Millonario adolescente

I always remembered this movie because it was so vacuous. Half the film was shot by a pool, with a minimal plot. There would be a little action, sometimes with Rocky Graziano as the boy's assistant doing his shtick about boxing, after which the the boy hero would ask him to put on a record. Then the audience saw the performer doing a number. Thus, only half the film deals with the storyline. It wouldn't surprise me if the segments with the performances were shot separately for promotional purposes and then included in the film. I believe some of the performances were later cut from that film and occasionally turn up on television today. This and films like it are a major source of performances from early rockers.

This was like watching the proverbial car wreck...truly horrible, but you can't turn your head away.

The editing was the worst I have ever seen in a movie. (They cut to a musical number for no reason whatsoever, and sometimes they would lose a word or two of dialog - no great loss as the scriptwriters obviously failed grade school English class.) The film was in B&W, but they "jazzed it up" by having cheesy sepia color hues in the background...orange-ish, lime green-ish.

The only way to see this film would be with a six pack and a group of friends to laugh at how bad it is. The clothes, hairstyles, stupid plot and bad acting were a hoot.

I had wanted to see "Teenage Millionaire" for a long time. For one thing, I have found many "teensploitation" movies from the 1950s and 1960s to be campy fun, and the idea of portraying a teenage millionaire had the potential to be a hoot. Also, I like music from the 1960s, and hearing that this movie was full of musical numbers made me want to see it more.

After seeing the movie, I must confess I was very disappointed with the results. Even though the central youth of the movie is a teenage millionaire, there's almost nothing done with it. Where's the acting wild? Where's doing whatever you want? There's nothing like that here.

In fact, I'd say about half of the movie is instead devoted to cut-aways to top recording stars of the era lip-synching their hits. If the music had been good, this might have saved the movie. But almost all of the music is terrible, even though it comes from famed singers like Dion. I hadn't heard just about any of these songs before, and listening to them, it's clear why oldies stations haven't resurrected them. The songs are slow and not catchy. That is, except for Chubby Checker's numbers - they are spirited and directed with some energy. However, even his numbers suffer from a problem with all the song numbers - the annoying color tints used to try and pass this off as a partially color movie instead of 100% black and white.

This movie has never been issued on video or DVD. I suspect that issues with music rights have prevented this. But trust me, you are not missing anything.

A great little period piece! Was 17 when this movie was made. What an innocent time for America. The movie centers around the record industry and is a showcase for some of the singers of the time. Kinda cool to see everyone with a shave and the girls looking like girls! No hippies in this one, just a light story with lots of videos of the stars of that era. Yeah the plot line is corny and the dialog coached but then again maybe we were corny back then and our dialog a little coached. Liked it a whole lot better when you could tell the boys from the girls the biggest thing I worried about was getting gas for the car and palmade for my hair. A movie without drugs, fighting, sex or murder, what a concept! Maybe we should go back to corny and coached dialog....

EJ

I liked this film for a number of reasons.The big budget,cgi films of today cost mega bucks yet are tiresome,with no story,and so music video fast-paced that you can't see anything worth seeing.The old black & white low budget films are campy fun.You get to see famous people in early roles or maybe at the end of their careers.The clothes,cars and music take some of us back to times that were the happiest for us and our country.I hadn't seen this film before yesterday when I saw it on cable and it is a hoot.One minute your listening to corny dialog then a musical performance pops in.Jackie Wilson(a favorite of mine )does a great Elvis impersonation singing a song with the same moves and all or was Elvis imitating Jackie? Loved the song too.As some one else commented it was am early version of a music video.Now for a correction The Jack Larson in this film is not the same guy that played Jimmy Olsen on the Superman TV series.I made the same mistake with a TV show. This Jack played a horrible nightclub performer whose uncle hires Rob,Sally and Buddy to write his act in an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" I noted on a website for "Superman" that this Jack had changed so much it was hard to believe it was the same guy yet he had mentioned the part in his autobiography.Well someone noted they are are in fact two different men hence the reason they look nothing alike! Just 2 guys with the same name.As for Jimmy Clanton he looks like a young Donald O'Connor to me.He should have made more films no worse than any other teen singing sensation turned actor.A great find for anyone loving 60's B films.