Product Description
-------------------
Dont Knock The Rock spotlights rock music in its infancy and
features some of the genres true originals. DJ Freed is credited
with inventing the term, "rock n roll," and Haley was a durable
star for over a decade, selling 22 million copies of his hit,
"Rock Around the Clock," and helping to establish rock music once
and for all. Little Richard had his first bonafide hit, "Tutti
Frutti," while making this film, and the film shows this self
procled architect of rock and roll at the beginning of his
storied career. Rock Around The Clock, is a title based on Bill
Haley & His Comets enormous hit from 1954. In this film, also
produced by Sam Katzman and directed by Fred Sears, Haley and
friends get to demo their singing chops, singing a string of
hits, including the title song.
.com
----
Rock 'n roll movies have rarely been more true to the spirit of
the music than these two from the mid-'50s. That's not to say
that Don't Knock the Rock and Rock Around the Clock, both of
which were directed (in black & white) by Fred Sears and released
in 1956, are anyone's idea of classic cinema. On the contrary,
this is assembly-line stuff: the stories are flimsy and
predictable; the dialogue is often risible, and much of the
acting is on a high school drama club level. But these movies are
all about the music (featuring multiple performances by Bill
Haley and the Comets, Little Richard, the Treniers, the Platters,
and others), with a lesser but still heavy emphasis on dancing,
and on those levels they are an unexpected but unqualified
delight. In Rock Around the Clock, agent Steve Hollis (Johnny
Johnston) and his bass playing pal Corny (Henry Slate) quit their
big band gigs and hit the road, where they happen upon Haley and
his band in a Podunk farming town. Although they don't quite know
what to make of the Comets' music ("It isn't boogie, it isn't
jive, it isn't swing
it's kinda all of 'em!"), they know a hot
prospect when they find one and promise to secure them a
legitimate at the big time (with the help of Alan Freed, the
pioneering Ohio disc jockey, who plays himself, albeit in a
different capacity). Complications ensue, including romantic
ones, but, well, who really cares? Haley and his band are on
fire; they're lip-syncing, but the s of "See You Later
Alligator," the title tune (which had made its debut a year
earlier in Blackboard Jungle), and others are filled with snap
and crackle, the musicians are great (especially jazz-influenced
guitarist Franny Beecher), the stage show is a riot, and the
dancing siblings played by Lisa Gaye and Earl Barton are simply
amazing.
It's more of the same in Don't Knock the Rock, in which
reluctant star Arnie Haines (Alan Dale, a crooner who's not
entirely convincing as a rocker), weary of life on the road,
packs it in and heads home to y Mellondale, wherever that
is. The kids love him, but the adults, led by the odious old
mayor, ban his "outrageous, depraved" music; Arnie then sets out
to show them that "rock 'n' roll is a safe and sane dance for all
young people." Once again, the plot is about as subtle as a
Slayer concert, but Haley, Little Richard, and especially the hip
and hilarious vocal trio the Treniers more than make up for that,
as do several dynamic, beautifully choreographed dance numbers.
The two-disc set includes no bonus features. --Sam Graham