The Way We Weren't

IN THE BEGINNING, there were blues, rhythm and "race music." Then there were Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as a swarm of other young musicians, black and white, singing what was labeled as "black" music. And disc jockey Alan Freed and the record companies looked down upon this phenomenon and realized that white middle-class teenagers went ape over this taboo "black" music that their parents hated. And Freed called it "Rock and Roll," and it was good . . . and profitable.

American Hot Wax purports to be the saga of this modern cultural genesis, and in some ways it adequately serves this function. However, the movie re-creates the '50s and the upheaval that begat rock and roll with a disturbingly developed sense of ficto-history, portraying as true and factual that which is romanticized and basically false.

The most unsettling thing about the movie is its portrayal of Alan Freed as a man who through his vision created a whole new cultural force which he rode to the top without anyone's help. He is shown as a man who helped struggling artists, black and white, and who transcended the race prejudices of his era through his musical vision. He is ultimately seen, in the movie, as a martyr to the forces of evil who would keep black people oppressed, genius and creativity stifled and rock and roll out of American life.

This is just not the case. Alan Freed was a man who, as a disc jockey, had an enormous influence over what the American white teenager would listen to and buy, and he peddled this influence pretty widely for a good fee. He had vision, yes, the kind of vision that knows a profit when it smells one. Alan Freed, and all the disc jockeys and record company executives who pushed rock and roll in the '50s did it because they saw that there was a huge market for music that offended all the stuffy middle-class sensibilities that American parents stood for, sensibilities that bored the bobby socks off American teenagers.

Those men were not martyrs. Alan Freed "co-wrote" a lot of Chuck Berry's first hits, in other words he got a cut of the artist's royalties for playing the record. Worse still, he was ultimately indicted and convicted for receiving payola, gifts from the record companies for playing their tunes.

In short, Alan Freed was not the angel with a damaged wing that American Hot Wax shows us. The payola affair is mentioned briefly in one scene, but Freed's relationship to it is fudged. The movie ends with an ominous subtitle epilogue which informs us that Freed was indicted and died "penniless" shortly thereafter. This is a truth which is distorted by its context. The real Freed was indeed a Messiah of rock and roll, but not for its own sake alone. He had lots to gain. The treatment of Freed points up the main feature of this movie, its defusing of almost all controversial issues at the time with palpable, very nearly relentless innocence. This spell of innocence is not perfect. Tim McIntyre as Freed drinks and smokes (he doesn't swear though) and Chuck Berry is wonderfully crude, but these things are overshadowed by the innocence of the fans and performers who populate the film.

All of this is not to say that the film does not have some good moments. The scene in which the "Planotones" (Danny and the Juniors) record "Come and Go With Me" truly captures that magic second when artists find the groove and turn onto something classic. As Freed watches his producer exhort the "Planotones," you can't help but be struck by the thrill of discovery the musicians must have felt.

Then there are the "Chesterfields," the black doo-wop group that teams up with frustrated song writer Laraine Newman (Carole King). The scene in which they meet and Newman reaches them her song captures the same special moment, the gel point of the music, which is really quite effective. Another such moment occurs when the 12-year-old leader of the Buddy Holly Fan Club sits with Freed and starts to cry as he recalls the news of Holly's death.

All this sounds schmaltzy, but it actually works in the film. The trouble is, these scenes exist in a vacuum supported by almost no discernable plot progression. Things seem to happen in this movie without any cause or subsequent effect.

This gets annoying if you are in the least bit conscious of plausibility or consistency with previous action. Why, after practicing Laraine Newman's song "ABC" do the "Chesterfields" sing "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" at the rock and roll show? For that matter, how did the "Chesterfields" get signed up to do the show? There is some intimation that Freed means to do this for them; it is clear he likes them, but the scene in which they are told they will perform is missing.

Likewise, Jay Leno and Fran Drescher as Freed's chauffeur and secretary fall into each other's arms during the rock show after having bickered with each other throughout the whole movie. We are meant to think t hat it's the magic of the moment and they really liked each other anyway, but this is implausible if one attends to their characters, which are wonderful and funny, but not the sort that fall in love. In short, this movie delegates to the viewer the creation of a large portion of the screenplay. I personally was disappointed that I could not receive a credit, for I had to work quite a bit to keep the whole thing straight.

This movie may have been a classic before it hit the cutting room, but the truly abominable editing botches nearly every effective character or plot line. One is left with memorable scenes, but not a coherent whole. It's all feathers and not enough bird.

The central character, Freed, is enigmatic to a fault. McIntyre expresses nearly every emotion except pure elation by contorting his face as he exhales his cigarette smoke. To exhibit elation he does not exhale the smoke at all. Only by careful attention to this detail can one discern any emotion in the man's character.

But if McIntyre is granite-like, the rest of the cast is frenzied. During much of the movie McIntyre is surrounded by a ceaseless maelstrom of auditioners, producers and record company executives. Freed is portrayed as the eye of the hurricane that was rock. The teenagers at the rock show are so lively the police--the bad guys--threaten to stop the show--which leads to The Line of this movie--"You can stop the show, but you can't stop rock and roll," which McIntyre delivers with all the passion he is ever able to muster.

American Hot Wax is a B-movie masquerading as an A-movie. The amount of hype which has swelled up around this basically insignificant flick far outdistances the film's actual merit. Because it fictionalizes and defuses the larger social issues of the Golden Age of Rock and Roll, it loses all pretense of commenting upon them. It is in the end a flawed bit of light entertainment.

The reason why this movie succeeds at all as light entertainment is because in spots it actually does seem to capture some of the feelings and energies that circulated in the '50s. The music is quite good, and Chuck Berry's renditions of "Reelin' and Rockin'" and "Roll Over Beethoven" are worth the cost of the ticket. When I'm as old as he is I want to be able to shake my ass and rock out like that.

Oddly enough, Berry's performance steals the movie because in its bumptious raunchiness and total lack of innocence it portrays the spirit of rock and roll far more compellingly than this whitewashed portrait of Alan Freed ever could.