helenandgraham Watching any film 50 years after you last saw it is, at any time, a mildly unnerving experience. A film that boasts the dubious title 'Expresso Bongo' and features a not-greatly post-pubescent Cliff Richard should have provided a strong warning that turning back the clock is not always a good idea but, actually, this was a great pleasure. Based on a successful stage musical and set in the heart of the Soho music industry of the late 1950s as it comes to terms with rock and roll , 'Expresso Bongo' retains a salty edge even now. Laurence Harvey plays a chancer who happens to come across a young rocker (Cliff Richard) who he seeks to exploit shamelessly but who then proves more than a match for him. With a sharp, pungent and funny script (by 50s star writer Wolf Mankowitz) and plenty of night location shooting in Soho, the film fizzes along for the most part, resembling 'Sweet Smell of Success', but with songs and a slightly softer edge. The version on this DVD has been shorn of its extrinsic musical numbers (including one sung by old-style musical promoter Maier Tzelniker that I remember well, starting 'When I compare these little bleeders to the chorus from Aida….nausea!') but still has time for the wonderfully cynical 'Shrine on the Second Floor', as Cliff is propelled into religiosity to further his career. Harvey's weaselly good looks are just right and Sylvia Sims is very sexy as his long-suffering stripper girlfriend. Even Cliff acquits himself well, with just the right amount of ambivalence as to his complicity (including being asked, not for the last time, why he has no girlfriend). In a film where everyone is either on the make or being exploited, sometimes at the same time, there is at least one poignant real-life parallel. The distinguished stage actress Hermione Baddelley here plays a veteran street tart. She has a couple of affectionate scenes with Harvey, with whom, despite their age difference, she had a relationship in the early 1950s just as his career was getting under way. Now, Harvey was on a roll and would shortly go to Hollywood on the strength of his next film, 'Man at the Top'.

dont_tell_duncan This was actually much better than I thought it could have been. And for a younger viewer it provides a snapshot of how Cliff really was once hip, belying his now ubiquitously and perennially uncool image. However, not being any sort of director or producer, it is very rare I ever have an insight of how I would remake a film. In the right hands, though, you sense the germs of a story that could have been executed with far more pathos - in the manner of say, a 'Darling' or even an 'All About Eve'. Entertaining as it is, it falls far short of being even the best Cliff film.Lawrence Harvey is - for the first time that I've seen - badly miscast as the sleazy agent with a heart. He never quite gets to grips with the deeper layers of the amoral Johnny Jackson and the accent flits around hopelessly compounding the problem. You imagine what a Dirk Bogarde or even a young Peter Sellers might have done with such a role? Yolande Donlon portrays 'American star' on autopilot and the sexual tension is far too underplayed (although probably a fear of the censors more than anything else). Cliff is reasonably endearing, but is laughable as any sort of 'British Elvis' - one watch of King Creole (which this film surely owes a lot to) demonstrates Elvis as a far superior actor, albeit one who was never really given a chance to shine. He also inevitably always managed to wear his outfits - however outlandish - with far more panache than the embarrassing costumes Cliff is forced to don (check out the swimming trunks/shoes/socks combo!). Only Sylvia Syms is amiably convincing, but is never really given adequate chance to shine in the role of stripper-with-a-heart Maisie King.At the root of the problem is a makeshift script which suffers from not knowing what it wants to be? Is it a morality tale? Light entertainment? A document of a short era of London's youth culture? Or simply a quick buck being made off what I imagine was expected at the time to be Cliff's fleeting popularity? Whilst there are flashes of wit and the odd great scene, these are counterbalanced by irrelevant unfunny scenes (such as those involving the inexplicable buffoon children of Donlon's publicist?) and insufficient background characterisation of all the leads. It also lacks sufficient songs of a quality which could help carry it - only Voice In The Wilderness even vaguely stands up as credible, and even then it's not exactly 'edgy'.In short it's not by any means the worst way to spend 90 mins on a Sunday afternoon or suchlike, but you may end up wishing for what could have been so much more...

bkoganbing It's been said that Cliff Richard was the UK's equivalent of Elvis Presley. Personally I saw a lot more Ricky Nelson or Frankie Avalon in his musical style. Nevertheless he was and does remain a very big singing star in the British Commonwealth countries though he never was able to make it the USA market as the Beatles who symbolize the next generation of pop stars.He plays what he is a young musical hopeful who gets discovered by Laurence Harvey, a fast talking British cockney version of Sammy Glick. Harvey gives a nice performance here though he's almost as 'on' all the time as Phil Silvers. Sylvia Sims is Harvey's patient girl friend who works as a stripper in a Soho club and Yolande Donlon who was an American expatriate in London plays an American musical comedy star who takes a far more than motherly interest in young Richard. Donlon manages to best Harvey, but the man does come out of the battle none the worst for wear.Expresso Bongo is a realistic look at the British music industry at the beginning of the sixties. Richard sings a couple of songs and does them well in the manner of Ricky Nelson.Best scene in the film when Harvey gets on a panel discussion show with a minister and psychologist about today's youth and their musical taste. Those two and the moderator were certainly not expecting the shtick Harvey gave them. Worth seeing for that alone.

rayshaw44 Harvey's performance is akin to Cary Grant in His girl Friday which I term "Cary Grant unleashed" Like Grant, Harvey takes his character and far from overacting rather sets the screen on fire. As for the movie itself,it lags when Harvey is not on the screen and it needs another actress in the Dixie roll who can somehow match Harvey. Dixie drags down the last third of the film. For the legions who deem Harvey's career as a series of zombie-like performances, Bongo turns that opinion on it's ear. Cliff Richard does a good job in his first screen roll. Beware of the current DVD release. It does not have several musical numbers and this greatly mars the movie.