Expresso Bongo (1960)

Small-time comically Jewish talent agent Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey) tries to hit the big time with a bongo player named Bert Rudge (Cliff Richard), whom he spots in a Soho skiffle and coffee bar backed by The Shadows.

NME-reading, pork pie-hat-wearing Johnny (who lies so much he can’t detect his own bullshit) gives Bert the stage name “Bongo Herbert” and puts him on the fast track to teenage stardom by persuading his record company and radio connections to come and see Bongo perform at the Tom Tom Club (which until recently had been Leon’s espresso bar).

Bongo’s first single, Voice in the Wilderness, is a smash hit, but Johnny then decides that a little image adjustment might make him a bigger draw, so his follow-up is a sugary, religious tune, The Shrine on the Second Floor.

The new image hardly fits with Bongo’s newfound fondness for strippers and love-starved American variety star Dixie Collins (Yolande Donlan).

Johnny thinks he has a meal ticket for life, but when record company exec Gus Mayer (Meier Tzelniker) discovers that Bongo’s agent is earning a 50% commission, he demands that the kid be exclusively signed to his record company.

Finally, Dixie decides to outwit Johnny when she discovers that Bongo is really a minor, making his contract null and void. As a result, Bongo breaks his contract with Johnny and heads to America under contract to Mayer.

Mankowitz’s crackling script is bristling with energy and abrasive period flavour, whilst Val Guest skilfully directs, capturing the fads and fashions of the late 1950s.

Laurence Harvey does a terrific job as the impeccably smarmy would-be impresario (sadly, the actor died of stomach cancer at the age of 45), and 19-year-old Cliff Richard (in his second film role) is credible in the first half of the film as the bongo-thumping, lip-curling boy pushed to stardom, but he subsequently struggles when the role requires him to portray a more wayward rock star.

Cliff Richard was Britain’s answer to Elvis Presley at the time (although he never quite made it in America). Like Elvis, Cliff appeared in several musical films, including The Young Ones (1961), Summer Holiday (1962), Wonderful Life (1964), and Finders Keepers (1966).

Expresso Bongo is Britain’s greatest-ever film musical and certainly the first truly great British rock ‘n’ roll movie – and the picture that inspired Andrew Loog Oldham to become a pop impresario.

If the brilliant use of authentic Soho locations and the sight of Sylvia Syms as a singing stripper weren’t value enough, Cliff’s performance as the naive-seeming singer is so plausible that many observers wonder if the 19-year-old actor really understands the X-rated script.

Best of all is Harvey’s portrayal of Jackson, who assures Bongo Herbert that one day he will “open shoe shops for cash!”

Harvey perfectly captures the cynicism of the piece. One of the most prescient images of the Macmillan era is that of a caffeine-crazed Jackson skipping through parked Crestas and Zodiacs crooning “I never had it so good before” – but better still is the film’s stand-out number, Nausea, in which Harvey and Meier Tzelniker dance through Soho as they summarise the nature of most pop music: “When I hear this little bleeder and compare him with Aida – nausea!”

Keep an eye out for a young, hard-looking Burt Kwouk in a plaid shirt with a turned-up collar barking, “Get with it, Chick! Why come if you don’t go for the beat?!”

Johnny Jackson
Laurence Harvey
Maisie King
Sylvia Syms
Dixie Collins
Yolande Donlan
Bert Rudge / Bongo Herbert
Cliff Richard
Gus Mayer
Meier Tzelniker
Lady Rosemary
Ambrosine Phillpotts
Leon
Eric Pohlmann
Reverend Tobias Craven
Reginald Beckwith
Charlie
Kenneth Griffith
Night club cleaner
Esma Cannon
Cynthia
Susan Hampshire
Mr Rudge
Wilfrid Lawson
Penelope
Hermione Baddeley

Director
Val Guest

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