September 19, 2008

7:00 pm

free
details here:http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/pickford/pickford-current.html

Friday, September 19 (7:00 pm)

Before the Beatles: The Early Days of British Rock and Roll

Finders Keepers (Inter-State Films, U.K., 1966). Dir Sidney Hayers. Wrt Michael Pertwee. With Cliff Richard and the Shadows; Robert Morley, Graham Stark, Peggy Mount, Viviane Ventura. (94 min, Eastmancolor, 35mm)

with:

Rhythm ‘n’ Greens (Inter-State Films, U.K., 1964). Dir & Wrt Christopher Miles. With The Shadows: Hank Marvin, Brian Bennett, John Rostill & Bruce Welch; Joan Palethorpe, Audrey Bayley, Sally Bradley, Wendy Barrie, Cliff Richard. (32 min, color, 35mm)

Sir Cliff Richard has been a British rock and roll legend from almost the very beginning of his career in the late 50’s, and a major star throughout Europe as well. In the U.S., he’s mainly known for a string of pop hits in the late 70’s and early 1980’s. He was by far Britain’s biggest rock star of the pre-Beatles era, and one of its biggest during and after the Beatles era, though he didn’t find much success in America until the mid-70’s. His earlier features with the Shadows usually find them performing in the highly orchestrated, non-rocking style of contemporary film musicals however, and Finders Keepers was first in which they got to work mostly in their own style. It’s a Cold War spoof that finds Cliff and the Shadows arriving in a Spanish sea side town too late to make their gig, but just in time to join the hunt for a missing atom bomb!

Cliff Richard’s crack back-up band the Shadows had a considerable career on their own, though this is the only time they got top billing in a film. Rhythm ‘n’ Greens is a delightful oddity in which the Shadows act out a guitar-driven history of Britain from the Stone Age on, with the help of narrator Robert Morley, and a special appearance by Cliff himself (as King Knut!). (MB)

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