1h 24min | Music | 14 December 1956 | b/w, ws
Director: Fred F. Sears
Stars: Bill Haley and the Comets, Alan Dale, Alan Freed, Little Richard, etc.
Earl Barton ... choreographer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049152/
Watched online, good print. Also on AmazonPrime.
~16 songs in the Soundtracks. Most familiar: Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally, both by Little Richard.
There are actors here who aren't rock performers, but I don't recognize any names or faces. The film is just another excuse to assemble a bunch of performances and extract cash from teens. Many of these are the bare-melody songs.
In 1 rehearsal, we get 4 chorus girls doing a definitely choreographed routine, which could have been danced to more melodic fast music; it was ok. In the defense production, where AF narrates a defense of rock, we get the local theatre group (HS?) dancing something really old, then the minuet, and the Charleston, to demonstrate that the middle-aged folks used to be wild, but survived, the same point made in November by the non-AF film Shake, Rattle & Rock! (1956) (with Mike Connors). That was a totally indie film; this is distributed by Columbia, so might get wider exposure.
This has a bit more going on than prior rocksploitation, but not enough that I want to describe it.
Clover Prod., distr. Columbia, dir. Sears; 5
