ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK: one two three o'clock schlock

If rock and roll had had to rely on Bill Haley and his Comets rather than Elvis Presley to become a cultural phenomenon we'd all be going crazy over Michael Buble today.

Despite pioneer DJ Alan Freed's enthusiastic introduction of Haley as "one of the most phenomenal acts in the history of showbusiness!" his music was actually simplistic, repetitive and, after two or three songs, pretty unlistenable, while Haley himself had the looks and build of a truck driver and the personality of a turnip. He really was a most unlikely character to usher in a revolutionary style of music.
All of which is made painfully obvious in ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, a low values, B-movie production hastily thrown together in January 1956 to cash in on a shocking new musical sound that was threatening to end civilisation as square old middle America knew it.
Steve Hollis is Johnny Johnston, a big band manager who sees the writing on the wall and sets out to find the next big thing in popular music. He finds it in the shape of Bill Haley and his Comets, blowing the roof off the joint at a small town Saturday night dance. Johnston's traveling companion reckons they sound like they're "slaughtering cattle" but the kids just can't get enough of the crazy beat which causes them to dance like they've lost their mind.
Johnston signs them up on the spot, along with the brother and sister dance team of Lisa and Jimmy Johns (who demonstrate the correct way to dance to rock and roll music) and sets about trying to promote them to a wider audience. To do that he needs access to clubs and concert halls but that is controlled by Corinne Talbot's talent agency and she's determined to stifle Johnston's new discovery unless he agrees to marry her.
Will Corinne block the rock to bag her bloke or will she join the majority of America's impressionable youth in succumbing to the infectious beat of 'Razzle Dazzle', 'See You Later Alligator' and 'Rudy's Rock', not forgetting the title track?
The plot's little more than an excuse to showcase Haley, the even less inspiring Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys, and the completely misplaced mambo act of Tony Martinez and his Orchestra, in a series of unimaginatively staged and shot musical numbers. The only respite comes from The Platters who sound sublime but hadn't yet mastered the hang of moving while performing live.

The history books tell us this was subversive stuff, but at a remove of half century it all comes across as quaint and tamer than a toothless old tiger posing for photos with visitors to a small-town zoo. The rebellious teenagers with their 'far out' lingo and all consuming passion for rock and roll dress like insurance agents, and all of the musical acts perform in suits and ties. Everyone is unerringly polite to one another and would no doubt have been appalled to learn that their elders feared they were undermining the very basis of American society.
Producer Sam Katzman probably thought he was riding a cultural wave with ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK but the reality was that his film and the musical acts featured in it were all about to be washed away by a one man tsunami.  By the time the film was released in March 1956 Elvis Presley was on the brink of national stardom and a career which would eclipse that of all of his musical contemporaries. If you want to see a star - the man who scored rock and roll's first hit - about to become a footnote in musical history, this is the film to watch.