Lang Jr Out-of-balance no-budget teen film features terrific music set to threadbare non-plot. The movie is little more than a showcase for several early, obscure, but talented acts; all the numbers are above average and quite entertaining. Like Louie Prima's awful "The Continental Twist" which hit drive-in screens four years later, the story involves a group of mobsters who are trying to evict the local teens from a makeshift dance club. In this picture the hoodlums need a hangout to run the connection to the "Detroit Syndicate". Highlight of the action is when the boss makes Crackers Louie dance by the pool. Standout musical numbers include "Roogie Doogie" by Preacher Smith, and "Juanita" by the Five Stars. The cast is divided into "Wheels" and "Squares".

Tom Willett (yonhope) Not a bad film for Bad Movie Night. This is very watchable and definitely listenable. The Belew Twins are my favorite act in this. They are the genuine real deal singing harmonies at the beginning and end of their songs. I think the Belew Twins have a certain sexiness that is not the same as The Everly Brothers. The Everlys looked great and sang great, but they would not be likely to sneak into your daughter's room or receive calls on the pay phone next to the urinal. The Belew Twins just have a try-anything-once look that, frankly, is refreshing. They look like the combed and showered boys next door who are out to lose whatever they can by Midnight. I really enjoyed their enthusiasm and lack of shyness when they danced.The bad guys are funny. The fights are awful. The musical groups and singers and some dancers all come off well. The chicken on the piano or rooster on the spinet was all they could afford for set dressing. The camera work is low budget but adequate. It looked like some of the musicians actually were playing the instruments they held.I hope The Belew Twins are still around and still performing. I would love to know their story or stories. I hope they recorded Belew Moon of Kentucky. This is seriously a fun movie to watch if you like the old cars ( when they were new cars ) and the old hair styles and the mobs that couldn't fight. It Belew my mind.

Woodyanders Undoubtedly one of the chintziest and hence most authentically grubby of the numerous cheap rocksploitation churned out in mass volume in the 50's, this Dallas, Texas marvel thrillingly captures the sweetly ingenuous bring-the-house-down rumbling excitement rock possessed when it first came into being. Technically, it's a ratty shambles, with ragged editing, scroungy photography, primitive fade-outs, lovably dated hep-cat lingo ("You're the most"), and hopelessly stiff acting. However, the sincerity and eagerness evident throughout make the pic's shoddiness both forgivable and ultimately strangely endearing. In fact, the rough ramshackle quality of the film-making actually lends a certain grungy quasi-documentary verisimilitude to the divinely naive and dippy proceedings.As usual, the story is really threadbare, a faint whiff of a plot that solely exists as a flimsy excuse to show off plenty of hot local rock'n'roll acts. This time a bunch of ugly, tubby, nefarious middle-aged square mobsters threaten to take over a hoppin' Lone Star state teen nightspot, so the smart and resourceful kids hold an impromptu charity rock benefit concert to raise enough bread to save their beloved hangout from the greasy gangsters' vile clutches. And, boy oh boy, does said concert deliver the tasty and eclectic a little bit of everything multi-genre music goods. The Cellblock Seven sweep up the floor with a few just swell and stirring bebop jazz swing tunes. The exquisitely dulcet Belew Twins vault straight for the heavens with their sharp, keen, downright otherworldly harmonizing. The Five Stars display lots of style and charm with their delicious serving of right-on doo-wop nirvana. Preacher Smith and the Deacans lay down some slow, funky-stompin' boogie woogie barn burners. Don Coats and the Bon-Aires set hearts aflutter with their gorgeously dreamy, swooning and romantic white guy pop crooning. Roscoe Gordon and the Red Tops rock it up something nice with their supremely wailin', yet still beautifully forlorn and lonesome blues moping. All these bands seriously smoke, but the cat who clearly makes off with the whole stupendously hip'n'happening show is 19-year-old rockabilly firecracker Ron "Hot Rocks" Carroll, a dynamic spark-plug whose wild gyrations and scorching stage presence damn nearly make Elvis seem like small potatoes. And speaking of the Big E, Kay Wheeler, the founder and president of the Elvis Presley fan club, puts in a simply dazzling cameo appearance, energetically cuttin' it up on stage like nobody's business. All in all, this crudely slapped together item sizes up as the lively, exuberant, rockin' all through the night delightful living end, daddy-o!

ptb-8 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.