The problem with Lady Sings the Blues is the director and the producer allowed Diana Ross and Richard Pryor, and others, to improvise. To the people doing the improvising it was wonderful fun but it is NOT interesting, it is not entertaining. It is TEDIOUS! It is sloppy. All I could think of was "let's move on!". I wanted to fast forward through some of it. Also, some of the sets have a very cheap look to them. The costumes were Bob Mackie? Okay, where was the creativity? The glamour? They all had this slightly cheap look to them and they were not showcased well at all. Diana Ross came off as an introverted, mousy, whiny little girl with no spine. This was her first role and it shows! No one was there to guide her and offer any ideas. They just let her go because to them it was wonderful. It's not! An annoying, tedious, poorly done film with poor dialog, poor acting and trite ideas.

Before watching this I knew that it wouldn't be factually correct. I knew that Diana Ross would sing in her own style without trying to imitate the real Billie Holiday. And I knew that this film was hated & protested by Billie's real life associates and family. I watched it anyway expecting to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed Amadeus even though it stepped all over the real Mozart. I mean, c'mon people, if we want history we should go to a library, not a movie theatre.But with all that said I was still horribly put off by the lack of continuity with the spirit of Billie's life. For one thing, Diana's portrayal made Billie look like a blabbering halfwit. Even in the scenes where she's supposed to be stone cold sober she acts like a flake. If you've ever seen footage of the real Billie, you know that the real Lady was a tough, sharp, smart human being. You don't survive on the streets of New York by being an idiot the way she's shown to be in the film.Next, the performances were shown totally out of context. For example, the song "My Man" is a chilling song about spousal abuse, but in the movie they gloss it up to be a feel-good homage to her guardian angel of a husband Louis McKay. In real life, Louis was as abusive as all of her husbands (hence the song "My Man"). This is just one example of the many incorrect interpretations this movie presents of Billie's music and her life.OK, but like I said in my 1st paragraph, I can allow the director some poetic license if the movie is worthwhile. Unfortunately this movie didn't deliver. Instead of focusing on the true hardships and trials that plagued Ms. Holiday, we get a whole bunch of clichés about drug use, trying to make it in the business, and how you're supposed to be good to your friends. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be about Billie Holiday or if it was just an ABC afterschool special with clever packaging.The acting was good (if you choose to accept the idea of Billie Holiday being a weak minded flake), and there were several dramatic moments that were well staged. But here's my biggest gripe: the musical score KILLED this movie! It's supposed to be a 1940s jazz biopic, so why are we getting 70s "star search" orchestrations? You know, like the cheezy swelling violins and pseudo-disco drums when Ed McMahon reads the winner of the competition. Talk about an anachronism, to say nothing of the way it cheapens some otherwise powerful moments.Lastly, I have to say that fans of Billie's music will be pretty annoyed at Diana Ross's versions. They are two totally different singers. Billie sang in a lower register (except when hitting those high notes which she always did clean & clear WITHOUT vibrato) whereas Diana prefers theatrics in the upper register and doesn't go very low at all. This is really a movie for Diana Ross fans or for casual jazz listeners who have never heard of Billie Holiday. Like another reviewer suggested, if you're truly interested in Billie, you should buy some of her records or try to find some old films of her performances. Her music is the best biography you'll ever get.

Diana Ross is quite superb as jazz singer Billie Holiday, but even so this clichéd bio-drama of the drug-addicted torch diva from the 1930s is hardly convincing. After an enjoyably overwrought prologue (with Holiday brutally incarcerated like a gangster out of a Jimmy Cagney flick), the movie sputters along familiar territory, and the burnished, brackish look of the picture--probably meant for prestige--is a visual downer. The tone wavers at times (a comedic sequence with Scatman Crothers is either a distraction or a relief), and the film's flashback structure is a cheap gimmick (you know you're in for it when the filmmakers start super-imposing headlines across the screen--it's movie shorthand for "we're running out of time"). Ross is a spectacular drawing card, but this vehicle for her debuting acting talents leaves much to be desired. **1/2 from ****

Billie Holliday made some lovely records with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra in the 1930s.She made some good records for jazz impresario Norman Granz towards the end of her career,their merit largely due to her accompanying musicians as her voice was shot to pieces by then.What happened in between is the area covered by Sidney Furie's "Lady sings the blues"which uses the title if not much else of her 1958 ghosted autobiography.Like fellow 50s icons James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,Miss Holliday has achieved a post mortem fame far exceeding that she enjoyed whilst she was alive.She is repeatedly presented as a proto-lesbian,proto-bisexual,proto-feminist,proto-strong black woman or whatever label people who think it empowers them to attribute their beliefs to a dead person who is consequently unable to refute them choose to stick on her. My interest in Miss Holliday is strictly musical.In my opinion she was a considerable artist despite her lifestyle,not because of it. She clearly had some unsuitable male friends,but she wasn't a "victim". If she enjoyed the company of people in "The Life",well,she was all grown up,it was her business and her decision. Playing Miss Holliday in the film,Miss Diana Ross does not try to imitate her,nor does she resemble her in any way.She sings songs associated with her quite competently,and performs rather than acts,as top class singers(Frank Sinatra,Peggy Lee)tended to do.She is clearly a charismatic performer,and that shows on the screen.Unfortunately she does not share Miss Holliday's talent for turning dross into gold,for dross is what "Lady sings the blues" quite evidently is. Sensationalist and exploitative,it concentrates on the subject's sex life and drug addiction,a particularly unpleasant shot of Miss Ross sprawled unconscious over the toilet is my defining image of the film. Clearly Mr Furie was aiming high. If you want to get a more realistic view of Miss Holliday's life read "Wishing on the Moon" by Donald Clarke.Her early recordings are available (now out of copyright) on a multitude of labels,generally the only difference being the packaging.Listen to the freshness and innocence of "I wished on the moon" and forget that this terrible film was ever made.