Bessie

I thought is was pretty good, but they left out the fact that Bessie died because she was refused treatment a white hospital .

A good number of years in the making, Bessie is an HBO biopic chronicling the life of Bessie Smith, aka The Empress of the Blues. Queen Latifah does a fine job not only depicting Bessie's both irascible and generous personality but sings some of her big hits that add to the overall verisimilitude of the film.

If you're going into this HBO biopic because you love Bessie Smith, you're going to be very pleased. Queen Latifah alters her normal singing style to emulate the Empress of Blues.

An introduction to a splendid career and bitter life. beautiful, seductive, impressing in few scenes.

Bessie Smith had a great voice. She is one of those that was born with it.

Queen Latifah totally captured the soul of blues singer Bessie Smith, in this film biography of the legendary singer.The problem with the picture is the disconnection we see throughout.

A movie about some aspect of Bessie Smith's life is decades overdue, considering the broad cultural shadow she casts. A few episodes of her tumultuous life explored in depth would resonate, but like too many biopics, this one suffers from the creators' attempt to tell the whole story, or most it, and the results are mechanical, predictable and force-fitted into various agendas.

The camera has a love affair with Queen Latifah from beginning to end in this tour de force, a performance that may have been worthy of an Oscar, let alone the Emmy she is destined to receive. The movie was co-executive produced by the late Richard Zanuck, based on a story by the late Oscar winning screenwriter Horton Foote, and their posthumous talent is impressively displayed at every level.

The year was 1972 and the challenge for director Sidney J. Furie was how to translate the biography of Billie Holliday into something that had "bite" for the mainstream.