DVD. Run time: 82 mins. Language: English. Louis Prima was the slickest and wildest of America's jazz musician hep-cats. His famously crazed performances were extremely popular during his heyday in the 1950s, but his campy demeanor garnered little respect from highbrow critics who viewed him as anything but a serious musician. Veteran documentary filmmaker Don McGlynn sets out to change that perception. Opening with Prima's childhood in the French Quarter in New Orleans, the film traces his rise to fame in New York and later in Hollywood during the '30s. In the '40s, he entered the big band fray and produced a standard of the genre in "Sing! Sing! Sing!" In the following decade, he regained the mantle of hipness by appearing in scaled-down musical arrangements accompanied by the glitz of Vegas. Louis Prima: The Wildest! features extended concert footage and interviews with two of his five ex-wives. Jonathan Crow, Rovi
Before Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett or Engelbert Humperdinck ever played the stages of Vegas, there was Louis Prima. One of America's most hypnotic and original performers, Prima's career spanned several decades and turned out hits like "That Old Black Magic", "Sing, Sing, Sing", "Just a Gigolo", "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Jump, Jive an' Wail". In Disney's animated classic "The Jungle Book", Prima created the "hep" voice of King Louie the orangutan. This film profiles the magnetic Louis Prima in a nostalgic historical journey through the music scenes of a racy New Orleans, the swinging jazz culture of uptown New York and Las Vegas's "formative" years. As a solo act or with his wife, acclaimed singer Keely Smith, Louis Prima was and will forever be the "wildest" man in show business.
Never-Before-Released Interviews, Full-Length Performance Videos of "Basin Street Blues", "Oh Babe", and "Waitin' on the Robert E. Lee", Bonus Songs (audio only): "Sing, Sing, Sing", "Robin Hood" and "Please No Squeeza Da Banana".
