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The effect of rock'n'roll on mice. #4DKMSD #ScienceIsGolden pic.twitter.com/rrDW35lYRg

— Cultura (@CulturalGutter) July 8, 2015

As one of the participants in Tuesday's 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down commented, "Rock 'n' Roll High School IS 1979." And Carol,  you could not be more right. It boasts enough spandex and animal print to swath a planet-sized Pat Benatar, a soundtrack on which corporate rock monoliths like Fleetwood Mac jostle elbows with the emerging new wave (remember when Blondie opened for REO Speedwagon? I do.), and a glib attitude toward teenage sex that could only have existed before AIDS. It also takes us back to that oh-so-narrow window of time in which P.J. Soles and Vince Van Patten might have been thought of as bankable stars. (She's the girl who got her tits out in Halloween! He's... well, a Van Patten.) More important, however, is the fact that it functions in part as a Ramones concert film, as well as the closest thing to being The Ramones own Hard Day's Night--both especially worthy of note in light of the early departure of all four original members of the Ramones to the great CBGB's bathroom in the sky.

If any of the above makes you so "J" that you missed out on our little tweet-along, relax. A transcript of the entire event--with screen captures (thanks again, Carol)--has just been posted on Storify:

The 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down: Rock 'n' Roll High School on Storify.

Having a Wild Weekend (England, 1965)

With their prim matching suits and young Republican haircuts, the Dave Clark Five visually slotted right in with Mersey Beat also-rans like Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddy and the Dreamers. However, listening to hits such as “Glad All Over”, “Bits and Pieces”, and “Any Way You Want it” reveals that they were much closer musical kin to American garage rockers like the Sonics and Paul Revere & The Raiders. These tracks barrel through the room like a freight train; guitars, drums, saxophone, and organ all blaring in unison as if trying to drown one another out, without a moment’s pause or concession to dynamics. Suffice it to say that they were offering something very different from the Beatles, which is perhaps why, for one heartbreakingly brief moment in the mid-sixties, they were the most credible challengers to the four lads from Liverpool’s chart topping hegemony.

Such was the status of the DC5 circa 1965 that it was all but inevitable that they would star in a feature film, as did seemingly every other British pop band of the period. This might not have been the case if not for the release the previous year of A Hard Day’s Night (which you have perhaps heard of). Of course, with the Beatles, it was pretty much guaranteed that any film starring them at that time would be successful—so much so that the film could have been just 90 minutes of them peeling potatoes and would still at least break even. Director Richard Lester used the leeway this afforded him to experiment, creating something that combined documentary-style shooting, Goon Show inspired absurdist humor, and performance footage into something unlike anything audiences had seen before. Producer David Deutsch likewise insured that Having a Wild Weekend (released in the U.S. as Catch Us if You Can) would be far from a run-of-the-mill rock and roll film by assigning it to a young TV documentarian named John Boorman, for whom the film would be his first theatrical feature.

Having taken the first step of including the members of the Dave Clark Five in the film, Boorman and screenwriter Peter Nichols took their first departure from the expected by casting them, not as themselves, but as fictional non-musicians. Here they are a troupe of movie stuntmen—albeit a troupe of stuntmen who, in a tradition honored all the way from Help to Spice World--all live together in a house set up with all manner of odd contraptions and eccentric contrivances. This means that Having a Wild Weekend is a pop music movie in which the featured pop artists do not actually perform their songs onscreen (although various DC5 songs do appear on the soundtrack.) This is a pretty bold move, though, when you consider the film as a whole, it’s not surprising that its makers would buck at making it the feature-length commercial that so many of these pop films were.

As the film begins, we are introduced to Dave Clark in the role of Steve, as well as his four stunt man compatriots, who are played by band members Mike Smith, Lenny Davidson, Rick Huxley, and Dennis Payton. Somehow the group has gotten themselves embroiled in an ad campaign for the “Meat Promotion Council” that prominently features a fresh faced young model named Dinah (Barbara Ferris of Children of the Damned). An opening montage shows us that Dinah’s gigantic, smiling visage, plastered on billboards alongside the slogan “MEAT FOR GO!”, has become an inescapable part of London’s urban landscape.

