A Man Called Adam

A Man Called Adam (1966)

And Adam was a swinger with a punch, a demon with a woman, living the hip life to the hilt!

A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life.

Date of release
1966-03-16
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (17)
Runtime
1h 39m
Genres
Music, Drama
Director
Leo Penn

Casting

Interesting facts

A Man Called Adam is a 1966 American drama musical film directed by Leo Penn and starring Sammy Davis Jr. It tells the story of a self-destructive jazz musician, played by Davis, and his tumultuous relationships with the people in his life.

Production

A Man Called Adam was initially a Nat King Cole project. Following Cole's death, the rights reverted to Ike Jones, who had produced shows for Cole. Jones brought the project to producer Joseph E. Levine as the first of a proposed series of films. Jones became the first African American to produce a major American film.

The film was based on a composite of jazz musicians, including Miles Davis. It features several musical numbers, including Louis Armstrong performing "Back O' Town Blues" and two songs composed for the film by Benny Carter: Mel Tormé on "All That Jazz" and Sammy Davis Jr. with "Whisper to One". The film's trumpet performances by the Adam Johnson character were dubbed for Davis by Nat Adderley.

Johnny Brown, who later became better known as a comic actor on the television series Laugh-In and Good Times, plays the role of the blind pianist in Adam's jazz quintet. Brown's future Good Times co-star Ja'Net DuBois also appears in the film as a girlfriend of Adam.

In advance of the film's release, Signet Books published a novelization of the script written by the film's screenwriters, Lester and Tina Pine.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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