Review of Rock All Night

Introduction

When it comes down to it, B-movies do what A-movies sometimes fail to do. They don`t take themselves seriously. What better period than the 40-years between the 30s and 70s which produced some of the most satisfying examples? One of the names responsible for a fair amount of this output is Roger Corman. Having produced, or exec-produced/co-produced more than 300 films and directed over 50 of them, he`s a Hollywood legend in my books. He made my favourite B-movie, X, with Ray Milland in 1963 and this is still something I watch on a regular basis today.

Knowing how bad, no painful, some of these movies really are, not even I could stomach enough tolerance for the sheer amount of nonsense that takes place in this B-genre, but there are some absolute gems in there. With sensationalist titles such as The Day the World Ended, Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Beast with a Million Eyes and The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, you get an idea of what to expect. I won`t go into the dozens of Dracula, werewolf or Frankenstein films, but count these in the genre too. I had no idea of what to expect with Rock All Night, so I was looking forward to a bit of exploitive Corman schlock.

Video

Rock All Night comes with a good black & white 1.33:1 fullframe transfer. The print looks clean and without fault, bar minor amounts of grain. Blacks and greyscale are well rendered and detail is good too. Apart from minor flecks of dirt and grain, there`s little else wrong with the image.

Audio

Just a mono soundtrack for Rock All Night, which is a shame because I like quite a bit of the music here from The Platters and The Blockbusters. Besides liking the music, the overall sound isn`t too bad. The dialogue sounds a little muffled at times, but the rest of it sounds clear. The lack of English subtitles doesn`t help, but all is not lost if you miss a few words.

Features

Easy to navigate static menus with a couple of extras:

• Interview with Samuel Z. Jackson (50:52) - This is The Guardian sponsored BFI interview with the man described as "The Emperor of Low Tech". This is an audio only interview so the screen has stills of Jackson transitioning very slowly. This is a very interesting and amusing interview and clearly Jackson has many a tale to tale about the industry and its stars.

• Trailers - Assorted trailers for some of the most painful B-movies in existence. The Day the World Ended, The Brain Eaters and The She Creature amongst others.

There are no English subtitles. However, there are Dutch ones.

Conclusion

In its time this may have had more appeal, but now it has virtually none except for the fact that Roger Corman made it. The story`s drama doesn`t really kick in until the start of act three, about 40-minutes in. The first two 20-minute chunks introduce the characters and the bar with an even pace but you`re still waiting for something interesting to happen. The characters aren`t particularly interesting and lack emotion and charisma, but there`s enough coverage of them all to keep one from getting overly bored.

When the drama does ramp up it proves to be too tame by today`s standards. Characters, such as the two robbers with guns in the scene, don`t come across as particularly realistic, so it`s hard to reconcile nasty characters from the 50s and now. Perhaps criminal life was different back then, but I doubt it was this sanitised. This aside, the basic premise of the story is interesting and the whole thing resembles a stage play, but the dialogue and drama need work to make it at all satisfying and dramatic, even as far as B-movies go.

The only thing that I liked in DVD package was the interview with Samuel Z. Jackson. This legendary producer is articulate and funny and worth listening to. The overall film has decent video and sound, one good extra and that`s it. As a low budget, fast turnaround film, Rock All Night succeeds, but as far as storytelling goes, it just doesn`t quench my satisfaction. It`s too slow, uninteresting and unimaginative.