272. Road to Nashville

272. Road to Nashville (1967)
Director: Will Zens
From: Cult Cinema

A film featuring various country music stars of the time performing their hits.

I have little to add beyond the capsule description there. The movie is 110 minutes of country stars singing their hits broken up by a frame narrative about a producer, "Feetlebaum," looking for country acts to be in his movie. The running gag is no one signs. His failure to get contracts as the start of shooting approaches is the only source of drama, but it’s resolved off-screen without explanation. Essentially, Road to Nashville is a fictional film about the making of… Road to Nashville. It’s a little strange.

I put “Feetlebaum” in quoatation marks because the IMDB page for the actor, Doodles Weaver, notes that he had a similar character on the Spike Jones Radio Show who was constantly making spoonerisms called “Feitlebaum.” It’s basically the same shtick here. Sometimes it’s clever, like his rapid mistaken lyrics “Home on the Range,” but it generally just adds to the curiosity of the film.

To be fair, the music is good, and I say that as someone who doesn’t like country. The performers and songs had far more variety than I thought there was in country and the “performances” were solid. I have to use quotation marks there because the singers are just lip syncing to their records. Sometimes this can be hilariously obvious like when a man alone on stage with his guitar somehow has violins and piano backing him up. Even with that, I dug the music. I was also reminded of just how good Johnny Cash and the Carter Family were. Both perform in the movie and, wow, just head and shoulders above everyone else.

The film operates as a variety show without much variety, but why? We already had musician-fronted television shows at the time. In fact, several of the spaces where Feetlebaum watches performances is people filming their shows. So why do we have a movie that’s essentially a two-hour version of The Grand Ole Opry, but less? Why have a movie of what people already have access to in their homes?

So I’ll admit to being perplexed by this film after watching, which is a better space than I expected to be. I didn’t want to watch it at all. As I said above, I’m not a country fan, plus it’s from the director of Hell on Wheels, a film I hadn’t enjoyed. So an hour and fifty minutes of country performances from a non-director sounded more like a chore than a choice. As I said, though, the music’s solid. On that level, it’s a recommend, but I recommend just having it on in the background. You might expand your musical palate while also hearing some performances by people who are legends of the genre. You won’t miss anything by just listening to it, though, because there’s nothing visual happening at all.