Rock All Night (USA, 1957) 62 min B&W DIR-PROD: Roger Corman. SCR: Charles B. Griffith, based on The Little Guy, by David P. Harmon. MUSIC: Ron Stein. DOP: Floyd Crosby. CAST: Dick Miller, Russell Johnson, Abby Dalton, Jeanne Cooper, Robin Morse, Mel Welles, Richard Cuttin, Jonathan Haze, Barboura Morris, Beach Dickerson, Bruno VeSota, Ed Nelson, The Platters, The Blockbusters. (American International Pictures)
Perhaps Roger Corman’s most enjoyable film of the 1950s, the misleadingly titled Rock All Night is a mélange of The Petrified Forest or Separate Tables, Corman style, penned by Charles B. Griffith. (Although the source material was a teleplay originally commissioned for Jane Wyman’s Fireside Theatre, this adaptation is prime Griffith as well, with the hip characterizations and jive talk.) It began as a project which would prominently feature The Platters, but due to scheduling conflicts, they only appear in the beginning, singing “He’s Mine” and “I’m Sorry” in a throwaway scene, set in a bar different from where the remaining action will take place. Still, this is great historical footage of the class act. (I love how they all simultaneously bow and blow kisses at the end of their set.) The rest of the music is by the rockabilly outfit The Blockbusters (also featured in Corman’s Carnival Rock).
At 62 minutes, this briskly-paced movie crams so many characters into the bar stools at Big Al’s joint: Steve (Richard Cuttin) the pipe-smoking hard-luck reporter looking for a story; Jerry the racketeer (Richard Karlan) who is into Al (Robin Morse) for some protection money; Marty (Clegg Hoyt) the down-and-out middleweight boxer who is being pressured by his manager not to hang up his gloves (but seeing that Marty is married to Barboura Morris, this is not a bad decision); one twit in a sailor’s hat who verbally abuses his wife (yet she can dish it out too)… as the Blockbusters’ music adds a woozy poetry to their Runyonesque little dramas.
If for nothing else, their importance to the movie is to show that none of these male stereotypes are a match for the aptly-named Shorty (played by our main man Dick Miller), who is as quick with his fists as his remarks. (“Why is it that the little guys always have to show how tough they are?” one character muses.) And good thing too, because all the customers are soon held hostage by two thugs, wanted by the police that loom outside Big Al’s doors. The bad guys are played by Russell Johnson (later the professor on TV’s Gilligan’s Island) and Jonathan Haze (still a boy trying to be a man)!
While this picture belongs to the ever popular bit player Dick Miller in one of his few lead roles, all of Corman’s stock company shines in this one. Bruno VeSota makes a token early performance as a drunk who gets in a fight with Shorty. Yet, Mel Welles (years before his career-making Gravis Mushnik in Little Shop of Horrors) steals the picture as Sir Bop, a music promoter with a Dizzy Gillespie beret and glasses, spouting hip talk by the gallon: “Cool it out front! You’re stealing the goose and the golden egg!” Sir Bop is trying to get Big Al to book a rock group (that basically sits in the car throughout most of the movie!) and a young singer named Julie (Abby Dalton). After her wispy audition with “My Man is Gone”, only Shorty has the virtue to tell her that she stinks (because her nervousness is killing the performance), which may be why Julie ends up liking this guy, because he’s the only one being honest with her.
Rock All Night is an irresistible midnight movie entertainment that had a brief release on VHS, and cries for a DVD release. (As of this writing, you can stream it for free on Shout Factory TV or on Tubi.) It is certainly one of Roger Corman’s best efforts.
Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook, 2006.