Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Movie review – Corman #11 - “Rock All Night” (1957) **

Odd low budget curio: the first half is typical of those 50s rock films where a bunch of artists perform at a venue amidst a loosely assembled storyline (and this case the acts include the Platters), then it turns into a rehash of The Desperate Hours – actually it was a rewrite of a 30 min TV episode, stretched out to feature length. It feels like it, despite brisk Corman handling this is minor Corman.

Charles Griffith wrote the script and his hands are all over the Mel Welles hipster character, probably the most memorable aspect of the film. There’s a cast of Roger Corman favourites including Jonathan Haze and Russell Johnson as gangsters, Abby Dalton, Dick Miller (the bar fly who becomes a hero – not terribly convincingly when he intimidates the gangsters with his personality).

No comments: