Movie A.K.A. DOC POMUS, Directed by Peter Miller; Conceived by Sharyn Felder (Doc's daughter); and Film Editor Amy Linton.
This past weekend we went to see the movie A.K.A. DOC POMUS
at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. We knew of Doc Pomus but mostly knew of his
music. I said "some" of his
music. What we knew was only the tip of
the iceberg. The award winning film
editor, Amy Linton, is the daughter of our friend Ruth. We wanted to see her work on the big
screen. She was also the film
editor for JEWS IN BASEBALL and the
movie about Johnny Mercer's life.
We arrived at the
movie theater to get a good seat. The
trouble with that was a lot of other people arrived early also to get a good
seat. There were a lot of V.I.P guests
who did not have to arrive early, they had their own line which went
first. Curses! Foiled again!
That was fine because we got to chat with two young ladies that loved to
travel and go to film festivals like this.
One of the young ladies leaned over and
whispered, "I'm not Jewish."
I looked around to make sure no one was listening and in a
low voice said, "Neither are we."
Then I thought of something terribly negative and
scary: What if the wrong anti-Semitic nut read about the Jewish Film Festival all crammed in one theater and wanted
to exercise his 2nd Amendment right? I
decided to keep that fearful thought to myself; it might be like hollering
"FIRE! in a crowded theater, which it was.
And yes, the theater was crowded.
Doc Pomus's real name was Jerome S. Feder. He was an overweight Jewish kid living in one of the boroughs of New York City when he caught polio. Ironically he caught the polio disease at a
youth camp that was set up to keep kids from getting polio. His parents sent him there to safeguard him
and he caught it there. Go figure.
The rest of his life he would be physically crippled. It was interesting how things come to
be. As far as his peers go, his disease
put him on the outside looking in. He
might have never developed his innter musical talent if he was out romping with
his friends.
As a teenager he started listening to rhythm and blues
studying black radio stations that was their style and teaching himself their
music. He became as good as they were.
At age 17, he even conned himself a gig playing and singing
the blues at a club. He gave up his
singing career when he realized no record company would back him because he was
crippled and Jewish singing the blues. That
reminded me of Shel Silverstine's about what kind of folk music could you sing
if you are young, white, and Jewish and nothing to protest.
Instead Doc Pomus became a song writer. A long list of famous entertainers made his
songs on the top 40 list: Elvis Presley,
Ray Charles, Andy Williams,, The Temptations, Dion, and many more. The hits just kept coming, or at least just
kept being created by Doc.
One of his songs that stand out to me, and apparently other
people, is "Save The Last Dance For Me" song. When he married a lot of entertainers
attended the reception and there were a lot of dancing. But the two honorees could not dance because,
of course, the groom depended on crutches.
Doc insisted that his bride dance with the guest; thus a song was born.
I think many of his songs were drawn from his experiences,
or the lack of, such as "Teenager in Love".
Doc songs laced the entire movie as Amy LInton perfected the
short black and white movies, photographs, and music sequence.
As Doc Pomus got older and preferred living in hotels, he
would hold "court" in the lobby with songwriters, signers, con-men,
prostitutes, dopers, and whomever care
to join the group in the late night and wee morning hours. He had free and personal advice for everybody.
Doc Pomus was greatly admired. I don't want to tell everything about the movie. This is why there are theater seats.
