Martial Swing

Nobody would mistake Glenn Miller for the hipster of the century, but he did have a toehold in the best of swing (he recorded with Coleman Hawkins in 1929). In the stirring melodramatic 1954 bio-pic “The Glenn Miller Story,” the director Anthony Mann avidly depicts the young jazz musician’s search for a personal sound, together with the intimate romanticism behind his poignantly sentimental style (helped along by the tender chemistry between James Stewart, as Miller, and June Allyson, as the musician’s wife). The clip below highlights the higher notions behind Mann’s filmic devotion to Miller’s artistry.