A note on nomenclature: Dave Clark was the band’s drummer, as well as its producer and manager. He was also, to some extent, its visual focus—which given his matinee idol looks, is not surprising. Those looks also well suit him to be the film’s lead, as does his apparent grasp of the craft of acting. That said, whether it was direction or temperament that lead him to be so broody and intense throughout the film is anybody’s guess, although it is definitely out of character with the good time vibe of his band’s music. Perhaps it was just that all of Ferris’s toothy beaming was enough for both of them.

In any case, when we join Steve on the set of the latest “Meat for Go” TV commercial, it is clear that he is already fed up with the whole business. Dinah, weary of being seen as “that butcher girl”, reveals that she, also, longs for escape. The only thing for it is for the two to “borrow” a Jaguar E-Type from the studio lot and head out on a freewheeling journey. When Dinah tells Steve of a deserted island just off the cost she dreams of buying (“An island all to yourself”, Steve muses with a distant look in his eye), he vows to take her there. Thus begins a journey that Boorman—having fulfilled his commercial obligation by insuring that the producers could list the Dave Clark Five on the film’s poster—feels free to depict in a loose, episodic and occasionally digressive style, at times making room for things that he probably just thought would look cool, like a scuba diving sequence that showcases some nice underwater camera work.

Once on their journey, Steve and Dinah pass through three “stations” that seem to be of particular significance, seeing as each represents a potential escape route that turns out to be a dead end. In the first instance, fate—or Boorman’s eye for expressionistic desolation—leads the two to a bombed-out village inhabited by a tribe of hippy squatters who ask them if they have any “spliffs” or “horse” (they don’t). The catastrophically burnt-out leader of the group then regales them with a grizzly retelling of the legend of King Solomon before they are all chased off by mortar fire from an army unit that is using the ruin for maneuvers.

The two then hitch up with a middle aged couple of wealthy idlers, Nan (Yootha Joyce) and Guy (Robin Bailey). These two represent themselves at first as open minded free spirits, but turn out to be trapped in a loveless marriage—him lost in a nostalgia expressed through a collection of classic film ephemera and old victrolas—that leads each in turn to make unwanted advances upon their young guests. This is followed by a brief idyll at a horse ranch owned by an acquaintance of Steve’s, which provides the opportunity for lots of blatantly symbolic shots of horses running free before the youngsters are run off by encroaching forces that I will discourse upon below.

You see, all the while that Steve and Dinah are pursuing their escape from the everyday, the executives at the ad agency behind the meat campaign, led by Zissell (David de Keyser), meet in shadowy rooms to decide on how to deal with this defection by one of their key assets. Commendably, these characters are not presented as the satirical caricatures that one might expect from a movie of this type (think the flouncy marketer in A Hard Day’s Night who imperiously grills “average teenager” George Harrison for his opinions on a pair of “dead grotty” shirts), but as just the kind of ruthless, soul-dead bastards that we are now happy to assume that all ad people are. As a demonstration of this, the group connives to weave Dinah and Steve’s flight into the narrative of the meat campaign. “That’s her image,” says one. “Rootless, classless, kooky, product of affluence… typical of modern youth.”

Having a Wild Weekend’s title raises expectations of a carefree romp, which the film itself then confounds in two key ways. One is the placement of all of its action in the dead of the English winter, which renders its monochrome portrait of grey urban and barren rural locations all the more bleak. More importantly is its focus on the sullen-faced Clark at the expense of the other DC5 members, who provide sporadic one-liners and sight gags on those rare occasions that they appear on screen. I think the idea was to position Clark as an angry young man--a Mod-era Holden Caulfield, even--railing against the phoniness of modern life while being lost as to what should take its place.

It should also be said that Having a Wild Weekend’s—if you’ll pardon the pun—“beef” with modern consumer capitalism is a sincere one. Interestingly, Steve and Dinah’s first act upon making their escape is to vandalize Dinah’s billboards with graffiti and cans of black paint. From that point, we see the city through their eyes: as something alien—to the point that the omnipresence of Dinah’s giant, grinning face, alongside that grotesque slogan, becomes downright dystopian, the smile seeming more and more like an agonized rictus. When, later, Dinah takes up a bullhorn and starts haranguing passers-by (from the back of a Jaguar E-Type, mind you), it’s easy to imagine her shouting Situationist slogans. After all, what is these two malcontents’ journey if not a dérive, a re-contextualizing of experience with the distorting lens of consumer culture removed?

