Word: expresso
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...Expresso Bongo is one of those movies that makes a Significant (though not particularly original) Point at the expense of characterization, dialogue, and plot. Through a series of disturbing scenes, it shows how popular "artistes"--and more important the people connected with them--contemptuously denigrate the public's taste. If "mass values" are the problem, though, Expresso Bongo does little to improve them...
...good to see that people are still concerned about mass values, and no doubt Val Guest (who directed the movie) and Wolf Mankowitz (who wrote it) are serious in attempting to deal with an unquestionably important problem. But in Expresso Bongo they are caught in the same mire as their main characters...
...pics become available for his use 21 days after they close their Boston run. The extra-price stuff (like "Psycho" or "Expresso Bongo") does not hit the Square until after a subsequent regular-price Boston run. Then, after the usual 21-day blackout, it slithers into the U.T., much to the distress of those who have seen it in Boston for more cash...
...Expresso Bongo is the slum to stardom story of a London Presley-in-the-rough, depicted with total amorality. Adapted from his own play by British novelist and playwright Wolf Mankowitz, the film removes the glittering facade of show business for a behind the scenes view of the world in its dog-eat-dog reality. The almighty pound weaves in and out of the script, permeating the atmosphere and the characterizations...
...Expresso Bongo (Val Guest; Continental) is another British attempt to produce an American cinemusical. The hero is a young Sohobo (Laurence Harvey) who calls himself a talent agent because he books skiffle bands and strip acts into low resorts. One night in an espresso parlor he hears a teen-age rockney (Cliff Richard) who bangs bongo and makes noises like Elvis Presley. The agent rooks the dope into a fifty-fifty split of all his earnings, soon makes him a major platter personality, TV type and subject of sociological concern ("Drums," a psychiatrist declares, "may be his means of evacuating...