A new music teacher in a 1955 West Texas home for wayward boys brings new vision and hope for many of the interned boys.
Director: Jeffrey Hornaday
Stars: John Travolta, Jamie Walters, Heather Graham, Richard Jordan.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102913/
Watched online, ok print.
10 songs in the Soundtracks, none list cast as performers, but cast "perform" some songs onscreen.
Rated 5.1 by 1675 IMDb voters. I don't think it's that bad, but it's not great.
Notice the poster has JW & HG inside the silhouette of JT. That's pretty accurate. JT is not the focus of the script, but when he's onscreen he certainly draws your eye. (JT dances for only a few moments onscreen.)
The film is really about the wayward boys, especially JW, who are bullied by the home/farm owner RJ, but nurtured by music teacher JT. HG is daughter of RJ, home from college, but interested in minor JW due to his interest in her. He's troubled and even more rebellious than the other boys, but he also has a lot of musical talent before JT starts developing it in the group.
But JT has a past, is wanted by the law, and eventually allows himself to be arrested. We get no other resolution to that storyline, but he's supposedly innocent (self defense).
The boys get good enough that they can play their stodgy number at the fair pretty well, but then really rock the house when they perform that new underground music they've been hearing by shortwave radio (and rehearsed by JT). That music (early rock; this takes place in the 50s) is probably the best thing about the film.
Universal & more, dir. Hornaday; 6-