Perhaps that last statement is a little hard to swallow. Nonetheless, evidence of Having a Wild Weekend’s desire to be a French film ranges from the philosophical to the stereotypical, with an example of the latter being the striped shirt and beret ensembles that both Clark and Ferris wear for a good chunk of the picture. Influence of the New Wave abounds, with Breathless in particular being a frequent visual referent. Even its depiction of “no business as usual” defiance seems to presage the spirit of the 1968 Paris Revolt.

Having a Wild Weekend should also be credited for seeing its grim outlook through to its logical conclusion. At the end there is no escape for Steve and Dinah, with even their island sanctuary proving within reach of Zissell and his corporate cronies. At its conclusion, Steve walks away as Dinah is swallowed by a crowd of clamoring paparazzi and sycophants. Fidgeting nervously with her hair, she turns to Zissell and asks timidly, “Do I look alright?”

A shrewd businessman, Dave Clark sat on his band’s catalog for a number of years until he could command top dollar for it. It is a good thing that it is now available for all of us to enjoy, because his band’s upbeat music is the perfect antidote to this very downbeat film—which I wholeheartedly recommend nonetheless.

Swing it... Baby! (Philippines, 1979)

The notion that disco music was an innocuous peacetime distraction is belied by its reliance on an almost militaristic set of imperatives. No one ever wrote a disco song titled “Perhaps You Might Like to Dance”. Instead it was titles like “You Should Be Dancing” and exhortations to “get on the floor” and “shake your groove thing”. Faced with such hectoring demands, one could be forgiven for thinking that disco was little more than just bullying with a beat.

Which brings us to Swing It… Baby! Here Filipino sweetheart Vilma Santos, titular star of the three best Darna movies, plays Marilen, a disco queen who is also the manager of the disco group VST & Company, IRL chart toppers who sound so much like the Bee Gees that it has to be addressed within the screenplay (“The Bee Gees? There’s no comparison!”). Marilen is being tirelessly pursued by Ben Benedicto, an executive with Genesis Entertainment, who wants to sign the group. She testily refuses his offers, but for what reason I am not sure, as the film had no subtitles. It did seem, however, to be a matter of principle on Marilen’s part, as if going corporate would somehow compromise the purity of VST & Company’s disco.

Ben Benedicto, by the way, is played by Romeo Vasquez. A matinee idol in the Filipino cinema of the 60s, Vasquez excised himself from a career slump by starring in series of popular romantic dramas with Santos--of which Swing it… Baby! is the seventh--despite the fact that the eleven year age difference between the real life couple raised a few eyebrows. Ben’s mogul image is bolstered by the omnipresence at his side of three obsequious cronies played by the musical comedy trio Tito, Vic and Joey. Of this trio, Joey DeLeon also enjoyed considerable solo success as a comedian, radio personality and TV presenter, although he is most known to the discriminating readers of 4DK for his role in Alyas Batman en Robin.

The action of Swing It… Baby! plays out against preparations for a Filipino Music Festival sponsored by the “Pop Music Foundation”, which is presumably the reason for Ben so ardently wanting to add VST & Company to his stable. In an address to his staff, he lays out the scope of his vision: “We are not selling just records; We are not just promoting performers; We are also shaping new cultural patterns for our country”. Incidentally, the music of VST Company was representative of a Filipino cultural pattern then known as the “Manila Sound”. This was soon replaced by another cultural pattern known as “OPM” (“Original Pilipino Music”), thus punching the clock on VST and Company’s fifteen minutes of fame.

