Cinema: Jazz & All That Jazz

Paris Blues (United Artists) has something for the tourists: autumn in Paris. It has something for the cats: regressive jazz by Duke Ellington. It has something for the newspaper ads: a hint of interracial romance. It has something for the marquee: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, Louis Armstrong. All it lacks is something to pull these parts into a sensible whole.

Two American girls—one pink (Woodward), one beige (Carroll)—take a two-week holiday in Paris, where they meet two American boys—one pale (Newman), one brown (Poitier)—in an integrated cave where the boys play sliphorn and piano. At first Newman makes...

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