Earlier this year, the film Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody showed us exactly how not to do the music in a biopic. Assuming nobody could emulate Whitney’s voice (well, you aren’t wrong there), the producers chose not to try; every time Naomi Ackie “sang” –whether in rehearsal or on stage—the film played studio Whitney. Ironically, the “authenticity” the film tried to re-create was completely undermined by the substitution. There was no process, nor accounting for mood or interpretation of song; all we heard was the finished product. How shall I put this? It was like going to a bakery to get a fresh loaf of sourdough only to be handed a plastic bag with sliced bread in it.
It took just a few months for Spinning Gold to critique the Whitney film like my words never could. In an otherwise throwaway scene, our hero, record producer Neil Bogart (Jeremy Jordan) is going over a possible new hit for Gladys Knight (Ledesi). The song’s working title: “Midnight Plane to Houston.” We all know what the real title is, of course. What was the process getting from A to B? The thing is, I want to see the sausage being made. I want to see Gladys Knight start singing and then interrupt herself with confusion because “[her] people are from Georgia.” It makes everything about the scene work better than if the producers had decided instead at that moment to spin the Pips greatest hits album and pretended there was a straight line there.
Neil Bogart (born Neil Scott Bogatz) had as many roles in his life as names. Among the former were shyster, conman, one-hit wonder, soft-porn star, but he had a true gift for talent discovery. Jeremy Jordan plays him as a narcissist and eternal optimist. He’s one of these people who believes that if you lose, you just haven’t bet enough. Spinning Gold is the story of how Bogart invented Casablanca Records specifically to thumb his nose at Warner Bros. Bogart discovered KISS, Donna Summer (Tayla Parx), and the Village People, any of whom would have made their owner a multi-millionaire many times over in 1977. The problem is Neil had them in 1975.
The film opens with Neil talking to the audience, “every single bit of the film is true, even the parts that aren’t.” That’s kinda how Spinning Gold plays; we have to guess the parts that are embellished, but we do want to know how this guy goes from under water to the tune of $5M (in 1970s money – that he owes TO THE MOB!) to turning Casablanca Records into the film we know it is. As a kid, I used to sneak down to my brother’s room and check out his vinyl collection;
they were Casablanca Records. Seriously. All of them. How could this company have almost failed to be?
It’s impossible to say who the real Bogart is. I mean, his name alone was stolen from Bogey –hence the “Casablanca” name. And he had to convince everybody around him that his vision was true while being constantly in debt. Ugly debt. How long would you wait for somebody with a vision? Somebody who is constantly bleeding money? Somebody you neither like nor respect? The film argues that the KISS ballad “Beth” was a title revision to taunt Bogart’s infidelity. If true, that’s so messed up.
This is the film that’s supposed to make Jeremy Jordan a film star; this is his version of Elvis. It won’t. Jordan comes off as far too shallow, far too much like a used car salesman to pull off that kind of star-making vehicle. However, he is probably right (or right-enough) for this material. The story is a good one; the vision is a good one. The film is written and directed by Neil Bogart’s son, Timothy Scott Bogart. Well don’t that beat all? This is clearly what he wanted to say about his dad, and it wasn’t often unflattering. Good for you, kid. And one way or another, I am going to like Spinning Gold almost simply because it is the critique of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody that I couldn’t quite put to words.
There once was a producer named Neil
Who had a new label to reveal
He predicted the honey
But his gang had no money
Would success be fluid or would it congeal?
Rated R, 137 Minutes
Director: Timothy Scott Bogart
Writer: Timothy Scott Bogart
Genre: What may or may not have happened IRL
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Employees of Casablanca Records
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The creditors they showed up