It eventually dawned on me that Swing It… Baby! takes place within the same fictional universe as the Bollywood film Disco Dancer—a sort of uber-populist disco dimension in which the dancers themselves have as much chance of winning fame and adulation as the musicians whose music they dance to. Thus VST and Company comes with a troupe of dancers that are both an inseparable part of their entourage and an equal attraction in their stage shows. The standout among these is Elmo, who, when not dancing for the group, commands adoring audiences who pay for the privilege of watching him and a couple of backup dancers do the Funky Chicken. Fittingly, he is played by Mike Monserrat, who came to fame as a dancer on the Filipino TV program Penthouse 7.

Marilen and her brother have a swank home, inherited from their parents, that serves as disco central for her and her friends. When financial woes raise the threat of them losing the house, she decides to knuckle under and sell out to Ben and Genesis Entertainment. The group’s arrival in The Big City follows, kicking off with them causing a Manila traffic jam which they quickly turn into a block party through the magic of disco. Meanwhile, Marilen and Ben have disco’d their way into a romance. This leads to her neglecting her duties toward the band, which in turn creates tensions that leave them prone to the influence of Ben’s scheming ex-girlfriend Didith (Amy Austria).

Though it would be unfair, given the lack of translation, for me to make a final judgment on the matter, I have to say that the chemistry between real life lovebirds Santos and Vasquez did not in my estimation exactly burn up the screen in Swing It… Baby! Then again, the romance between them is—somewhat tiresomely--portrayed as being of the wisened “oil and vinegar” variety, with their characters either bickering or broken up for most of their time on screen. Nonetheless, when the screenplay decides that the time has arrived, reconciliation is reached, and all drama is pushed aside to make room for a climactic disco spectacle of considerable pageantry.

Is Swing It… Baby! a must see? It is… provided you really, really, like disco--or if you are simply fascinated by the portrayal of individuals for whom disco is at the absolute center of their existence. There are indeed many amusing mustaches, sparkly tops, and poufy hairdos to behold, not to mention some chintzy but colorful stage sets (though, make no mistake: Xanadu this is not). Wilma Santos is her typical, fiery-yet-charming self and Tito, Vic and Joey perform a sci-fi themed number that namechecks Space 1999. At the same time, at two hours and twenty minutes, it is much longer than any film of which those can be claimed as its chief attributes has any right to be. If ever a film could be chopped up and snorted, that might be the ideal way to partake of this oddity.

Ago Go 67 (Singapore, 1967)

Produced by Shaw Brothers’ Malay language division under the direction of Nordin Arshad, Ago Go 67 hews very closely to the template set by the “pop review” type of films -- think Pop Gear, or Live It Up -- that were issuing from Britain during the 1960s. We have two nice kids with dreams of stardom, disapproving parents, slick music biz types, rapturously frugging teens, and just enough of a plot to serve as the connective tissue between numerous musical vignettes showcasing the hitmakers of the day. Along the way, those of us at a historical remove from the proceedings are given an alluring snapshot of the Beatles-influenced “Pop Yeh Yeh” movement that was exploding throughout Malaysia at the time.

A pair of popular young actor/singers, Aziz Jaafar and Noor Azizah, respectively play Johari (“Joe”) and Fauziah. Fauziah works days as a shop girl while Joe labors at a stable with the film’s designated comic relief (S. Shamsuddin). Nights, however, are dedicated to practicing with their beat band, Dendang Perindu, which, as far as I can tell is played by the real beat band Dendang Perindu. This is an activity that Fauziah must keep secret from her father (Ahmad Nisfu), a blustering martinet who loudly objects to the youth music of today with all of its “yeah yeah yeah”-ing and such.

While visiting a recording studio at the behest of a slick music biz type played by Kuswadinata, the kids in Dendang Perindu see a poster for a record company sponsored talent showcase that just may provide them with their big break. It just may also provide Ago Go 67 with the opportunity to present us with a string of musical performance clips by groups with names like Wan Intan & The Mods, M. Ishak & The Young Lovers, The Terwellos, and Orchid Abdullah & Les Coasters.

One thing I learned from Ago Go 67 and my subsequent research into same is that the associations between Malay singers of the era and the bands who backed them up were somewhat transient, with the bands allying themselves with whichever performer opportunity -- or, perhaps, commerce -- smiled upon at that moment. For example, The Rythmn Boys (sic), who here perform behind singer S. Mariam, became one of the most in-demand backing bands on the scene after winning a Dave Clark 5-themed talent contest, and resultantly played with a number of different artists. On the other hand, singer Siti Zaitan, who here beams through an energetic, spy-themed number called “Alam Seni” to the accompaniment of The Hornets, was more often seen fronting a group called The Firebirds.

