Lackawanna Blues
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Jimmy Smits, Macy Gray, Marcus Carl Franklin, S. Epatha Merkerson, Terrence Dashon Howard Director: George C. Wolfe Brand: HBO HOME VIDEO DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Picture Format: Unknown Running Time: 95 minutes DVD Release Date: 2005-08-23 Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Model: 92749 Studio: Hbo Home Video Product features:
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Movie Reviews of Lackawanna Blues
Movie Review: Where's Bethlehem?
Summary: 2 Stars
I have a problem with "Lackawanna Blues". As a work of fiction, I'm sure it would stand-up against many current films, but as a biography, it left much to be desired. I feel capable of saying this because as someone from the local area, I readily see the flaws in the film. No matter how well one finds the acting, the depiction of the town is flawed. No one who lived in the Western New York area during the fifties would not have been affected by Lackawanna and the mighty Bethlehem Steel Company. The light from the mill illuminated the skies of the town and all the towns within a fifty mile radius. How could one make a film situated in that town and never mention the mill? I dare say that people who came to the boarding house were looking for work and I think that it would be inconceivable that not one tried to get on at the mill. It was the center of the town with over 20,000 workers.
My second criticism is that the film appears at if it's set in the 1930s not the 1950s or 1960s. During those years the major club scene in Buffalo had mainstream entertainment. Miles, Dizzy, Cannonball, Jamal, Silver, the Messengers, the MJQ and so many more played the jazz clubs. The blues clubs presented the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mabel, Della Reese, and Etta James. The concert stage presented Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson, and Carmen McCray or featured Sammy Davis Junior. People from Lackawanna, Niagara Falls and Toronto came to Buffalo for their entertainment. I don't know of one club in Lackawanna that existed outside the realm of a neighborhood bar.
This film must be about the have-nots that lived on the fringes of a prospering black community. There is a sadness about films such as this. Because to look back to my youth and see the distortions of what I lived pains me. The brave men were men like my father who worked that mill and died some forty years later from time-bomb lung cancer, not the ones who wasted and distorted their lives drinking and acting silly. If Lackawanna represented anything, it should be a tribute to all the men of various hues and complections who gave of their lives.
Finally, I find it odd that the child-the film's author--that was born in the house was not taken to the hospital. I have a sister who was born in1937 in Our Lady of Victory hospital, the major hospital in Lackawanna. One of the positive attributes of the state of New York is that it instituted various health laws during the early and mid 20th century long before the other forty-eight states. I find it hard to believe that this newborn baby was not taken to the hospital. So I gather from that scene that poverty was not just a financial drawback but there was cultural poverty. Yet I sense that throughout the film, the "whoa is me" syndrome came to dominate the author's mind. Let me say that I cannot recommend this films as a true depiction of a time and a place that I know so well. I can only say that if you do view it simply regard it as a mere caricature of the times that only exist in the mind of the author/playwright who penned this piece.