ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 900, 2 November 1956, Page 17

ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

(Clover Productions-Columbia) G Cert. I am willing to try any drink once.-Jurgen. SHOULD like to think that it was a capacity for experimentation, or, failing that, something resembling Frederick’s inflexible sense of duty which persuaded me to Rock Around the Clock with an audience of desegregated secondary school children. But neither these nor the natural impulse of curiosity would represent more than a mild infusion of the truth. I went because there was little else to go to. All things considered (and I don’t exclude the two dozen tomato plants that had to be set out between times) it was for me one of the most laborious Labour week-ends on record. Rock Around the Clock, which has been directed with an infallible feeling for the banal by Fred F. Sears, introduces several musical combos-The Platters (a vocal group boasting one singer), Tony Martinez and his Band, Freddy Bell and the Bell Boys-but the bright particular stars are Bill Haley and his Comets, who, if they didn’t originate Rock ’n’ Roll (and the film is not precisely clear on this point), were apparently "fustest with the mostest." The Comets (if the screen story is to be believed) first swam into ken at the local parish hall in Strawberry Springs, somewhere in the Middle West. The story of their metamorphosis from parttime, through small-time, to Big-time seemed to me somewhat drably similar in its general outline to the story of other entertainment celebrities who have been honoured by screen biographies. In Mr. Haley’s case the big-time climax was a coast-to-coast TV hook-up, which is presumably the limit of a contemporary entertainer’s ambitions. It seemed the limit to me, anyway. No, I can’t say that Rock Around the Clock got me one way or another, and I suspect post-teenagers in general will feel the same about it. I found it much more amusing to watch, and listen to, the audience. The juveniles were there simply to beat: time to the music and were so obviously enjoying themselves that I wouldn’t have had the heart to tell them that the style of dancing they were applauding was old hat before most of them reached the kindergarten. They wouldn’t have believed me, anyway.

Mach more amusing were two old souls in the seats just behind me. They were, I’ll swear, Minnie and Henry Crun, and obviously they had strayed into the wrong show. Henry was deaf and Minnie was doing her best to give him a tunning commentary, but the vernacular occasionally beat her. Henry couldn't reconcile what she said with what he saw and that would start an argument. They left before the lights went up, but when I overtook them several blocks down the street they were still arguing. |