American Hot Wax is a snappy, fun-filed, raucous paean to the Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll — the late Fifties. It is about the disc jockey who coined the term and through his radio shows and concerts plugged the music into the lives of teenagers. The film celebrates the first singers, songwriters, and fans of this pop music form. It gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the music industry in a time when it was seized by a revolution. And the movie conveys the establishment's clumsy and authoritarian attempts to stamp out rock 'n' roll before it could spread across the country.
American Hot Wax is first and foremost a tribute to rock 'n' roll. The soundtrack is filed with goodtime toe-tapping music. One leaves the theatre on a giddy high. Why? Because the film makes it clear that rock 'n' roll is here to stay. It has become an integral part of American culture. Or as Frank Zappa once put it: "Rock music is a necessary element of contemporary society. it is functional. It is healthy and valid artistically. It is also an educational (how to ask a girl for a date, what love is like). It was all the answers to what your father and mother won't tell you. It is also a big business.
American Hot Wax pays homage to Alan Freed, the disc jockey who made it all happen. Tim McIntire gives a convincing portrait of the harried New York radio man who loved rhythm and blues music so much that he programmed it for white as well as black audiences. Clark Whelton of the New York Times said of him: "Alan Freed" jumped into radio like a stripper into Swan Lake. He was a teenager's mind funneled into 50,000 watts." In the film which is set in 1959, he is assaulted from all sides by scads of writers, groups, and record promotion hustlers — all courting his stamp of approval, the guarantee of a hit. On another front, he is the target of an attack by law enforcement types and censorship groups. They are convinced Freed's music is corrupting the morals of America's young people.
Director Floyd Mutrux (Aloha, Bobby and Rose) sums up the movie's theme: "It's about the rebel versus the establishment. And the battleground is rock and roll. This movie is about the music, the beat, the rowdiness, the excitement."
American Hot Wax hurrahs the singers, songwriters, and fans of early rock 'n' roll. A black group named the Chesterfields (Sam Harkness, Carl Earl Weaver, AL Chalk, and Arnold McCuller) are featured as street-singers who perform some of the finest doo-wop music you'll ever hear in any movie. They team up with an aspiring songwriter, Teenage Louise (Laraine Newman), and win a spot on Alan Freed's concert at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre. Seeing them work together, we remember that rock music was the first pop genre to be written by youth, played and sung by youth, and directed exclusively toward youth.
American Hot Wax portrays indirectly the effect rock 'n' roll had on teenagers in those first years. Moosie Drier is featured as the young president of the Buddy Holly Fan Club (membership 5000). One of the early developments in rock was the idolization of pop stars. Moosie's life takes on new meaning because of his devotion to Buddy.
In another arena, the friendly antagonism between Sharyl (Fran Drescher), Alan Freed's straight-laced secretary, and Mookie (Jay Leno), his "hood" chauffer, illustrates the tensions between Fifties youth with differing lifestyles. In the end though, even these two are brought together by the music. And, as the audience at the Brooklyn Paramount clearly shows, the appeal of rock 'n' roll cut across the races, the music serving as a true unifying cultural force.
American Hot Wax puts before us the rock steady vitality of some pioneers in the medium. Alan Fred's shows at the Paramount broke box office records formerly established by Frank Sinatra. Among the stars were Chuck Bery, Jerry Lee Lewis and Screamin' Jay Hawkins. As we watch Chuck Berry perform "Roll Over Beethoven" for this film, it is interesting to note that he actually introduced his famous "duck walk" at the Paramount — he delighted the audience as he danced pigeon-toed straight out in front like a fin. Jerry Lee Lewis lets it all loose with "Great Balls of Fire." His famous piano act was once described by Andy Wickham: "His silvery voice provoking goose pimples, his long crabby fingers assaulting the keys, his feet crashing the pedals like a speed-freak flooding the carburetor of a stalled Ferrari."
Kenny Vance, formerly of Jay and the Americans, served as musical consultant for American Hot Wax. He has done a marvelous job selecting material for the soundtrack (which will be released by A&M Records). He also appears leading a group in the concert called Professor La Plano & The Planatones.
Finally, American Hot Wax illustrates the active emnity of the establishment toward rock 'n' roll. John Lehne plays a district attorney who wants to crack down on Alan Freed and wipe out rock 'n' roll's influence on youth. He does manage to disrupt the Paramount concert. Concerned that the kids are dancing in the aisles and "acting like animals," he orders the lights on and the police in. Freed can't stop the ensuing riot. Attitudes like Lehne's were common in the late Fifties. Witness these quotes:
Some of our disc jockeys have put emotional TNT on their turntables. Rock 'n' roll gives young hoodlums an excuse to get together. It inflames teenagers and is obscenely objective.
— Garret Byrne, a district
attorney in Massachusetts
Rock is like jungle tom-toms readying warriors for battle. Its lyrics are, of course, a matter for law-enforcement agencies.
—The Very Reverend John Carroll of Boston
Alan Freed was eventually done in by the law enforcement. Refusing on principle to sign an affidavit to the effect that he had never taken gifts to play music (a standard practice in the nascent roc industry), he was one of the first disc jockeys charged during the payola scandals. But the music he loved and popularized could not be dismissed. In the closing scenes of American Hot Wax, a teenager is playing garbage cans on the street. He is just one example of the thousands who over the years have kept the music alive. Freed, it turns out, was right: "Anyone who says rock 'n' roll is a passing fad or a flash-in-the-pan trend along the musical road has rocks in his head, Dad!"