John Cassavetes' first Hollywood film “plunges us again into the harsh and blistering world of Shadows. This time the protagonists are white, West Coast jazzmen scraping the professional barrel for dates. Just before their big break, the leader (Bobby Darin), beaten in a brawl over a singer (Stella Stevens), deserts her and his band, goes commercial but even so is more successful as a gigolo than as a musician. At last he comes to himself, finds his girl has become a prostitute; together they return to their music, their friends, the struggle.... The story is neatly constructed, the dialogue so sharp and biting as to be naturalistic rather than natural. The images are less blemished, gritty and eloquent than those of Shadows; still, many scenes seem improvised and the compositions and staging informal, even haphazard....” (Raymond Durgnat). Too Late Blues was underrated by most critics who were confounded by Cassavetes' ragged style and the choice of pop singer Bobby Darin in the role of a hipster jazz pianist. On reappraisal, both are entirely appropriate for this exploration of self-destruction and wayward talent in the world of L.A. jazz musicians in the late fifties and early sixties. Only Albert Johnson and British critic Raymond Durgnat wrote positive reviews on the film's release, Johnson calling it “a very strange and exciting film to come from a major Hollywood studio...capturing the argot--swift, hardboiled and sometimes poetic--of music-making hipsters without a cause.”