Bop Girl Goes Calypso

I have read a couple of reviews in movies history books,and both seem to agree Bop Girl goes Calypso is a lost movie.....no known copies of the movie are available for evaluation.If this is true,and someone out there has a copy,please let us know and start burning the copies for all of us to enjoy this camp classic! Also,I have also read that the movie was originally titled Bop Girl,and the goes Calypso was added at the last minute to cash in on the then recent Calypso craze.Apparently,from some still photos of the picture that i have seen,there were more rock and roll acts in the movie than there were actual Calypso acts.But no matter.This looks like it was another good example of the low budget music movies of the fifties aimed for the teenage audience.It would be great to see Judy Tyler in the starring role,since she only appeared in one other movie before her death.

This is an easy film to mock. The leads can't act. (Nor can the supporting players.) The plot -- something about scientific proof that Calypso was about to replace Rock n' Roll as the reigning pop music --could have been conceived by Ed Wood. The fact that our hero was about to marry a Eugenics professor (yes, they did call it "Eugenics") who was enthusiastic about the genetic make up of their future child was unintentionally creepy. And, agonizingly, the titular Bop Girl cannot sing either Rock or Calypso. (She doesn't try to sing Bop -- for which the shade of Charlie Parker was likely grateful.) But these music movies of the 50s were not about the plot. Plot was an interlude for the kids to start smooching at the drive in. It was about the music. And SOME of that in this film was quite good.

For example, the first six or seven minutes are quite good. The credit sequence is Nino Tempo blowing a very hot r&b sax with a good stomping band. We move to another group (not sure who) singing pretty. Then, alas, we get some very, very, very bad music. Then some lame plot. Then, the highlight, a gentleman named Lord Flea, whose two features in the movie are exceptional. (Want to know where Bob Marley came from? Take a look. Then lobby EMI to get Flea's music re-released.) Generally, the better music is in the first half of the movie. Things start to get increasingly Ed Wooden after that, and the Bop Girl is allowed to sing far, far too often.

This is not a "lost movie" but was in fact shown on TCM in March, 2008. It could have stayed in the vaults. As is usual with this type of film, the primary value is in being able to see 1950's rock groups do their stuff. The rock groups are shuffled off, though, and replaced by, ready now, calypso acts, because rock and roll will soon be dead after 1957, to be replaced by the irresistible rhythms of the Caribbean. I wonder how that turned out? Otherwise the production values are pretty low, the plot (a term I use very loosely) is thin and any pleasure in watching this attempt at entertainment bottoms out pretty quickly. You do at least get to see Judy Tyler, the original Princess Summerfall Winterspring of Howdy Doody, who starred with Elvis in "Jailhouse Rock" and then tragically was lost in a car accident months later.

This story is a "B" picture, simply about a rock and roll singer who is told by a professor with a kind of applause meter at a night club tells her that rock and roll is fading out and calypso is the new hot genre of music to pursue. The title character is Jo Thomas, played by Judy Tyler, one of her few roles (she passed away young from a road accident). The film lets you listen to various groups at nightclubs, encompassing jazz, rock and roll, r & b and, of course, calypso. The story line is thin, but for someone who was born after the film was made and was raised on rock, the film is enjoyable due to the fairly solid performances of each act. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to find I've never heard of these acts, some were very good. Ms. Tyler is fairly engaging, and though the interaction between the main characters is fairly pedestrian, its still a fun film. It showed up on TCM, which is where I watched it. You can do much worse than this film, and all of us have. I kind of enjoyed it. Check it out.

It's frantic, man, when a female rock 'n roll singer is nearly convinced by a professor's assistant that rock music is fading, its audience turning instead to the more mature sounds of calypso. Plot-less drive-in kitsch with lots of specialty acts padding the running time. Hard to fault any film opening with Nino Tempo playing the hottest saxophone of the 1950s, but that's just a teaser (albeit a good come-on for music novices!). The rest of the picture is made up of second-rate acts and novelties. The Rat Pack-styled clowning of the Mary Kaye Trio was enough to halt calypso music and trio-acts in their tracks. "Establishment" overtones permeate this premise (eagerly anticipating the swift death of rock 'n roll). It may have been the primary wish of many fogies at the time, but don't cry for Elvis just yet. *1/2 from ****