Wild Guitar

Wild Guitar has great economic story telling. It only takes Arch Hall Jr an afternoon to become a singing sensation. He arrives in Hollywood and before he has a chance to even tune his guitar he's making his TV debut. By nightfall he's hooked up with a crooked manager and is well on his way to becoming an overnight sensation. Personally I think the cherub faced Hal Jr has more talent in his left pinkie than all the American Idol winners combined. He doesn't really play a wild guitar however. The skating scene nicely showcases Nancy Czar's talents on blades. It also reveals why Arch Hall Jr would never be up for the lead part in The Bobby Orr Story. Unless of course, his dad produced it.

Your typical 'wannabe rock star finds fame, gets his ethics tested, but finds his heart too' story.

Arch Hall Jr. was very likable in the lead. Supposedly, he was a musician first and only made films because his father talked him into it. I think he's a retired cargo pilot in Colorado now.

Arch Hall Sr. 's role as the manager was basically a sleazier version of himself.

Steckler (aka Cash Flagg) as Steak was fun to watch too. Because he and Hall Jr. were supposed to fight in the end, and Hall Jr. was visibly larger, he played the Steak character as an evil sleaze too. This way no one felt sympathy for this little guy getting beat up by a big guy. R.D.S is a professional even if it's all low budget.

Nancy Czar looked great too. She was also the lone survivor of that plane crash that killed most of a figure skating team a few years before.

Classic 60's rock movie. It belongs in a time capsule.

This was the historic collaboration between Arch Hall, Sr, who wrote the script, and first-time director Ray Dennis Steckler. It's not on the level of Steckler's future bizarre works, but still has enough strange artistic choices to keep Stecklerites interested.

Lunk-headed Bud Eagle (Eegah's scrunchy-faced teen dream Arch Hall, Jr), spastically rides his motorcycle into Hollywood to become a star and before the night is over he's stumbled onto a variety show, played his guitar, and gotten tons of offers to cut records, be on TV, and sleep with comely starlets. Unfortunately, he gets signed by crooked agent Mike McCauley (played by Arch Senior) and his evil henchmen Steak (Steckler) who sets Bud up in the house from `Eegah', the one with the oven in the living room. They also give him a new guitar to replace his crummy one, but I'm not sure which guitar is the titular wild one. Mike goes about getting Bud some gigs: `Bud Eagle? For five hundred dollars? You're talking- you're crazy! Five THOUSAND is more like it! He's the hottest thing in the country!'

The weird thing is, Mike and Steak insist on doing shady business deals to make Bud a star, like creating fake teenage fan clubs and trying to start an `Eagle feather' fad. But what the hell? They're doing all these under-handed things to make money, but they don't have too. I mean, Bud got all those offers, right? So why don't they just take the offers and make money? They also constantly try to sabotage Arch's relationship with weird-faced diner-denizen Vicki. Bud's response it to squeeze out the love ode `Vicki' as heard in `Eegah'. While he sings, Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt `dances' around the stage.

Steckler's next movie was his `Citizen Kane', `The Incredibly Strange Creatures who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb', while The Halls continued their downward spiral, with Hall, Sr, insisting his son was star material in flicks like `The Sadist', `The Nasty Rabbit', and `Deadwood ‘76'.

This was featured on `Teenage Theatre', a video series produced by Johnny Legend (who sings the Teenage Theatre song) and hosted by antediluvian `teen' Mamie Van Doren, who more recently frightened movie goers in `Slackers'.

Incredible-looking drive-in item with Arch Hall Jr. playing a singer-songwriter-guitarist from South Dakota who comes to Hollywood hoping for his show business break. The story is naïve, the continuity and writing have problems, a sub-plot involving three stooges who hang out at a coffee shop is dire, and yet this generally unpolished picture really does look fantastic. The assured black-and-white cinematography is by Joseph C. Mascelli, who even gets a wistful teenage moment out of an ice-skating sequence wherein the rink's spotlights are shining directly into the camera lens. Arch Hall Jr.'s notorious father co-wrote the screenplay under a pseudonym, but Arch Sr. doesn't have a good ear for give-and-take dialogue, nor does the sluggish direction by Ray Dennis Steckler (a.k.a. Cash Flagg) ease up on the awkward hesitations. However, one can almost believe a kid like Arch Jr. could be a star; with his bottle-blonde pompadour and dimply semi-smile, he looks like Michael J. Pollard's kid brother. Arch has a not-bad singing style patterned after the teen idols of the day (such as Ricky Nelson) and he downplays the goofy general handling for a winning effect. The plot attempts to give the woeful a-star-is-born formula a modern spin--and it surprises by being not half-bad, especially for fans of 1960s underground cinema. ** from ****

I'm worried. You see, after seeing this movie, I've just decided that Arch Hall, Jr. is my role model, and frankly I don't think that's a very healthy thing.

The thing is that I've never been known for my looks and personality. But Arch Hall, Jr. is as ugly as a canker sore, and has a personality (at least in this film) that grates like a table saw cutting through a nail. But he gets to play the teen idol singing star (even though he plays guitar like a gibbon wearing boxing gloves and sings like he's just stubbed his toe) and _he gets all the chicks_! Wow! Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Of course, it didn't hurt that his daddy was the producer and screenwriter, and that he acted under the sure and steady hand of director Ray Dennis Steckler (of TISCWSLABMUZ fame). Nor did it hurt that he was surrounded by actors so insanely moronic as to render young Arch suave and sophisticated-looking.

Aww, who am I kidding? I'm many things, but I'm no Arch Hall, Jr.