This early rock n roll "extravaganza", looks to have been made one weekend in a school and its gym in Dallas Texas on a wobbly cardboard set masquerading as a 'nightclub' using kitchen chairs and card tables with burger shop tablecloths. It is really cheap. However, the various song and rock acts are interesting, especially the Negro group with the live rooster stepping about on the piano. I kid you not. The set is so tiny, and seeming to be rectangular and very narrow crammed with local kids and their parents, local businesspeople (who probably financed it) seen as extras to crowd out several scenes. Mostly filmed on this one set with a parade of local music groups wailing and jamming (literally), one could not get a more basic excuse for a 50s rock and roll film. I am sure it made plenty of local $ as it is so early in the cycle that it could not help but succeed. Probably a local drive in staple for years. However, today it is pretty tough going...a better seen Corman equivalent is the equally tedious and cheap ROCK ALL NIGHT, which is a similar excuse to film 65 mins of teen angst and rock gangs on the one set. This film ROCK BABY ROCK IT is not very good, but of mild interest because of the cheap but snazzy 50s clothes and the black pop groups. One particular singing pair known as The Belew Twins are terrifying: they look like 11 year old boys who just might be 29 years old; the ventriloquist dummy look with the Brylcreem Happy Days hair. During their set they even team up with equally peculiar twin Funicello style girls, even smaller than them! The boys have a seagull stance when singing and sound like Loretta Lynn. So weird...it is almost worth the struggle through this film to gasp in horror at their moment. In reel life I would not have gone to their Christmas party...imagine what they would do after a few drinks and started a set singing and performing their unique party tricks. I think they would have given those drunken Oz Munchkins a run for the bottle.
Review of Rock Baby - Rock It
