Gerry Mulligan Movies

This 1981 concert finds jazz legend Gerry Mulligan performing selections from throughout his decades long career that included collaborations with Miles Davis and Chet Baker. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

In this screen adaptation of the award-winning play by Herb Gardner (who also directed the film), Nat Moyer (Walter Matthau) and Midge Carter (Ossie Davis) are two elderly men who sit on the same park bench each afternoon and have developed a relationship based on playful verbal sparring. Nat is an eccentric Jewish leftist who uses a dizzying variety of voices and assumed personalities to get his way, while Midge is the African-American superintendent of an apartment building who is afraid that he's going to be put out to pasture, as he's about to turn 80. Nat tries to encourage Midge to join him in his good-natured con games (which are performed for good causes and not for profit), but Midge remains wary. While Midge sweats out a possible retirement, Nat is trying to deal with his daughter Clara (Amy Irving), who wants to put him in a nursing home. Meanwhile, a drug dealer called The Cowboy (Craig T. Nelson) has claimed the park as his own territory, and Nat, impersonating a Mafia don, tries to run him out, while he befriends Laurie (Martha Plimpton), a young woman hooked on dope. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Dizzy Gillespie was one of the great trail-blazing artists of jazz -- clearing the way for the sonic innovations of be-bop, Latin, and progressive jazz, and playing his fine, distinctive trumpet alongside some of the music's most enduring talents. Dizzy's Dream Band records a 1982 date at New York's Lincoln Center in which Dizzy performed with an impressive collection of fellow jazz legends and gifted young turks, including Gerry Mulligan, Max Roach, Milt Jackson, Grady Tate, Curtis Fuller, and Jon Faddis. Selections include "A Night in Tunisia," "Groovin' High," "Manteca," and "Salt Peanuts." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This delightful performance features contemporary jazz in an entertaining manner. ~ Rovi

This musical tribute to the "Father of Bebop" also includes 20 noted jazz musicians. Dizzy Gillespie is the star of the day. ~ Rovi

After many years of managing a trucking concern for his lover Dominique (Marie Dubois), Savin (Yves Montand) is planning to leave her for the girl who is bearing his child. Hysterical, Dominique threatens suicide then goes to a meeting between Savin and the girl and tries everything she can think of to get them to break up, from bribery to abuse. Frustrated by her failure to budge the two, she climbs onto a parapet overlooking a cliff, and falls to her death. Though they did not have a hand in her fall, Savin insists that they lie about the encounter. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Three friends play a game of musical chairs with their relationships in this quirky comedy based on the hit play by Murray Schisgal. Harry Berlin (Jack Lemmon) is a deeply depressed man who is convinced his life is going nowhere -- so much so that he has decided to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. Just before he makes his big leap, Harry is interrupted by Milt Manville (Peter Falk), an old friend in high school who has struck it rich as a combination stock broker and salvage dealer. Milt is not-very-happily married to wildly neurotic Ellen (Elaine May), and is having an affair on the side with Linda (Nina Wayne), a buxom gym teacher. Milt fixes Harry up with Ellen, hoping they'll hit it off and Ellen will leave him so he can marry Linda. The ruse works, in part -- Harry and Ellen decide to tie the knot, but in the divorce settlement Ellen gets all the money, and Milt decides marriage to Linda is not all he imagined. Harry and Ellen's happiness proves to be short lived, and she begins to wonder if its too late to give Milt another chance. Jazz great Gerry Mulligan composed the film's musical score; keep an eye peeled for a bit part by a young Harrison Ford. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Based rather loosely on a novel by Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans concerns a writer (played by George Peppard) who moves to San Francisco and falls in with a crowd of beatniks after falling in love with a French girl (Leslie Caron). The woman was black, not French, in Kerouac's novel, only the most obvious of the many areas in which this strays from the source material. Jazz great Gerry Mulligan has a small role as a saxophone-playing priest; jazz fans will also want to watch for cameos by Art Pepper, Shelly Manne, and Art Farmer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Judy Holliday re-creates her Broadway role of flibbertigibbet telephone operator Ella Peterson in Bells are Ringing. Ella works for Susanswerphone, a hole-in-the-wall answering service run by her cousin Sue (Jean Stapleton). Our girl Ella can't help but become involved in the lives of her customers, which brings her to the attention of a dimwitted police detective, Barnes (Dort Clark), who suspects that Susanswerphone is a front for a house of ill repute. The cop is so obtuse that he never notices the story's genuine criminal, a flamboyant German bookie (Eddie Foy Jr.) who poses as a record executive and uses the names of composers as code for the various racetracks around the country. To avoid Barnes' wiretapping, Ella goes around New York in person to minister to the needs of her clients--most notably playwright Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), who is in danger of becoming an alcoholic if he can't come up with a good idea for a play. Assuming a false identity, Ella prattles on about some of her other clients, notably a dentist (Bernie West) who composes pop songs on his air hose. Moss is inspired by Ella, and eventually falls in love with her. Because she will not reveal who she really is to Jeffrey, Ella decides that her relationship is founded on lies, and walks out of his life. But Moss, together with the other Susanswerphone customers who have been "rescued" by Ella, show up at Ella's doorstep for a happy ending. Bells are Ringing is not an example of MGM's Arthur Freed unit at its best, but Judy Holliday is luminescent in this, her last screen role (incidentally, Holliday's "blind date" in one scene is played by her then boyfriend, jazz musician Gerry Mulligan). The film's songs, by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne, include the hit numbers "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The best-remembered episode of the shortlived CBS public-affairs series Seven Lively Arts, this program offers a copacetic combination of jazz forms, including traditional, modern, progressive, and blues. Among those appearing are solo guitarist Big Bill Broonzy; the Red Allen group, with Allen and Rex Stewart on trumpet, Pee Wee Russell on clarinet, Vic Dickenson on trombone, Nat Pierce on piano, Danny Barker on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass and Jimmy Crawford on drums; the Count Basie group, featuring vocalist Jimmy Rushing, trumpeter Emmett Berry, tenor sax Coleman Hawkins) alto sax Earl Warren, trombonist Vic Dickenson, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Walter Page and drummer Bo Jones; and the Jimmy Giuffre trio (Giuffre on clarinet, tenor and baritone sax, Jim Hall on guitar and Ralph Pena. The highlight of the proceedings is a rare TV performance by the exquisite blues singer Billie Holliday, backed up by trumpeter Roy Eldridge, tenor sax Ben Webster, baritone sax Gerry Mulligan, trombonist Benny Morton and pianist Mal Waldron. Most of the existing film clips of Billie Holiday have in fact been gleaned from the kinescope version of "The Sound of Jazz", which originally aired live. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi