Lady Sings the Blues

Furie does a generally good job, and it was cheering to see some of the old-fashioned techniques like railroad wheels, theater marquees and newspaper clippings used to show passage of time and space. They are corny, but they are effective.

The onetime lead vocalist of the Supremes [Ross] shows an amazing range as an actress, triumphing astonishingly in a movie which is nothing to brag about otherwise.

As a movie, it is a good debut for Diana Ross, though probably an inadequately slick testimonial to the tragic life of Billie Holiday.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Billie, or with jazz, or any other kind of music, or the risks of an artist, or American life, or black life, or narcotics, or the narcotics laws, or clubs, or managers, or policemen, or despair, or love.