Despite defying the prevailing naming conventions, Denang Perindu ultimately win the big break we all knew they would. Unfortunately, as fate and the necessities of three act structure would have it, it is at this time that Fauziah’s father chooses to bring the hammer down on her musical activities. Providing further complications is Salvia, the singer for a rival band played by Malay sexpot Norma Zainal, who has unwelcome romantic designs on young Joe. It will take all of the moxie these teens can muster to make sure everything is set right before the producers of Ago Go 67 see fit to cram in another uninterrupted block of musical performances.

While Fausiah’s dad getting all het up about it provides the required note of generational tension, there really isn’t much on display in Ago Go 67 that one could imagine presenting much of a threat to the status quo. The music is undeniably fun, but lightweight, perfectly suited to the wholesome prancing of the clean cut -- shirts and ties for the boys, knee-length jumpers for the girls -- dancers who shimmy along to it.

This is not to say that there are not standouts among the performances, the aforementioned Siti Zaitan & The Hornets’ being one of them. On top of that, there is the striking androgyny and haunting vocal of D4-Ever singer, D. Hatta, who came into this world as one Mohamed Hatta Abdul Wahab (like some Jewish American singers, Malaysian singers of the era appear to have had a tendency to deracinate their stage names -- perhaps understandably, given the racial strife that was gripping the country at the time). Elsewhere, Blind singer S. Jibeng -- rather than presenting himself as an inspirational figure like so many other disabled artists before him -- seems to be milking his condition for pathos with the song “Nasib si Butah” (“Blind Luck”). He starts by dropping his cane onto the set from off-screen, as if by accident, and then scrambles for it pathetically on the ground before launching into his mournful tune.

Also bearing mention is the level of musicianship on display in Ago Go 67, which is exceptional. The guitar instrumentals of groups like The Ventures and, especially, The Shadows had an enormous influence on Southeast Asian beat groups at the time, which is given ample testament here. The resulting prominence of busy and interweaving, melodic guitar lines requires a lot of lightning-fingered picking on the part of the axemen in these groups. This, of course, does not cancel out the need for showmanship, as equal prominence is given to lots of choreographed guitar moves -- a tradition that I wish would return, along with the practice, abundantly in evidence here, of conveniently labeling the kick drum head with the band’s name.

A movie like Ago Go 67 was likely seen as a quick money maker for Shaw, unworthy of the vibrant color lavished on its Hong Kong productions. Still, one can’t help wishing it could have been otherwise, especially when considering the delightfully campy designs of the individualized sets on which each group performs. All of the staple elements of 1960s variety show mise-en-scène are on view: the giant musical notes, the ascending rampways to nowhere, the stylized street scenes populated by bizarre, human-like effigies. Singer S. Mariam is even provided with an on-stage vanity table and mirror, into which she stares with delicious melancholy, like a Malay Francoise Hardy, brushing her hair absently as the intro plays. What M. Ishak & The Young Lovers did to have their song, “Menari Go-Go”, simply performed in someone’s backyard, I’ll never know.

I think it goes without saying that Ago Go 67, which is currently available in its entirety on YouTube, is a real treat for fans of world pop, be it of the musical or cinematic variety. If, like me, you are a fan of both, it is a little slice of heaven. As an added bonus, the steadfastly formulaic nature of its plot renders subtitles completely unnecessary. For example, I don’t need to speak Malay to know what Fauziah’s father, predictably humbled and chagrined at the film’s end, is saying. Darn those crazy kids!

Never Too Young to Rock (England, 1976)

Never Too Young to Rock begins in a dystopian present: England in the mid 1970s, when the powers that be are conspiring to ban rock n’ roll music from television. As an opening title card tells us, a young man named Hero (Peter Denyer) has endeavored to stage a gala TV concert in defiance of this ban, despite opposition from the “enemies of rock n’ roll”. This immediately gets me excited, because I love movies in which rock music is portrayed as being under attack by graying suits who fear its subversive power, ignoring the very many graying suits for whom rock was a pocket lining cash cow.

