Only the Strong Survive

The question “Where are they now?” usually recalls a painfully embarrassing portrayal of spent, wizened has-beens desperately clinging to the bygone moments that made them famous. Well, limber up your pity-pointing finger for Only the Strong Survive, a pat-on-the-back documentary by filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Chronicling what’s become of the stars of the Stax record label—home of the great soul sound of Memphis, Tennessee—Strong traipses out such luminaries as Isaac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, the Chi-Lites, Mary Wilson, and Rufus Thomas. But with scant information on how these singers came to prominence, the documentary soon takes a turn up Nostalgia Drive with countless personal reflections on the subjects’ halcyon days interspersed with their feeble attempts at emulating the vocal timbre that first put their names in lights nearly 40 years ago. But it’s not all dentures and tracheotomies. Wilson Pickett amuses with his ladies’ man bravado, Mr. Isaac “Shaft” Hayes is still “a sex machine to all the chicks,” and Sam Moore (from the group Sam and Dave) regales viewers with stories of his time spent peddling coke and heroin on the streets of New York City. But overall, the film comes across as an uncomfortable paean to the great soul singers of Memphis and is left standing in the shadows—well, more like the back alley—of last year’s similar effort about Motown’s forgotten founders.