Three – count 'em three – Kansas City documentaries at once

Has this ever happened before? This week three documentaries about Kansas City were on area screens. One just went away, but I've seen the other two, and both are worth checking out.
 
One is "Cowtown Palace ... Sweet Jesus," playing on a couple of arthouse screens. The Cowtown Palace was a rock/country/what-have-you venue in the early '70s. The film is rightly celebratory (even if a memory or two might have been, uh, chemically blurred). If case you're wondering and in case you're not of a certain age, the "Sweet Jesus" part of the title is a lyric from the one hit by a duo called Brewer and Shipley. (Memory cue: "Sittin' downtown in a railway station, one toke over the line.") You have to stay to the very end of the movie, btw, to get the last nugget of that little story. It's worth it.
 
Credits for the movie include David Jackson of the Jackson County Historical Society and Kerwin Plevka, a former Examiner photographer. Kerwin was a highly skilled photographer, a passionate journalist and a good guy.
 
Chuck Haddix, host of "Fish Fry" on KCUR, appears in this movie, and, as it happens, appears in "Black Hand Strawman," which tells the story of the mob in Kansas City. It's pretty good, and the friend and I who saw it thought the last third – the Nick Civella years – worked best. Maybe, again, it's an age thing. This movie was made by Terence O'Malley, who also did "Nelly Don," which also was on an area screen until this week. Keep making movies, sir.