If I had a guardian aunt like the one played by the dithering Zasu Pitts, I'd probably try a career in rock and roll myself. Jimmy Clanton is the title character whose aunt and agent (Rocky Graziano) are always over his shoulder. Graziano, a poor man's Mike Mazurki as an actor, has taken too many hits to the head because he can barely get any kind of emotion into his dialog, which is mediocre at best, and Pitts is oh so prim and proper without any of the zip she had in those 30's and 40's movies where her nervous characters were hiding behind an acid tongue.
The film itself is badly structured with interruptions constantly by sudden rock and roll numbers on an obvious TV soundstage, looking interpolated and all completely unrelated with the exception of Clanton's. He doesn't have any spark in his acting scenes at all, walking through this without any real enthusiasm.
As a record of music acts of the time (including Chubby Checker), it does hold some interest, but it's like watching two different types of media smashed together to pad it out to 80 minutes. The different colors of sepia don't add anything. In fact, they provide evidence of the desperation to get this out as a musical film that serves no purpose other than for teens at the drive-in to do what they were there to do.
The film itself is badly structured with interruptions constantly by sudden rock and roll numbers on an obvious TV soundstage, looking interpolated and all completely unrelated with the exception of Clanton's. He doesn't have any spark in his acting scenes at all, walking through this without any real enthusiasm.
As a record of music acts of the time (including Chubby Checker), it does hold some interest, but it's like watching two different types of media smashed together to pad it out to 80 minutes. The different colors of sepia don't add anything. In fact, they provide evidence of the desperation to get this out as a musical film that serves no purpose other than for teens at the drive-in to do what they were there to do.