Lábios Ardentes

John Carroll is a teaching assistant in music at a small college, with a snobby attitude towards popular music and a snobby fiancee. His specialty is the folk song, and he's working on his thesis and performing with a student choir. Pop singer Stan Freberg is in town and hears one of the numbers. He wants to perform it, so he tells producer Jim Backus to get it for him, who tells assistant Mala Powers hat he wants John Carroll, who has a good voice, on a standard Tin Pan Alley song. Miss Powers convinces Carroll he'll be cutting an album of folk songs, which he agrees to. They slip in a modern love song, which they release as a single as by "The Mysterious Traveler" and it's a hit. Then ensues complications between Carroll and the two women.

It's not the first time this plot has been used, and this hits all the standard notes. The high points are the comic relief provided by Backus' smarmy, avaricious producer, and by Freberg's full-blown satire of teen rock and roll singers of the period; this was the period when his satires of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "Cry" were selling like mad, and it's interesting to see him here in person; most of his career was spent in radio work, or producing insane but very popular television and radio commercials.

To enjoy this movie, you need to know the popular music of the era, which I do. If you do, you'll enjoy this with a big smirk on your face. If not, well, Backus' character is still with us. He never goes away.