Bobby Darin - Beyond the Song

At sixty-five minutes or so, this is a very generous documentary about the great Bobby Darin, the highlights being several extended clips of Bobby performing on various TV programs of the day, including his own variety show. I would have liked the voiceover narrator to be a little more subtle and introspective, instead of using a booming radio announcer-style voice, but this is a quibble. This DVD offers many little-seen clips of Bobby performing, a handful of interesting interviews, and overall a very good overview of Bobby's entire musical and film career. And a brief aside for a moment: for those who think that Kevin Spacey didn't look all that much like Bobby Darin in the recent Darin biopic "Beyond the Sea," check out the footage here of Bobby later in his career, during the year-or-two period when he let his sideburns grow, put aside the tuxedos, and sang a lot of folk songs. It's downright eerie how MUCH alike Darin and Spacey look in those scenes. In any event, I heartily recommend this DVD to hardcore Bobby Darin fans, as well as casual fans who want to learn a little more about the real person after seeing the Spacey film. It also doesn't hurt that, for what you get, the price of this DVD can't be beat.

I first saw this on PBS some years ago and have been looking for it ever since. This doc is beautifully put together and will leave you with the best kind of ache in your soul. BD was so young and so damn talented. Watching him glide about like he's on wheels during the "Higher and Higher" segment is pure joy.

On the whole, I enjoyed this biography of Bobby Darin (the best and most brilliant entertainer we have ever had), especially the interviews with Dodd Darin, Steve Blauner (Bobby's manager), Connie Francis, Tony Orlando, and others who were close to him. However, I felt that it glossed over or omitted some important aspects of Bobby's life: no mention of his 8 months of semi-seclusion in the Big Sur in 1968, his second wife, Andrea Yeager (and by the way, I was surprised that Sandra Dee wasn't interviewed for this documentary), his NBC series which was only touched upon briefly, and no mention that he was one of only a handful of kids smart enough to gain entrance into the Bronx High School of Science, and that he started out as a drummer playing in the Catskills resorts during the 1950s. We also learn about the family secret, but what wasn't stressed is that Bobby never learned the identity of his biological father, which devastated him as much as learning the truth about his mother did.

However, the real gems on this DVD are the numerous musical sequences and Darin footage, many of which I hadn't seen before. I enjoyed the Jimmy Durante skit the best. It would have been nice to include a comedy sketch from Bobby's NBC show, or from his many appearances on Flip Wilson's show, since he had such a natural aptitude for acting and comedy.

This is the type of material that Lion's Gate Films should have included on the Beyond the Sea DVD as an extra, so that viewers could see and hear the real Bobby Darin. For those who want to fill in the missing holes, I highly recommend the book "Dream Lovers: the Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee" written with heartfelt emotion by their son, Dodd Darin.