Wild Guitar (1962)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

The Worst Film Ever

Fantastic!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The Hall Family who gave us Eegah the missing link which combined bad rock and roll with bad science fiction decided to stick to just bad rock and roll in Wild Guitar. This was another attempt by the senior Hall to make junior a star. These two remind me of Charles Foster Kane trying to make Susan Alexander an opera star.Arch Hall, Jr. with a blond pompadour that would not be seen again on the screen until the German film Gossen or with Brad Pitt in Johnny Suede gets a big break as a last minute substitute for another act on a television variety show. As a result Hall, Sr. who plays a record company producer signs Junior to a long term record contract which gives him a comfortable existence, but all of his money is tied up with Sr. Junior is living on an allowance, nice, but not enough to maintain living as a popstar should. Added to that is Ray Dennis Steckler who also directed this monstrosity playing a psychotic enforcer for senior. All in all not a good situation. I'm hard pressed to find anything to praise here. The sets were cheap, the directing uninspired and Steckler to his defense was dealing with an incredibly mind blowingly bad cast. This one stunk up the drive-ins in the early Sixties and offered absolutely no distraction to those who came to the theater with something else in mind.

yes, I only rated it a two, but I thought I'd want to rate it negative 5. I had no idea Ray Dennis Steckler had unpretentious competence in him as a director, but he does exhibit just that in this clichéd but not terribly offensive teen drive-in flick. Some okay supporting performances. The music and dancing aren't good, but they're miles beyond the junk on stage in Incredibly Strange...Zombies.I hate to be cruel, but the girl love interest is one of the ugliest women I've seen a love-interest role. In real life, she may have been a beauty and a delightful human being, but the camera didn't like her. I suspect Arch would have done much better in real life.

"Wild Guitar" stars Arch Hall, Jr., a kind-of rockabilly Cabbage Patch Kid come to life, as a singer who hits Hollywood with nothing but a suitcase and a guitar. He stops off at a diner to stare longingly at the food he cannot afford and is offered a hamburger sandwich and some french-fried potatoes by a beautiful young girl who feels sorry for him. She agrees to be his de facto girlfriend until he can find someone better, and even offers him a chance to sing on a local television show, where he is discovered and offered a contract that will make him rich and famous for the rest of his life. All this on his very first day in Hollywood!Okay, so at this point we can see that reality is not a priority here, but "Wild Guitar" is a fun teen movie with some decent moments. If you're like me you know Arch Hall from the MST3K classic "Eegah!" in which Arch spent most of the film cruising around the desert in his neato dune buggy yelling, "ROXIE!" You may also know that his father Arch Hall, Sr. (whose stage name is William Watters) was the producer and co-star of "Eegah!," and "Wild Guitar," and the mastermind behind the low-budget film factory known as Fairway Studios. Senior- who once had a promising acting career before he left Hollywood to tend the family business- had an idea about turning Arch into a teen idol with a record contract and a series of B-movies like this. It didn't quite work out but the films they made are good silly fun, like this one.Nancy Czar as Vicki is unbelievably sweet and beautiful. Watch how expressive her eyebrows and jaw are in the opening diner scene; this is a face that the camera just loves. I've done some research but I cannot figure out why she wasn't more famous or in more movies. (NOTE: If you've seen "Eegah" you may have wondered why Arch sings a song called "Vicki" to his leading lady in spite of the fact that she's named Roxie. The song appeared in "Wild Guitar" first and was evidently recycled to try to sell a few more records!) There's also a romantic ice-skating sequence which shows off Nancy Czar's considerable skill and astounding flexibility. Afterwards Arch and Nancy walk through the late-night Hollywood streets, and although this is by no means Artistic Cinema, the scene does capture the innocence and joy of young love.Arch is no DeNiro himself, but he's fun and enjoyable enough as the naive singer snagged in the dirty world of the music industry, and this film might have been a lost drive-in classic if it weren't for one thing: the kidnapping sequence. About two-thirds in the movie takes a detour from which it never recovers when three "funny" goons kidnap Arch Hall and hold him for ransom. These Bowery Boy rejects employ every bad gag in the book as they bumble their way badly through routines even The Stooges couldn't save. "Dis guy is a wise guy, boss- you want I should give 'em a knuckle sammich?!?" And it's not just awful... it's eternal. The extended sequence keeps piling on lame joke after lame joke until you might actually consider jamming ballpoint pens into your ears to end the pain.Sadly, the movie never recovers from these lowbrow hijinks, and what could have been a sweet teenage timepiece just becomes a waste of time. A shame.GRADE: C-

Well OK, maybe not the best movie ever, but definitely the best rock 'n' roll movie ever. Or at least the best r'n'r movie of 1962. How about the best 1962 r'n'r movie that has an Olympic figure skating scene? Settled.This is one of those films that's so bad it wraps around the scale back to the good side. IMDb voters must have a collective colon blockage if they can't appreciate the magnificence of this picture. It truly breaks all the laws (and I suspect deliberately so, knowing the bizarre, tongue in cheek humour of director/co-star Steckler).First you have an anti-antihero: a punk who comes motoring into town looking like Brando on a bad hair day, but as it turns out, he's about as square as a boyscout, polite as a busboy and has babyface cheeks you just want to pinch and say oogyboogyboo.Next you have a bunch of felonious thugs who are so endearing & hilarious you want to make them the best man at your wedding. We have a goofy chick who suddenly breaks into a world class ice skating routine. And finally--here's the clincher--totally out of left field we have director Steckler himself playing the role of "Steak", a psychopathic headcase who would make Jeffrey Dahmer turn in his meat cleaver. This movie has it all!!The story itself gives us a hyper-cynical satire of the filthy entertainment industry, but it's packaged in a neat, wholesome, early-Elvis type show. Still, there are indeed some moments of dark lucidity, especially in a particular scene where a drunk Willem Dafoe-looking fellow gives us a powerful prophecy of how all rock sensations die in LA. Throughout the film, we get camera shots from bizarre angles & creepy closeups, again giving us the impression of a bad acid trip. But somehow the film manages to stay squarely in the realm of campy fun.So I can't make up my mind... Is this film so bad that it's good? Or is it so groundbreakingly good that it's bad? In either case you need to check it out. If nothing else, you will remember it forever.