Let the Good Times Roll

Shot in three days at three of Richard Nader's Rock Revival productions in the States, this is not the exploitative quickie you might expect but the first attempt to put rock'n'roll culture in some sort of perspective. Using split-screen, the performances at the revival concerts are set against clips of the same artists in the '50s, and against a collage of related fragments: town officials railing against beat music, Nixon appealing to the nation, the Lone Ranger ordering silver bullets, Khrushchev banging the table at the UN. Chuck Berry starts and ends the film (in duet with Bo Diddley: worth the ticket price), the Five Satins revive memories of the Moonglows and the Penguins, the Shirelles show a leg, and even the relatively talent-free interloper from the '60s, Chubby Checker, carries it off acceptably. Minor quibbles aside, the film succeeds totally.