In her forward to the book Baker states: "The inspiration for the writing of this book has been the music, but not the life, of a great musician, Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, who died in the year 1931. The characters and events of the story are entirely fictitious and do not refer to real musicians, living or dead, or to actual happenings". So this made it clear this was jazz related novel not a biopic of Bix.
Nevertheless, when the film was released in 1949 the jazz and the film critics panned it because Harry James didn't sound like Bix - who did? Certainly not Harry James! By the same token, Bix didn't sound like Harry James - who did? Certainly not Bix!
At the time I was more interested in Doris Day, who sings some good numbers, and I probably thought that Beiderbecke, if I thought about him at all, was a former Gruppenführer of the Third Reich awaiting Judgment at Nuremberg.
Nevertheless, the music is fine, Douglas is convincing as a trumpet player with a drink problem and Bacall is outstanding as the neurotic heiress in a relationship with Douglas whose obsession in life is to find the jazz equivalent of The Lost Chord.
The film strays from the book which uses some racist terms that would be unacceptable today but were commonplace terms in the vernacular of the day back then.
Both book and film are worth checking out as long as you're not looking for more than what you get. Lance
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