DVD Tuesday: Rock and Roll to Go!

• Apr 10, 2007 06:06 PM ET
• by Maitland McDonagh

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Over the weekend I was reading The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope - a magazine I highly recommend for its frighteningly thorough coverage of offbeat DVD releases - and ran across reviews of some vintage rock and roll pictures. They got me to thinking of my absolute favorite rock movie of the 1950s, which is how Expresso Bongo (1959) became this week's DVD Tuesday pick.

Future Manchurian Candidate star Laurence Harvey plays sharp-dressed bottom feeder Johnny Jackson, a hustler on the lookout for the next big thing. His hunting ground is London's Soho, a densely packed cluster of strip clubs, bars and coffeehouses where the kids dance to that crazy rock and roll music. And wonder of wonders, he actually finds what he's looking for in Bert Rudge (real-life U.K. pop sensation Cliff Richard), a slim-hipped, doe-eyed heartbreaker who plays a mean bongo. Johnny signs him to an iron-clad contract, renames the kid "Bongo Herbert" and makes him a star, at which point the world-class sharks start circling and fringe-player Johnny is exposed for the little fish he truly is.

I first saw Expresso Bongo by accident on late-night TV, and it was a revelation: The first half, especially, crackled with rude energy and sly cynicism I hadn't associated with British movies of the 1950s. The scenes of Johnny's girlfriend ( Sylvia Syms) at work in a strip joint where lush-hipped, barely dressed girls act out historical tableaux are a trip, and director Val Guest brings a seedy glamour to Wolf Mankowitz's very savvy story of prefab pop stardom (inspired by the career of pre-Beatles Brit rocker Tommy Steele), the exploitation of teen culture, the commercial deracination of rock and roll, and standard-issue showbiz chicanery. Expresso Bongo began life as a West End musical in 1957 - 50 years ago, and it could have been written yesterday. And let me tell you, Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964) may be cheekier, but Expresso Bongo is just as sharp and beat it to the punch.

Things to consider:

Until the post-WWII era there was no "teen culture," so how did the interests and attitudes of adolescents come to dominate contemporary popular culture and shape adult buying habits?

How have popular music and popular musicians been defined and commodified by movies - from The Glenn Miller Story to Lisztomania, Velvet Goldmine and 8 Mile?

What's the best movie about music or musicians you've ever seen, and why?

Previous DVD Tuesday blogs:

Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! - Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
http:/ / community. tvguide. com/ thread. jspa? threadID= 800073953#comments"> Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick

Also: This week's new DVD releases