Daddy-O

Daddy-O is another in a very long line of Juvie D / rock and rollers that tried to look like an Elvis picture from a distance. Shot for only $100 grand on cheap sets and with few professional actors, the film makes King Creole look like Cabaret. Daddy-O would be just another badly dated grade Z picture but for one thing: Dick Contino's Blues. James Ellroy watched this clumsy oldster and then wrote a richly detailed -and thoroughly speculative - account of Contino's participation in the film while tracking a serial killer! The story is an action comedy masterpiece and to actually watch Daddy-O after reading DC Blues is like finding lost gold. The movie is admittedly pretty bad. Contino plays a singing truck driver (get it? Elvis drove a truck before he became famous) who meets a platinum bad girl out on the highway and finds his life spiralling downward. The songs are terrible, a shame really since Contino had a legitimate reputation as a musician, and the characters range from bland to dislikeable, with the exception of the myopic gym manager who is flat out wacky. The crime plot involves drug running, supposedly, although by the hour mark no drugs have actually been moved anywhere. With little story or character interest to engage the audience, there is not much to do except laugh at the dated hipster expressions, groan over the awful song numbers and wonder why Contino's pants are up near his ribcage. But watching the movie as a story within Dick Contino's Blues makes for a rich experience. The viewer sympathizes with Contino for having to take work which was so obviously beneath his musical talents, owing to the damage his reputation suffered following an accusation that he was a draft dodger. (He wasn't but the papers failed to tell the whole story.) Contino himself was not a good enough actor to save a film this hokey, plus he was five years older than Elvis and getting too long in the tooth to be a convincing Juvie D. But wondering how he found the time to play amateur sleuth amidst all of this - assuming that any part of Ellroy's crazy caper was even a little bit true - makes this a truly special movie.

Well what can you say about Daddy-O, it really isn't good at all, I don't even know how to rate it, though there are worse movies out there. This film actually has a story, plot, action and a decent ending. The problem, IT"S ALL GOOFY!! And I don't think the director meant it to be that way, but it is.

Dick Contino is our hero, an aged teenager who wears skin tight shirts and extremely hiked up pants (with the belt buckle to the side)Anyway he's accused of killing his friend Sonny while racing a peroxide queen who becomes his main squeeze. Anyway he investigates Sonny's death because the LAPD are too lazy to do it themselves. He gets involved with running drugs for doughy guy and squinty (which again the LAPD don't bother to investigate)Lots of things happen which will take too long to explain but in the end the bad guys lose, Dick gets his girl and pants stay hiked.

Like a bad scene, daddy...Like every scenes a bad scene in this one. The beat is drummin' but like the vibe don't jive,dig?? ---Anyways this one is a fun bad movie to watch. I saw it a friend's place and though it is painfully bad it's also very funny....Like this cats way old, man for the teen scene, guess that's why they call him "Daddy-O".--- Check it out if you're lookin' for a middle-aged teenager movie.

This film is extremely dated. It's a typical youth-gone-amok movie that populated drive-ins in the 1950's. Dick Contino, he of the big pecs and mediocre singing voice, does the best he can to save this film. however, it's not enough. Sandra Giles, who played Jana, was definitely chosen for her large chest and blonde locks, and not her acting ability. The guy with the coke-bottle thick glasses really was an offensive stereotype. The main problem is that Daddy-O's character really doesn't give you a lot to like him; the heroine Jana gives you even less to like her.

Avoid this one unless you're watching the MST3K version. "got to keep your pants up!"

A disastrously outdated and just basically unlikeable comedy/thriller/musical/torture device from the late 50's, Daddy-O chronicles the life of badass singer/womanizer/tough guy/knucklehead Pete Plum and his involuntary involvement in the drug dealing business. As the informative IMDb plot description states, Pete Plum a.k.a. the title character wears his pants far too high. I mean, this guy is to wearing pants what George W. Bush is to improving the US' relationship with foreign countries. He's *so* unbelievably bad at wearing pants, Joel and the 'bots even write a song dedicated to his pants-wearing skills (let's face it, it's pretty unlikely that you would watch this movie anywhere outside the MST3K show).

And there you have it, the one funny thing about this movie. As soon as the jokes about hiking pants up are over, the movie is pure pain. PURE, TOTAL PAIN. There's not an iota of anything of interest ever happening. It's just oh so dull, dull, dull! This junk brings a new meaning to the world "dreary". The only scene I even remember is when the fat boss takes off his shirt (oh, how I wish I could forget!). Beached whales are more appealing.

There is one positive aspect of this garbage, though: once you've seen it, you'll be more tolerant of boring movies. So the next time you walk out of whatever dreary, soapy melodrama Paul Haggis unleashes next upon his unsuspecting audience, and one of your friends complains about what a borefest it was, you can always say "hey, at least it wasn't as dull as Daddy-O".

Avoid.