In Young Man with a Horn (1949), Kirk Douglas impersonated a jazz trumpeter whose running battle against the straitjacket of commercialised music was modelled on the life story of Bix Beiderbecke. When his mentor in jazz, an old-time Black musician, was finally claimed by tuberculosis, he was required to improvise a funeral elegy in appropriate tribute.
The result was unbelievably vulgar. Since the secret was proudly proclaimed at the time that this solo was in fact dubbed by Harry James, the rigidly raucous James trumpet has justly had to shoulder the blame for adding one more to the filmâs many grievous offences against New Orleans.
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Lupin is streaming now on Netflix.
Netflix and Gaumont have scored a hit with a French series inspired by one of the 20th-centuryâs most enduringly popular criminals: Arsène Lupin, a charismatic gentleman burglar created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905.
Maurice Leblanc, creator of Arsène Lupin
Lupin made his bow in stories in the French magazine Je sais tout before Leblanc followed up with 17 novels, more than twice as many novellas, a spin-off novel and several plays. Thatâs before other writers got involved, whether spoofing or paying homage. In the 1970s the writing duo Boileau-Narcejac created five authorised sequels, but because of copyright restrictions most creators have presented their âLupinsâ as descendants or imitators of the original. The many literary iterations of the debonair thief could fill a handsome library in his luxurious Paris flat.