Dionne Warwick Honoured By CNN

Dionne Warwick Honoured By CNN Documentary

The Cable News Network (Est. 1980) has, in recent years, expanded its documentary programming, focusing on important aspects of American history and culture.

CNN's rather-imposing headquarters.

Among he latest of these programs is Don’t Make Me Over, a portrayal of the legendary soul singer and profligate spender Dionne Warwick

Warwick is now 81 years old, and while she intends to one day retire to the beautiful shores of Brazil, for now, she is still working in the United States, touring her One Last Time show. However, she doesn’t plan on actually retiring. “I will be laying in Bahia, where I want to spend the rest of my life, enjoying the sunshine, the music, the people and me,” she told The New York Times.

Don’t Make Me Over was completed in 2021, “named for Warwick’s first debut single,” and had a circuitous trail to its’ CNN debut on the first day of 2023.

Originally an award-winner on the festival circuit, the film was to be released through CNN’s doomed streaming service CNN+ where it was supposed to be the first in many documentary releases, but CNN+ didn’t last even one whole month. The film ended up being sent over to the primary pay-tv channel, where the network boasts that it was the highest-rated programme on cable news during its’ time-slot.

While CNN+ was a costly, unmitigated disaster, it initially promised a “robust content slate of live, on-demand, and interactive offerings for launch…the three red and white letters (mean) so much to audiences around the world” in a press release dated Feb 23, 2022.

When Don’t Make Me Over finally neared its’ cable premiere, Warwick embarked on a press tour, making appearances on the daytime talk programme Sherri. Entertainment Tonight reported that the documentary would feature appearances from friends and collaborators, such as Barry Gibb (producer of several hit songs with Warwick, including Heartbreaker), Musician Quincy Jones, Singer Melissa Manchester, and Olivia Newton-John in what would prove to be the last year of her life. On television, Warwick spoke of her film’s “exceptional” success in festivals.

The singer “became the first solo African American female artist to win a Grammy in contemporary vocal performance for 1968’s “Do You Know The Way To San Jose,” according to The Wrap. Warwick also was engaged in other progressive exploits, including raising $3 million for research on Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the 1980s. At this time, many celebrities were uncomfortable or too scared to support victims of the epidemic publicly.

The film touches on other parts of her life, some slightly negative, but according to viewers, the film is mostly a straightforward Hagiography with little critique or differential perspective.

While Warwick was often the brunt of jokes for her 2nd name change in the early 1970s (to Dionne Warwicke), her use of ‘psychic’ consultants, and her notoriously bad money management, these do not make much of an appearance. One user of the Internet Movie Database, paul-allaer, reviewed the film as such: “There isn’t a single negative or critical note or question in the entire documentary.”

Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over will encore on CNN on Jan 21, 2023, and will be available on HBO Max later in 2023.