King of Jazz

John Murray Anderson's 1930 film is a large-scale revue built around Paul Whiteman's orchestra. There is no story; musical numbers, sketches and staged tableaux arrive in turn. Its most cited section stages George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as a visual spectacle. The production's real value is technical: an early and ambitious use of two-colour Technicolor and enormous sets built in the first years of sound cinema. Its title is an uncomfortable claim today, a naming that ignores the Black origins of jazz, made sharper by the absence of Black musicians throughout the film. It failed commercially and left the studio in difficulty. Who it's for: viewers interested in early sound cinema and the history of colour technique. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative, or troubled by the racial exclusions of the period.