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  Specs
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • English: DTS 5.1 Surround
  • English: Dolby Digital Stereo
  Subtitles
    English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese
  Extras
  • Teaser trailer
  • 2 Theatrical trailer
  • Photo gallery
  • Music video
  • Music-only track
  • 3 Short film
The World Of Nat King Cole
EMI/EMI . R4 . COLOR . 89 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

The best things come in pairs. So hardly do I pause after reviewing the Warners/Eagle Rock release Nat King Cole - When I Fall in Love, when up comes for review a new documentary from EMI, The World of Nat King Cole.

The two offerings are very different. And they are complementary - if you enjoy one, you'll want both. They hardly overlap at all.

This EMI offering is straight biography, while the Warners disc is centred on Nat's music, with complete performances drawn largely from his epochal 1956 NBC television series -- the first television series American network television allowed a Black performer to host.

EMI gives us a far wider overview of Nat King Cole's entire life and career, starting as a child in Alabama, his upbringing in Chicago, and his later staggeringly successful careers, first as a jazz pianist, and then as an international popular vocal artist of the highest calibre.

This documentary effectively puts his life and career in the context of the deep-seated racism in America. It shows the hurdles he had to overcome to succeed -- the grit, the courage and determination he had to display to win out against huge odds.

We have interviews with leading musicians such as Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder, and with the family members -- wife, brother and daughters -- who also figured prominently in the Warners disc. Also interviewed is the legendary sex-kitten singer Eartha Kitt, who hints very broadly that she knew Nat VERY well indeed. She was another artist who broke the colour-bar of the day. She broke it by simply showing to all that she considered her colour to be her very least important attribute -- like Nat, she was a person first, last and forever.

While this documentary fills us with admiration for Nat the performer and the man, it doesn't try to sanitise his image. He was a family-man for sure, but the documentary shows that in his final couple of years before falling prey to lung-cancer, he had fallen head over heels in love with a very pretty petite blonde bombshell -- breaking the colour barrier in a very special way indeed. He returned to his wife and family only in time to die.

This is the story of Nat King Cole's extraordinary life -- a profile of an unforgettable man whose voice is as potent in its beauty today as it ever was.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

This modern documentary was made either for DVD or for US television -- it's flawless in its anamorphic appearance, with archival and modern material presented to the highest possible standards. We're offered DTS or Dolby Surround or plain Stereo; we hardly need Surround for this material, but I found the Dolby mix the warmest and most satisfying on offer.

The extras do not really add much to the program overall. There are extended interviews with almost a dozen of the people whose memories make up much of the documentary, including Tony Bennett, Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte, and a Photo Gallery entitled 'Nat and Friends', which seems mainly to be Capitol Records publicity stills, showing Nat in company with the likes of Stan Freberg, Gordon MacRae, Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Phil Silvers, Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis.

We're given a modern studio filming of Nat's Cuban song Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (which you may recognise as the title-music for the comedy series Couplings performed by vintage Cuban musicians. In a Radio Jingle presentation, we have Nat's voice doing extended vocal tracks for Rheingold Beer, and we have glimpses of travelogue and family footage in a montage of short clips entitled Nat Behind the Camera.

There are trailers for two movies featuring Nat, China Gate and St Louis Blues, while the final extra, 40 Ways to Describe Nat King Cole, features short clips of most of the documentary's talking-heads trying to sum up Nat in a dozen or so words.

The extras are very dull. The documentary though is hugely rewarding, both as a study of a great performer and as an eye-opening account of the deep schisms in American society in the second half of last century, and its impact on such a major sector of its population.


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  •   And I quote...
    "In the 1950s, there were only two popular vocalists who ruled the world. One was Frank Sinatra, the other was Nat King Cole, the performer who defied America's racist society. This is Nat's unforgettable story."
    - Anthony Clarke
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DVD 655A
    • TV:
          Loewe Profil Plus 3272 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Denon AVR-3801
    • Speakers:
          Neat Acoustics PETITE
    • Centre Speaker:
          Neat Acoustics PETITE
    • Surrounds:
          Celestian (50W)
    • Subwoofer:
          B&W ASW-500
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