Expresso Bongo (1959)

Johnny Jackson, a sleazy talent agent, discovers teenager Bert Rudge singing in a coffee house. Despite Bert's protestation that he really is only interested in playing bongos, Johnny ... See full summary »

Director:

Val Guest

Writers:

Wolf Mankowitz (play), Wolf Mankowitz (screenplay),

Stars:

Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan

Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Laurence Harvey	...	Johnny Jackson
Sylvia Syms	...	Maisie King
Yolande Donlan	...	Dixie Collins
Cliff Richard	...	Bert Rudge / Bongo Herbert
Meier Tzelniker	...	Mayer
Ambrosine Phillpotts	...	Lady Rosemary
Eric Pohlmann	...	Leon
Gilbert Harding	...	Himself
Hermione Baddeley	...	Penelope
Reginald Beckwith	...	Reverend Tobias Craven

Storyline

Johnny Jackson, a sleazy talent agent, discovers teenager Bert Rudge singing in a coffee house. Despite Bert's protestation that he really is only interested in playing bongos, Johnny starts him on the road to stardom. The deal they cut, however, is highly exploitative of the young singer, and their relationship soon begins to go bad.

---

Plot Keywords:

singer | agent | strip club | coffee bar | singing | 

---

Taglines:

Laurence Harvey in an outstanding and different motion picture that takes you into a world of burlesque houses .. jazz dens ... and flesh-and-blood people!

---

Genres:

Drama | Music

---

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 May 1960 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

A Singing Idol

Filming Locations:

Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, Mayfair, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Val Guest Productions, Britannia Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The credit titles for writer, producer and director are written on sandwich boards carried by writer Wolf Mankowitz as he walks around Soho.

---

Connections

Featured in The Love Goddesses (1965)

---

Soundtracks

"Nothing Is For Nothing"
Music by David Heneker and Monty Norman
Lyrics by Julian More and Wolf Mankowitz

User Reviews

Mostly for Cliff Richard fans

It's really about a hustler-turned-agent (Laurence Harvey) and how opportunity comes (and passes him by) via his finding (and losing) the kid-with-talent (Cliff Richard). A scene I liked was where the agent and the label exec (Meier Tzelniker) shamelessly discuss their plans for Bongo Herbert's future - i.e., what can he do for them, never mind what he can do for himself.

This might have been a much more memorable movie with a bit more backing and some rewrites. It starts (and ends) by taking us to the cruddier side of London ca. 1960 - strippers, noisy streets, the grime, the neon-lights - all of it filled with the never-was's and the never-will-be's hoping against hope for That One Break. No U.S. movie at the time would ever have thought of this, whereas this U.K. movie did so without any Hollywood-esque qualms about "how will it play in Peoria?"

Strange to think: when this movie, about a young rocker getting started, was released there was a band of Liverpool kids who got a gig in a dive on the Hamburg Reeperbahn ...

One last bit: check out an uncredited kid named Susan Hampshire. She has four lines but she ante-dates Monty Python's "Upper-Class-Twit-of-the-Year" sketch by 10 years - she does it to a t.