Movie and Television Reviews

At the end of Cadillac Records, Willie Dixon comments that every form of Rock and Roll owes something to Chess Records. This isn't boasting. There's no way, short of saying that Chuck Berry fathered each of the Beatles, to overestimate the label's importance.

The Cliff Notes version is that along with Gospel (Soul) and Country music, Chess' blues and early Rock & Roll is one of the three pillars of modern popular music. It's influence is most noticeable in what's now called "Classic Rock."

People sometimes discuss Chess' influence without appreciating the music itself. Well, it's great. It's because I'm a devotee of Chess' original music and appreciator of its influence, then, that Cadillac Records' overall lack of artistic merit brings me great sadness.

The most frustrating of Cadillac Records' ("Cadillac" instead of "Chess" because of the cars that Chess gives his performers.) shortcomings is its a-historicity. Some examples:

1. Leonard Chess is seen as the sole proprietor of Chess whereas he was in partnership with his brother.

2. Where's Bo Diddley? Chess Records had a huge line up of talent. Cadillac Records makes it seem as though only Muddy Waters, Etta James, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, and Howling Wolf graced Chess' studio.

3. Etta James was already an established star with hit records (Roll With Me Henry, below). Why would she have to audition?

The Definitive Collection

4. Etta James was married to Harvey Fuqua, but in Cadillac Records, she's seen having a (probably fictional) romance with Chess. Where was Fuqua?

5. Chess didn't go from owning a club to founding Chess. He bought the label he worked for, Aristocrat Records.

5. The time line is absolutely screwy. We have Chuck Berry lamenting the cribbing of Sweet Little Sixteen by the Beach Boys in their 1963 song, Surfin' USA, and then going to jail for transporting a minor prostitute, an event which occurred in 1959. To drive home the point that Chess Records is influential, the Rolling Stones appear. But this couldn't have been before James' recording of At Last.

Cadillac Records' drama fails from a lack of focus. In a television series like the Sopranos, one can create elaborate, multi-threaded plots where characters drop in and out. In a two-hour movie, one has to concentrate on developing a few characters and themes. The superior Ray, for example, focuses on Ray Charles' marriage and drug addiction, while brushing up against racism and Gospel-secular friction. Ray pursues those themes to their conclusion.

Ray (Limited 2-Disc Special Edition)

Cadillac Records introduces and then spends a totally inadequate amount of time on the plight of Muddy and Chess' marriages (Was the girl Chess with at the beginning of the movie his eventual wife?), Little Walter's law and drug problems, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf's rivalry, Rock and Roll music evolution, black-white tensions, copyright issues, and racism. The worse offender is the character Etta James, played well, but predictably by the talented Beyonce Knowles: She comes in 3/4 of the way into the movie and ends up dominating the remainder of the picture, much too late in the story to introduce a whole new story arc, even if it only chose between Etta's romance (surely fictional), drug addiction, or musical career .

Cadillac Records thoughtfully or thoughtlessly includes montages of club appearances, hysterical fans, popularity charts, and other music-movie conventions.

Wilie Dixon's narration is effective and the hulking actor who played Howlin' Wolf, Eamonn Walker, is a revelation.

Politics/Message:

Legitimate racism.

It, perhaps unintentionally, reminds us that talent is no guarantor of virtue. Offenses against chastity and the sacrament of marriage abound, of course. Drug use throughout. It's suggested that Leonard Chess defrauded his insurance company by setting fire to his club. Little Walter murders people in cold blood.