Les Jeunes

Before the Beatles came along to personify post World War II British music there was a battle between Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard as the top pop boy singer of the United Kingdom. Both these guys like Elvis Presley did some films that were tailored to the image they projected and this one The Young Ones suits Richard's clean cut image. Unlike the Beatles who had those Liverpudlian accents that took a bit of getting used to when they spoke, Richard's was a clear and proper diction.

Almost as precise as Robert Morley's who plays Richard's tycoon business father. It's almost like a Frank Capra film with the generations battling each other until the young one teaches the old one to be cool.

Morley is building a huge office building and the youth club that Richard belongs to is targeted for demolition. With no place for his pals to hang out the younger ones decide to use that tried and true method handed down from Mickey and Judy, put on a show.

The plot of course is just an excuse for Richard and his back up band The Shadows to perform a lot of numbers, some good ones too. That opening sequence was quite cleverly done using almost the whole city of London as a backdrop. Richard is a pleasing performer and he's given a good opportunity to display his wares.

As an actor not that good especially when stacked up against Robert Morley who looks like he's having a great old time as the Scrooge like father. But the numbers are staged well and this is a film that really shows London at the turn of the 60s.

Sir Cliff Richard was then England 's biggest star ,and the thing George Martin had in mind was to surpass his success,which meant a lot! It's 1961 ,still in the pre- Beatles days ,but girls (see the scene in the theater) already scream when the "mystery " singer appears on stage.

Nicky is a millionaire's son but he does not want to let the cat out of the bag ,for fear he may lose all his good pals (only his girlfriend knows);and,you would never believe it, daddy wants to destroy the youth club to build big buildings;and he is so wealthy he can buy everything ,"lock,stock and barrel " to be precise .

Blackman Sr is played by highly talented Robert Morley,who makes his character nicer than ,say ,Uncle Scroodge ( both Dicken's and Barks/Disney's)

Richard ,21,is good-looking ,and there's a good chemistry with Morley (who could easily have stolen most of the scenes he is in);his ballads are tuneful and pleasant ,particularly the title track;he is less at ease with pure rock and roll :Elvis Presley,he is definitely not.The talented Shadows have an instrumental and ,with hindsight,can be considered influential in the future of rock,which is not really the case with their singer.

Too bad the movie tries so hard to emulate the American musicals in an interminable sequence ;the best scenes ,from that point of view,are to be found in the youth club :the scene in which a deadpan Sir Cliff dances with the "star" is worth the price of admission;the illegal TV advertisement is also a good moment.

This is delightfully old -fashioned stuff,which retains a certain pristine charm.

I watched this film not long after it was released and even then it felt cheesy and dated! The thing that screams out after recently watching it again, was that sadly Cliff was no actor and was a limited dancer. The flimsy storyline and the wooden acting makes it very much a 'B' film. The dialogue is all a bit too 'sugary' and 'golly gosh' let's put on a show and damn the consequences.' I remember seeing a similar but much older film, 'Strike up the Band,' with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Its in the same type of genre but 'The Young Ones,' lack the sparkle and energy of a Garland and Rooney! 'The Young Ones' tries too hard to to project the younger characters as innocents, who are out to to prove that the adults, like Robert Morley are 'fuddy duddies' - but all they simply achieve is to show how clueless and naive they really are. It would have been far better to have dispensed with Melvyn Hayes and Cliff's other unfunny sidekicks, and allowed the 'Shadows' to have had real speaking parts where Cliff could have played off the characters like Jet Harris and Hank Marvin, musicians he knew so well. As it was, Cliff gives a feeble, limp and lack lustre performance, and with corny gags and the contrived storyline, it all makes for a tedious experience.

I saw this film aged 11 when it came out and loved it. It seemed fresh and exciting - and importantly it was in colour! It was full of possibility and aspiration to this post war lad.

Film and TV at this time seemed set upon diluting rock n roll by transforming its stars into 'all round entertainers'. Once Elvis had been neutered by his period in the army, films involving popular music involved clean cut clones like Fabian or Ricky Nelson - or a squeaky clean Elvis himself. Cliff was a UK version of this phenomenon - himself an Elvis clone initially smouldering for Jack Good on TV's 'Oh Boy!', but polished up for this film, his sexual threat now removed.

Someday someone will produce a proper study of the period 1958 to 1962, where nothing dangerous seemed to happen and rock lay fallow. Actually rock was just regrouping for the Mersey sound and more.

The film however is a UK version of a typical Hollywood musical, and by UK standards some money has been spent. Looking at it now though, you can see it was a throwback even then.

On a personal note I have a soft spot for the old long gone Finsbury Park Empire - near where used to live - which is the supposed location where 'the young ones' put on a show.

In fact this film may be the origin of the cliche 'Hey - why don't we put the show on right here?!'

Also as a small footnote - reckon the production designer of 'Absolute Beginners' in 1986, owes The Young Ones a debt

This is the kind of movie to spend your fee on when you were a British teenager in the early sixties. But there is hardly a story, and what there is is very predictable. The movie has two strong moments however: the first 10 minutes are really an example of how a musical can start at full-speed, and the part where Cliff Richard sings the title song, strolling along "the serpentine" in Hyde Park, London, with the lovely Carole Gray aside him. A little bit of a cult movie, and a very weak brother of West side story. But it has its place in history and millions have enjoyed it. Cliff's fans probably still do.