
jazz fan’s first treat comes when Rod rushes home to prepare for the party.
Mingus is there by himself noodling on his bass with a pipe in one hand against
the backdrop of a large wall-sized Abstract Expressionist canvas. Before long,
Johnny Scott introduces Scott Free on
flute in a set featuring Mingus, Tubby Hayes on vibes, Allan Ganley on drums
and Colin Purbrook on piano.
There is fun too. Ganley’s drums find Pop Goes the Weasel as a poncy caterer
marches out of the space at the head of four white-jacketed waiters—the last of
which flips off the band with a flourish.
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John
Dankworth and band in Basil Dearden’s All
Night Long (1962).
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Dankworth
and some of his boys show up. ‘Too bad Cleo couldn’t make it,’ Rod says,
referring to Dankworth’s wife, the singer Cleo Laine. And then a young Brubeck
wanders in by himself when the joint starts to jump. Although Brubeck and the
musicians are not always natural actors, they are terrific performers and lose
themselves in their music once they get going.
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Dave
Brubeck and Allan Ganley, with Ted Scaife on camera in All Night Long (1962).
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Brubeck’s
first set is his original It’s a Raggy
Waltz with Napper on bass; Bert Courtley kicks in on trumpet, Scott on alto
sax and Ganley on drums. Cinematographer Ted Scaife is deft at finding ways to
shoot musicians; he shoots this set as though he were a band member playing a
camera.
Rex
plays Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood
on piano with Keith Christie on trombone, and then he solos a cover of Harold
Arlen’s The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea.
He later dedicates Mood Indigo to his
wife Delia, joined by Scott on alto sax, Ganley on drums and Ray Dempsey on
guitar.
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Patrick
McGoohan as a tea-smoking Iago in All
Night Long (1962).
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An
intense Johnny Cousins drum solo gins up the dramatic tension of the ongoing
Othello story in which Delia’s cigarette case of ‘Persian gold with stones on
it’, a present from Rex, sits in for Desdemona’s handkerchief.
Marti
Stevens does an excellent job singing what is referred to as Delia’s standard All Night Long, as well as the ‘new’
piece I Never Knew I Could Love Anybody
Like I’m Loving You (a big band piece by Ray Egan, Roy K. Marsh, Tom Pitts
and Paul Whiteman) with Cass on alto sax and Barry Morgan on bongos.
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Marti
Stevens’s Desdemona to Keith Michell’s Cassio in All Night Long (1962).
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Mingus
and Brubeck play a few bars of Mingus’s Peggy’s
Blue Skylight before the denouement.
All Night Long is included in
the four-DVD Criterion Eclipse collection Basil Dearden’s London Underground
with Sapphire (1959), The League of Gentlemen (1960) and Victim
(1961).
All Night Long 1962 U.K. (91
minutes) The Rank Organisation. Directed by Basil Dearden; screenplay by Nel
King and Peter Achilles; cinematography by Edward Scaife; musical director
Philip Green; editing by John D. Guthridge; produced and designed by Michael
Relph.