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Movies as frantically bad as Mahogany can be enjoyed on at least one level: the spectacle of a lot of people making fools of themselves. The film marks the directorial debut of Berry Gordy, the Motown Records whiz, who has slapped scenes together as if he were laying down tracks for an album: one fast, one slow, one happy, one sad, one up, one down. Gordy has also permitted Miss Ross to design her own wardrobe, a series of costumes apparently inspired by some Oriental version of Star Trek...
...they have few compliments-the film has just broken Broadway theater records held by Jaws and The Godfather. The receipts have made Berry Gordy Jr., 45, the most powerful new director in the business. That power derives from his triple role as founder, chairman and 95% owner of Motown Industries. The company was founded in 1960, shortly after Gordy quit the Ford assembly line in Detroit. The ex-professional featherweight boxer started with $800 borrowed from his father, a Georgia-born plasterer. Motown grossed $48 million last year on the combined earnings of its record label, one of the country...
White Listeners. One should not dismiss too lightly any of the director's musings on success. It is one subject that he knows all about. Students of the Motown sound have long contended that it was Gordy's basic gimmick-the smoothing and packaging of rhythm and blues-that drew white listeners to his label. Essentially, he applied the same formula to his profitable production of Lady Sings the Blues, turning the hard life and times of Singer Billie Holiday into a muzzy backstage love story. It is also what happens in Mahogany. "I wanted to bring...
Gordy is disdainful of all criticism, personal and professional. The harsh reviews? They are merely "attacks on an uppity black." As for frequent rumors that Motown is Mob financed, Gordy counters: "We have a choice of suing people for such stories or ignoring them." Employee resentment over his dictatorial managerial style is not so easily dismissed. "If I ever wrote a book," says one Motown staffer, "I'd call it God Is on Extension 274-that's Berry...
...sport of kings this is not. Instead of the turf at Churchill Downs, the course is in the asphalt parking lot outside Brennan's bar at Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles. And despite his come-from-behind victory, Motown Missile has yet to prove that he deserves to be classed with the legendary Sea Biscuit, a sprinter without peer and the all-time mock thoroughbred turtle...