The Film Detective: The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) - Reviewed

Courtesy of The Film Detective
Clarinetist/saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey and his trombonist brother Tommy Dorsey were fantastic and hugely popular big band jazz musicians from the early 1930s whose reputation for butting heads before spilling out into public physical altercations far exceeded their musical talents.  Though they would part ways in 1935 professionally, the two kept making various film appearances starting in the early 1940s when they joined the MGM moviemaking machine and their competitive and confrontational antics continued.  With their equally brash larger than life personalities clashing with Hollywood executives, the duo’s brief but prolific film careers culminated in what would be their final film appearance onscreen together with the fictionalized big band biopic The Fabulous Dorseys.

 
Directed by industry veteran Alfred E. Green (The Jolson Story) and starring the Dorsey brothers as themselves, The Fabulous Dorseys charts the duo’s upbringing in Pennsylvania to their meteoric rise to superstardom when they begin playing in Jazz bands.  From here the film both showcases their keen musical abilities as well as their propensity for getting into fistfights that threaten to derail their careers.  

Meanwhile childhood friend Janie Howard (singer Janet Blair) joins forces with the Dorseys and forms a romantic bond with a pianist whose own dreams for success is at odds with the Dorseys’ destructive tendencies towards violence.  Soon Janie and her new beau find themselves caught between trying to advance themselves in the business while trying to contain the ongoing messes caused by their musical partners.

 
A fairly lightweight dancing musical revue including tunes such as I’m Getting Sentimental Over You and Tangerine, this independently funded and distributed big band biopic film is interesting for having the real feuding Dorseys onscreen together whose horn locking was as real for them as it was in the movie.  Also presenting a cavalcade of notable jazz musicians including but not limited to Paul Whiteman and Helen O’Connell, the film is at once a That’s Entertainment! kind of showcase of song and dance numbers while also feeding into the entertainment gossip lore generated by the fighting Dorseys who aren’t the greatest actors but are immensely talented musical performers nevertheless.
 
For decades the film languished in less than stellar public domain bargain bin tapes and DVDs in unwatchable transfers before being rescued in 2021 by The Film Detective home video group.  Given a new 4K transfer from surviving film elements, the film isn’t necessarily a hidden gem waiting to be rediscovered but as such it’s a nice bit of old school big band jazz comfort food and a snapshot of a bygone era.  


Compared to some of the others that have come and gone in its day, The Fabulous Dorseys (or The Fighting Dorseys in some territories) doesn’t do a whole lot we haven’t seen before but it was indeed a novel idea to cast the still-fighting Dorseys together onscreen as themselves.  Plus you get to hear the lovely Janet Blair sing when she isn’t breaking up her embittered musical partners from engaging in yet another heated battle.  Nothing amazing but undeniably fun at times!

--Andrew Kotwicki