LEFT BANKERS: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in 1961.

It’s jazz night at Club 33—every night is jazz night at Club 33—and Paul Newman is warming up his combo when two fine dames walk in. He met them at the Paris train depot earlier in the day, and took a shine to Diahann Carroll. Sidney Poitier notices her, too: “That sure is a cute little devil you tried to pick up in the station today, big daddy.” Newman continues lubricating his trumpet. “Try?” he asks. “I think I have. ”

The movie is Paris Blues, and the time is 1961, the same year Newman’s role in The Hustler convinced people he could do anything he pleased. Judging from the evidence on display in Paris Blues, among the people convinced was Paul Newman. He wears a self-satisfied grin throughout the picture, and as he nonchalantly propositions Carroll, you have to remind yourself that, yes, this is 1961, still six years before Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner busted Hollywood’s taboo on interracial romance. Martin Ritt’s movie isn’t that brave—Newman quickly shifts his attentions to Joanne Woodward, and Portier is forced to undergo long lectures about civil-rights duty from Carroll—but the switch is handled as the handsome star’s caprice. Nothing stops him; he just moseys along. His treatment of Woodward is casual bordering on the cruel: His idea of a compliment is to note how much he likes women with a little cushion in the back. The louse of Hud is not far off.

Paris Blues is the first of three Newman tributes at Cinema 21 this spring: Hud (also directed by Ritt) plays in April and The Hustler follows in May. The late programs mark the theater’s attempt to display itself in a new light as a place for, well, jazz night—complete with live musicians, bottles of wine and pre-show concert footage of Thelonious Monk and the Bill Evans Trio. The first feature, while the slightest of the three, is also the one to catch: Paris Blues is impossible to find on stateside DVD, and this is a 35 mm print. It is putting it mildly to say Newman is not wholly persuasive as a swingin’ horn blower, but he’s clearly having fun trying, and his enthusiasm is a precursor of the successful dilettante who would drive stock cars and hawk salad dressing. Here he’s rewarded as well, when who else but Louis Armstrong strolls into Club 33 and asks for a duet. Some guys have all the luck.