Go, Johnny, Go!

Having previously appeared in Rock Rock Rock! and Mister Rock and Roll, this was the third-and final-appearance of rocker Chuck Berry in a movie that also starred DJ Alan Freed. He and Freed actually act together in this one as they try to get singer Johnny Melody (Jimmy Clanton) on his way to stardom. Now that I just got much of the plot out of the way, I'll just say that it was quite a pleasure seeing Berry performing his hits "Memphis, Tennessee" and "Little Queenie" here. Also loved Jackie Wilson being showcased among the other performances. The movie itself was quite compelling dramatically but I'm glad things get resolved quickly so it doesn't drag. Unfortunately, after this both Freed and Berry would be involved in scandals-Freed in payola and Berry in a sex charge involving a minor with the result of Freed drinking himself to death and Berry serving a few years in jail before making a comeback several years later. This would also become the only appearance of Ritchie Valens before his untimely passing in a plane crash that also took the lives of The Big Bopper and Buddy Holly. He was good, too! On a lighter note, since I always like to cite when players from my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-are in something else, here, it's Dick Elliot-who was that man who told Jimmy Stewart to kiss Donna Reed instead of talking to her to death-who's impatient about going into the phone booth after Clanton and his girlfriend keep hogging the phone! It was hilarious! It was also his last film appearance though he continued to appear on TV before his death in 1961. Anyway, I highly recommend Go, Johnny, Go! to any Chuck Berry fans out there. P.S. Jimmy Clanton is a native of my current hometown of Baton Rouge, LA.

This is the fifth, and final motion picture to feature legendary disc jockey Alan Freed and his assortment of musical guests. With each film, Freed took a larger role. His acting is so wooden that Nelson Eddy looks like Olivier next to him! He was also the producer of this Hal Roach production and his role is central to the plot. Now Chuck Berry is a different story. Besides performing "Johnny Be Good", "Memphis, Tennessee", and "Little Queenie", Berry plays himself and is a major catalyst to the flimsy plot. He is absolutely natural and charming. Most of the plot belongs to singers Jimmy Clanton and Sandy Stewart. Their acting is surprisingly natural. Of course, Stewart is no rocker and is a little uncomfortable with some of the music. She was more in her element when she recorded the hit single "My Coloring Book". At least Freed spares us the embarrassment of his out of tune and out of time singing that we had to endure in "Rock, Rock, Rock". However, the plot never does resolve. It just stops.

For the folks my age who are into the nostalgic era of the first days of rock and roll Go Johnny Go. All the acts involved in this film got to do their stuff with hardly a plot to get in the way.

What plot there is involves Alan Freed doing a very good job of playing himself, disc jockey king of rock and roll. Freed puts himself out on a limb saying he will find a singer he will rename and manage. The name Freed picks out for his ersatz Elvis is Johnny Melody. This plot so reminded me of that classic Brady Bunch episode where Greg Brady is picked to be the new Johnny Bravo. Here though it's not just because Jimmy Clanton is the right fit for his stage costume.

Enter young Mr. Clanton who gets fired in his job as a theater usher for getting into the rock and roll jamboree show a little too much. It was on that night that he hears Alan Freed's boast to find a new singing star to be renamed Johnny Melody. In fact Freed is having some trouble making this idea from press agent Herb Vigran turn into reality.

Chuck Berry besides Clanton and Sandy Stewart is the only performer to have more than just a song in the film. He plays Freed's alter ego and very smoothly I might add. His is the best acted role in the film.

And of course Go Johnny Go has the appearance of a pair of soon to be legends. Ritchie Valens never saw his spot in this film, dying in that famous plane crash four months before this film was released. Eddie Cochran died a year after that in a car crash.

The music is fine although personally my taste goes back a decade or two in popular music. There's one person I know that loves this sort of stuff, he lives for the nostalgia concerts featuring the performances of the artists of this era. So to my former work colleague Myron Eskenazi this film and its review is dedicated to you.

More Hollywood hooey sweetening the Rock n' Roll pie with honey drippings and vanilla leads to make all this "race record stuff" easy to swallow. Jimmy Clanton was better than Bobby Rydell, Fabian, and Frankie Avalon that didn't have a voice between them. But Clanton was by no means and equal to the talent that he was heading in this movie.

"I don't dig it, but I like it", says the old fogie and that just about sums it up for most of these types of white bread movies that were at least kind enough to put the real rockers and black singers in support. Hollywood never did get it and neither did anyone over 30 in the 50's.

That said, we do have these films to thank for a visual reference and time-capsule that otherwise would not exist. Thanx Alan Freed who is credited as one of the very first disc-jockeys to play real Rock n" Roll on his radio show "Moondawg", no matter their racial pedigree. That's the reason the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland (the home of Freed's station).

There is an attempt to overshadow the real stuff with a silly choir boy story and many songs that were at best mediocre Teeny-Bopper Pop, but the real stars are gleaming and cannot be covered by any of this pandering propaganda. We get in limited supply...Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, The Flamingos, The Cadillacs, Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran, and some others that are at least palatable.

But it shows its prejudice and the mainstreams preoccupation with suppressing this stuff, when the choir director says about RnR..."lets hope it is just a fad and will be gone by the time you grow up"...and then in the next few minutes dismisses him from the choir for singing a Pop tune while accompanied on the church organ. Most of his generation really thought that this was the Devil's music.

No need to recap the wispy plot. Many of the names may be familiar from R&R's early period—Berry, Cochran Valens, Wilson— but their stylings are not. Looks to me as though the sounds were toned down to suit a white middle-class audience, whose adults tended to identify hard core R&R with juvenile delinquency. That's particularly the case with Chuck Berry who could do a driving beat with the best of them. Not here however. The producers have even added white bread Jimmy Clanton to headline, even though his crooning style better suits pre-R&R. The movie is clearly a commercial product, running a bit scared of the raucous style it's gently alluding to. For a much less compromised glimpse of those early years, catch The Girl Can't Help It (1956).