EXPRESSO BONGO

Johnny Jackson, a dance band drummer dreams of getting into the big money as an agent. He and his girlfriend Maisie, a striptease soubrette, witness the hysteria induced by a young beat singer in a teenagers' coffee bar. Convinced that this boy, Bert Rudge, has great possibilities, Johnny talks him into signing away half his earnings. Johnny's unscrupulous methods soon make Bert, now rechristened Bongo Herbert, a big success. But Bongo meets a fading American musical star, Dixie Collins, who is attracted by his innocence and enraged by the way Johnny has been exploiting him. When she learns that Bongo is under twentyone, she succeeds in having Johnny's illegal contract nullified. Johnny takes this setback philosophically and starts looking round for a new client.

"The recent history of British musicals is so disheartening that it would be easy to overestimate any film which breaks out of the rut of wishy-washy gentility. Certainly there is nothing genteel about Expresso Bongo. It is loud, brash and vulgar Its vitality is its most endearing quality, but even this cannot hide a split in the film's personality. In broadening the humour of his original play and watering down some of its more savage satire, presumably in the hope of appealing to a mass audience, Wolf Mankowitz has fallen between two stools. The satire is still sharp enough to alienate a 'pop' audience, but the sentiment will blunt its edge for the sophisticated. Val Guest's direction has blurred the issue even further Several small part players are encouraged to overplay in a style more suited to farce, and the first musical number is delayed so long that even the genre is in doubt for nearly half the film. Nevertheless the numbers from the original show Nausea and The Shrine on the Second Floor, have real bite, and the background and atmosphere of the Soho jungle are brilliantly sketched." ("Monthly Film Bulletin", n. 312, January 1960, p. 3)

Director: Val Guest.
Screenplay: Wolf Mankowitz, dalla sua commedia.
Director of photography: John Wilcox.
Editor: Bill Lenny.
Art director: Tony Masters.
Musica e parole: Robert Farnon, Val Guest, Norrie Paramor, Bunny Lewis, Paddy Roberts.
Sound: Chris Greenham.
Coreografia: Kenneth Macmillan.
Cast: Laurence Harvey (Johnny Jackson), Sylvia Sims (Maisie King), Yolande Donian (Dixie Collins), Cliff Richards (Bongo Herbert), Meier Tzelniker (Mayer), Gilbert Harding (se stesso), Ambrosine Philipotts (lady Rosemary), Eric Pohlmann (Leon), Martin Milier (Kakky), Avis Bunnage (Mrs. Rudge), Wilfrid Lawson (Mr. Rudge), Hermione Baddeley (Penelope), Kenneth Griffith (Charlie).
Production company: Val Guest per la Conquest.