Johnny Legend Presents “Rock Baby Bock It” (1957)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Film: C

 

 

Because Rock music was considered so dirty in the 1950s, many a B movie was produced that offered would-be Rock talents and often spent more time allowing them to perform than tell any kind of story.  This cycle died by the early 1960s when the first wave of Rock collapsed and all of its major acts had some tragedy happen to them.  Rock Baby Rock It is one of the more forgotten films because it does not feature any acts that went on to become famous.  Though the talent was at least natural, the labels they came from are now more famous.

 

Yes, Decca and King saw this as an opportunity to launch a few dozen acts, but none found any kind of serious success except perhaps the regional airplay kind.  The film is about 65 minutes, though the DVD case suggests 84.  That’s wrong.  If you do not watch for the nostalgia, you can watch for how funny and basic this unintentionally is.  It is ironically refreshing to see anyone with talent give it their best shot without reality TV aspects or “bling bling” garbage.  However, Rock also hit a temporary ceiling pre-Beatles and this film shows why it had to make a comeback.

 

I like the location shooting, but this print is a tunnel-vision version, with the sides missing throughout.  This suggests the film was shot at anywhere from 1.66 to 1.85 X 1, but this version is too soft and as bad as the worst pan and scan.  The sound is monophonic, but it PCM 2.0 16Bit/48kHz, helping the music come through better.  The only extra is star Kay Wheeler introducing the film and doing an audio commentary that though uneven, offers some good points about the life and times of teenagers growing up then.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo