Ry Cooder, a lifelong Californian who has cut a sort of musicological path through blues, jazz, Tex-Mex, Hawaiian, and heaven knows where all, is responsible for the (very good) country-blues soundtrack here, and is also a sort of soul mate to the hero. The latter (Ralph Macchio) is a Long Island-born musical prodigy of Italian extraction, studying classical guitar at Juilliard but immersing himself in his dorm room in the lore of the Mississippi blues, and cultivating a private dream of uncovering and being the first to record the legendary "lost song" of Robert ("King of the Delta Blues") Johnson. His European-accented teacher, unamused at the bluesy wails with which this promising pupil embellishes Mozart, cautions him not to attempt to serve two masters: "Excellence in primitive music is cultural. You have to be born to it." But he is too hot on the trail of that lost song to turn back now, having tracked down in a New York rest home one Willie Brown -- possibly the Willie Brown, alias Blind Dog Fulton, "the first acknowledged master of the country-blues harmonica," who was known to travel with Robert Johnson -- and having taken a job as a floor-mopper in order to get near him. Taste is a strange thing -- almost enough to make you believe in transmigration; certainly enough to justify the most mythical treatment imaginable. And this movie will not need to apologize for identifying the blues Muse as no one less than Mephistopheles. It will, however, need to apologize for a most unbluesy conclusion. With Joe Seneca and Jami Gertz; written by John Fusco; directed by Walter Hill. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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