Blue Suede Shoes

I had no idea what BLUE SUEDE SHOES was when I saw it hidden away in the TV schedules on an obscure channel one night. It seemed to be a music documentary charting 1950s rock and roll hits plus a look at the Teddy boy culture popular during the period. What I instead got was footage from a couple of filmed conventions populated by rock and roll enthusiasts circa 1979.

There's some brief introductory material looking at some of the popular singers of the era such as Bill Haley and the Comets, along with plenty of familiar tunes. But the majority of the running time simply consists of footage of local bands playing at leisure centres in both Caister and Great Yarmouth, while a crowd of Teddy boy (and girl) wannabes have fun.

It's lively and full of energy, but hardly insightful when it comes to documentary film-making. You get an idea of the passion, the music, and the style of the dancing and that's about it. Some of the characters who are briefly interviewed are quite strange which is good for a laugh. I also noticed that the cameraman is preoccupied with shooting footage from ground level so that when a girl spins around in her skirts he gets to see everything.