Ghost is an ideological musician who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. However, when he meets and falls in love with beautiful singer Jess Polansk... Read allGhost is an ideological musician who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. However, when he meets and falls in love with beautiful singer Jess Polanski, she comes between him and his band members, and he leaves his dreams behind in search o... Read allGhost is an ideological musician who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. However, when he meets and falls in love with beautiful singer Jess Polanski, she comes between him and his band members, and he leaves his dreams behind in search of fame.
- Tommy Sheehan
- (as Vincent Edwards)
- Skipper Camez
- (as J. Alan Hopkins)
- Pete
- (as Richard O. Chambers)
- Billie Grey
- (uncredited)
- Umpire
- (uncredited)
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCassavetes hated this film. He had this to say after its release: "I didn't know anything about directing at a major studio, so Too Late Blues never had a chance. I should have made the film my own way - in New York instead of California, and not on an impossibly tight schedule, working with people who don't like me, didn't trust me and didn't care about the film. Too Late Blues was shot in exactly 6 weeks....but I couldn't because I had to follow the shooting schedule. So the film you saw is incomplete and a wreck."
- Quotes
John 'Ghost' Wakefield: Whoever told you that's what you had to do in order to reach somebody?
Jess Polanski: Are you kidding? Just where do I stand without my body, huh? Tell me that!
- ConnectionsFeatured in TCM Guest Programmer: Michael Feinstein (2015)
And this was Cassavetes himself at this point in his life. He had played a jazz piano playing detective on TV a few years prior. He had made Shadows in a close group of friends, playing music he wanted to. It had taken him three years to finish, two shoots and no prospects were forthcoming. He had even managed to alienate his group over money when the first meager profits came in. So he wound up lobbying hard for a low budget job in Hollywood which he got to make this.
Okay so we now know it as a mere footnote in the career of this man, but it's not bad at all; elicits strong performances, and has a voice that speaks about pressing needs, youth with no prospects. More interesting is how Cassavetes would expand in later years.
The difference with Shadows is not in what it has to say, nor in the type of life, nor how it portrays sex and relationships. We see unsure youth in both. This was scripted, but so was Shadows. No, it's that he has been taken in from outside and that intangible studio quality zaps the whole thing of breath. He wanted real locations in New york, got studio space on a stage. He wanted actual jazz for the band, had to settle for watered down Hollywood score jazz by whoever happened to be on the payroll.
Ironic. The film was made at all and Cassavetes hired to do it, because a producer wanted to see if he could cash in on the "art film" then taking flight, exemplified in Shadows, which no studio would deign to pick up. He knew close to nothing about making films of course, so if he is stifled, it's not in the way of Welles who had delicately conceived work botched after the fact. He simply doesn't have room to breathe shape in the discovery.
That's all fine. He would take flight in a few years, nothing went to waste.
A new expression was bubbling up around the country but fuddy daddies in control of industries still clung tenaciously to their outmoded ways. In music this is Aretha Franklin's Columbia records from the same period: powerful young voice stifled by cocktail arrangements. It would take the ugliest in a nation, rampant racism and war, for all these mores to be rolled back and dismantled, and that for a few brief years. Cassavetes would resurface during that time. What will it take now? Do we even have a New Thing?
- chaos-rampant
- Dec 11, 2015
- How long is Too Late Blues?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $375,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 43 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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