American Hot Wax

The anachronisms fly in this Hollywood rendition of the beginnings of Rock and Roll (a genre best defined as the introduction of black Rhythym and Blues music "crossing over" to white teenage audiences in the early and mid-fifties).

The subsequent discovery of the economic power of these teenagers buying the records would change popular music forever.

The movie is redeemed by some energetic youthful performers and the exuberance that was such a feature of the time. But nowhere near enough credit,however,is paid to the original black harmony groups who were overwhelmingly responsible for this explosion of a new popular culture without precedent in US history. They are overshadowed by white single performers who Freed never played.

The movie stars Tim McIntyre, son of renowned character actor John McIntyre, delivering a sensitive portrayal of Freed. A pretty Fran Drescher is here before she assumed her affected froggy-voiced caricature so familiar today. Jay Leno is here also, sincere as always, and quite good as Freed's chauffeur.

Framed around the payola scandals, an ill-disguised attempt to destroy the music and its too-black associations, Freed was convicted of what was hardly a major offense (a common practice in the industry at the time), lost his job, and died a few years later. It's hard to convey today how virulent was the opposition to this music by the moral majority of that time.

One has only to listen to the Chesterfield's ersatz performances in the movie imitating Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, which are workmanlike, and then listen to the original. It is probably the best way to understand how this movie doesn't quite measure up to the reality it is trying to describe (what Hollywood movie ever does?). The real Frankie Lymon had a voice that was simply unbelievable, and a stage presence that awed Bing Crosby (!). Frank Sinatra, uncharacteristically, said he had never seen nor heard anything like him. (Crosby and Sinatra had been invited to the Apollo to see Lymon). Frankie Lymon died tragically about a decade later - long forgotten, and a microcosm, perhaps, of the black groups who started the whole thing.

Worth watching, but for a more truthful approach to the music itself, and much grittier, catch the earlier rock movies from 1956 with the real Alan Freed and the great original artists. Not much plot, but - oh! what performances!

At the time this movie came out (1978) America was having its 20 year later nostalgia craze for the 1950s and it's music. "Happy Days" and "LaVerne And Shirley" were on TV and songs from the 50s were being remade and heard again. What great timing for this movie! The greatest thing about this movie, of course, are the musical performances. Instead of hiring all soundalikes from central casting, they actually brought back musicians and singers from the 1950s to sing their hits. Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Frankie Ford and others are on hand to show you what made them great. Of course, this was 20 years after Alan Freed's shows played and the performers do look a little worse for the wear, but their music more than makes up for it. Tin McIntire was fantastic as Alan Freed, a young Jay Leno as Mookie was adequate as was an also young Fran Drescher as Sheryl. Laraine Newman shines as a sort of Carole King character, writing songs for others. Why isnt this movie more popular than it is? Maybe because it's not on video? If you see this on TV some night, be sure to watch it and see the magical early days of Rock and Roll.

Looking more like a young and slimmed down Rush Limbaugh then the legendary pioneer Rock & Roll DJ the late Tim Mcintire, who ironically died in 1986 at almost the same age that Freed passed away some twenty years earlier. "American Hot Wax" is tragic as well as prophetic story about Alan Freed who more then anyone else put Rock & Roll on the map and made the saying,like the song says,"Rock & Roll is here to Stay" a reality.

Mcintire in the best performance of his career gives it all he's got as Alan Freed and comes across, despite his obvious non-resemblance to Alan Freed, as good as Freed ever was on the silver screen in a number of films that he stared in. The movie starts at the hight of Freed's popularity in 1959 as he's getting together a number of top Rock & Roll singers and groups to appear at the Brooklyn Paramount for his first anniversary Rock & Roll show.

The local authorities as well as the big wigs in the record industry have had in in for Freed since he came on the scene back in 1952 in Clevelend. It was then when Freed first coined the word Rock & Roll and, according to them and the blue noses of that time, corrupted the American youth with that wild and uncontrollable music.

The movie has the theater raided by the police because it was declared a fire hazard and Freed arrested and the entertainers dragged off the stage as the thousands of Rock & Roll fans go wild. The movie "American Hot Wax" briefly touched on the payola scandal of 1959-1960 that in reality was the real reason for Freed's downfall not the wild scene at the Brooklyn Paramount at the end of the movie.

Freed never played a record that he didn't like payola or not and took money to play the records that he liked unsolicited thinking that it was just part of being a DJ on the radio. The fact that Alan Freed wouldn't sign a statement that he never took payola, which was untrue, had him fired from the WABC radio station that he worked for in 1960. Later Freed, after having brief jobs as a DJ in L.A and Miami on stations KDAY & WQAM, was blackballed out of the music business altogether.

Hit with charges by the IRS in March 1964 for back taxes Alan Freed, who was already at that time both unemployed and unemployable, went into a tailspin as his drinking got out of hand and he died in a California hospital, broke and forgotten, of kidney failure on January 20, 1965, Freed was 43 years old.

There was one irony to Freed's life, and death, that really sticks out and makes you think if there's truly such a thing as fate and destiny. Exactly three months to the day that Alan Freed died on April 19, 1965 the radio station that Alan Freed made synonymous with himself and into the flagship radio station in playing the music that he loved and died for in the fabulous 1950's. Freed's old station 1010 WINS New York changed it's policy of playing Rock & Roll, or any other type of, music by becoming the first radio station in the nation to go all news all the time, an all-news network, which it still is today. April 19, 1965 was for all intents and purposes "The Day the Music Died" on 1010 WINS.

I love this movie. I saw it again on television a couple of years ago and tried to get my kids to sit down and watch it. I thought that the movie would give them a better appreciation of the music they take for granted and enjoy today if they could see what some people went through and the risks they took so that rock and roll could survive.

While a lot of movies have tried to show what the early rock'n'roll era was like -- American Hot Wax is the only movie that showed us what it FELT like.

Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and groups put together for the movie -- The Chesterfields (as Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers), The Delights (as The Chantels), and Timmy and the Tulips (as The Fleetwoods) -- Man Oh Man -- Wowee! These last three groups were in some ways better then the originals -- if that's possible. Check out those "Dee-Lites!"

What music, what a house band! What a recreation of an early rock'n'roll show in a movie theater. Hot Wax is amazing!

The Freed character -- Somewhat sanitized, but dynomite! Jay Leno and Fran Dresher -- wonderful! Lorrane Newman was a knock out! Every character is perfect. Teenage Louise's parents -- real or what?

Look for period details like the manager's (of the Laverne Baker-like singer) shades. Like the lable on the Little Richard record in the film's opening scene.

In a recent TV movie about Alan Freed, the character played a Little Richard record on the radio. The camera focused on the turntable. There was a generic record playing. Phony baloney. I changed the channel.

In American Hot Wax, the record was spinning on a turntable in the foreground. It was a Little Richard record all right -- and it was on the Specialty lable!

We originally saw American Hot Wax at the drive-in back when it first came out. Somehow it seemed fitting. I now have the sound track and a video copy of the movie from an HBO showing. Someday, hopefully, this great film will be commercially available on video. You have got to see this movie!

There is a scene in the radio station where the Program Director asks Freed why he has to play his monitor speakers so loud. "Because they know when you are listening," answers Freed. How true. Crank it up Alan!