Year:  1959
Rating: 5.5

---

This chock full of musical stars film is presented by Alan Freed. For those younger than me who have no idea who Freed was here is a quick bio of him. Back in the 1950's he was an enormously popular and influential DJ at WINS and WNEW in New York City. He took credit for coming up with the phrase "rock and roll" and for a guy who comes across as totally square he relentlessly promoted this new form of music that was invading popular culture. But as it turned out he was being rewarded under the table by record distributors as were many other DJ's as this was in truth common practice. You play this record and here is a payment.


This was the famous Payola Scandal that engulfed the music business and led to the firing of Freed in 1959 and for the most part the end of his career and presence in the music business. During this period he also promoted a few rock and roll films - this one, Don't Knock the Rock, Rock Rock Rock! and Rock Around the Clock. All these films are more about the music with a thin plot hung on a clothes line. Which is a good thing - you watch these films to see the popular stars at the time and this film has a few of them.


Johnny is a wanna-be Frankie Avalon styled singer with the support of his girlfriend Julie and he approaches Freed playing himself to give him a shot and finally he does. That is the plot but in the meantime we get to hear Chuck Berry who actually gets to do more than just sing here, Richie Valens, The Flamingos in the best song performance in the film, Jackie Wilson, Jo Ann Campbell a popular pop singer at the time, the Cadillacs who put on quite a show and Eddie Cochran.


These were all big stars at the time and when Freed called, they answered. It was actually surprising that Berry has as large a role as he does as a confidant of Freed, but Freed was always an equal opportunity promoter of music - and in fact he lost a TV show when he had Frankie Lymon dance with a white girl. Now Johnny is played by Jimmy Clanton, a soft spoken New Orleans white boy, who had a reasonably successful career in the late 50's and early 60's. And Julie is played by Sandy Stewart who was a professional singer who showed up on the Perry Como Show fairly often. By the way, if the voice of the head usher who fires Johnny sounds vaguely familiar that is because he is Joe Flynn a few years before he became the Captain on McHale's Navy. The film only runs around 70 minutes and is up on You Tube.