Anyway, because there are no telephones in this world, Hero must take to the road in order to find the specific bands he needs for the concert. Fortunately he is not unaided in this task, as he has at his service the Group Detector Van, a sophisticated piece of mobile equipment that can hone in on the unique sonic signature of any designated pop group. Which is a great idea, as long as those groups are playing at all times. Happily, the million selling group Mud (Mud) have nothing better to do than run through their chart topping hits at a small roadside café. Meanwhile, a food fight breaks out among the patrons and we are introduced to one of Never Too Young to Rock’s primary flaws: its tendency to interrupt its musical numbers with dialogue scenes, by which songs are reduced to intermittent blaring snippets bisected by patches of people mumbling disconsolately at one another.

Now, in case you don’t know who Mud is -- because you probably don’t -- a primer: Along with The Sweet and Suzi Quatro, Mud was part of the stable of bands for which songwriters Michael Chapman and Nicky Chin wrote hit after hit during the glam era. That duo, known professionally as Chinnichap, had a gift for nonsensical but naggingly catchy tunes (The Sweet’s “Little Willy”, for instance, and, later, Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”) that went straight for the pocket books of British teeny boppers of the time. Unlike Sweet – and, to a lesser extent, Suzi Quatro -- the band never made so much as a dent in the U.S. charts, which may be due to their odd combination of bubble gummy, 50s influenced tunes with a roaring, wall of guitar sound. For Americans, probably the most noteworthy thing about the band is that guitarist Rob Gray later wrote “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” for Kylie Minogue.

But one band does not a gala concert make, and so we are next introduced to The Glitter Band (The Glitter Band), who doubled as the backing band for now noted kiddie fiddler Gary Glitter. And then it’s on to the Rubettes, a group with a distinctly nostalgic 1950s vibe who somehow got co-opted into the glitter scene by dint of sheer proximity. Other acts on tap include the beardy Whoopee Band and Slick, featuring a pre-Ultravox Midge Ure looking like a teenage stoner. Throughout this musical cavalcade, a variety of wan attempts on the part of the “enemies of rock n’ roll” are made to derail the Group Detector Van’s mission, leading to a pokey fan boat chase with helicopters buzzing overhead, an attempted bombing, and a bit where the van is vaguely pursued by a bunch of black clad cyclists. Meanwhile, Mud act as the van’s defenders by firing toy dart guns at everyone.

If there’s any reason to love Never Too Young to Rock, it’s because, goddamn it, someone has to, and clearly no one involved in making it did. The film came early in the career of director Dennis Abey, who later worked almost exclusively in British television. In keeping with that, Abey’s vision for the picture seems resolutely small scale, with a penchant for low angle shots that give us a toddler’s eye view of the action, as well as a lot of pore exploring close-ups of the actors where none seem warranted. To be fair, though, Abey was obviously saddled with a tight schedule and a very low budget; flubbed lines are given a pass, edits are sloppy, and poor sound recording renders some of the dialog incomprehensible. Abey makes some half hearted stabs at druggy surrealism, but these mainly seem like a sweding of Magical Mystery Tour. A chase through a military training ground reminds us that someone still thought the sight of anyone in uniform in a British countercultural comedy was innately hilarious. And then for some reason there are robed Klansmen running around, and then there aren’t.

At a seemingly random point in Never Too Young to Rock, Hero suddenly turns to his curmudgeonly driver Mr. Rockbottom (Freddie Jones – and, yes, it’s that kind of movie) and shouts “We did it!” As mysterious as this proclamation may be, there’s no point in pondering it, as now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the Big Concert. With prerecorded adolescent screaming filling in for an unseen audience, The Glitter Band and The Rubettes each run through a couple of their hits, and then it’s time for Mud. This was probably the high point of the movie for me, because, even though lip synched, Mud’s “Dynamite” is a pretty rocking song.

The concert seems to be a rousing success, but whether it succeeded in staving off the ban is never addressed. For, as soon as it ends, the credits roll… and it’s time for some more graying suits to collect their take.