Bop Girl Goes Calypso (1957) User Reviews

Worth Time For Some of the Music -- Use Fast Forward

[alonzoiii-1 · 6/10 · 6 February 2007]

This is an easy film to mock. The leads can't act. (Nor can the supporting players.) The plot -- something about scientific proof that Calypso was about to replace Rock n' Roll as the reigning pop music --could have been conceived by Ed Wood. The fact that our hero was about to marry a Eugenics professor (yes, they did call it "Eugenics") who was enthusiastic about the genetic make up of their future child was unintentionally creepy. And, agonizingly, the titular Bop Girl cannot sing either Rock or Calypso. (She doesn't try to sing Bop -- for which the shade of Charlie Parker was likely grateful.) But these music movies of the 50s were not about the plot. Plot was an interlude for the kids to start smooching at the drive in. It was about the music. And SOME of that in this film was quite good.

For example, the first six or seven minutes are quite good. The credit sequence is Nino Tempo blowing a very hot r&b sax with a good stomping band. We move to another group (not sure who) singing pretty. Then, alas, we get some very, very, very bad music. Then some lame plot. Then, the highlight, a gentleman named Lord Flea, whose two features in the movie are exceptional. (Want to know where Bob Marley came from? Take a look. Then lobby EMI to get Flea's music re-released.) Generally, the better music is in the first half of the movie. Things start to get increasingly Ed Wooden after that, and the Bop Girl is allowed to sing far, far too often.

You won't know these songs, and that makes it all the better.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 21 November 2023]

Forget about the plot. It's a pointless element in this campy pop musical that mixes the world of calypso and rock and roll, giving Bobby Troup and Judy Tyler a silly plot arguing over the psychology of both musical styles, and when each of these get their on-screen performances, it doesn't really sound much different than pop styles from a few years before. Different rhythms, beats, twists and turns that earlier composers hadn't experimented with, and the song selections go from traditional to experimental to downright campy.

The film itself is a time capsule that's worth seeing, but elements of the story itself are truly bad. A club fight is staged with such phoniness (cymbals crashing to indicate kicks and puncjee that obviously aren't happening) that it might as well have been a staged Apache dance. One old geezer surprises everyone by arguing that the music being played that everyone's arguing over could make this the hottest club in town.

My favorite number involves men in bad eye makeup in coffins obviously playing singing vampires or ghouls of some kind, definitely intentional camp. Great dancing and singing aides some less notable songs in becoming quite entertaining. And don't make the same mistake I did thinking that this was a sequel to something just called "Bop Girl". That title appears incomplete on a poster for this movie.

When Rock N Roll and Calypso ALMOST intersected

[Schlockmeister · 11 November 2001]

A fun look at the brief period of time when Rock and roll and calypso music almost intersected. Belafonte was big, even Maya Angelou and Louis Farrakhan were recording with calypso bands. Light movie, fun performances, calypso never really took over Rock & Roll by any stretch of the imagination, it was sort of added in to the US's fascination with things tropical in the late 50s as Hawaii was about to be entered as a state. Mom & Dad went to Calypso parties and did the limbo, the kids still loved Elvis. Recommended, as I recommend Twist movies, for a snapshot of a largely forgotten time.

Get out your coconut frond hat, tie up the front of your Hawaiian Flower-dy shirt and see how low can YOU go, mon!

The usual 1950's rock movie

[kyyankee7-1 · 3/10 · 20 March 2008]

This is not a "lost movie" but was in fact shown on TCM in March, 2008. It could have stayed in the vaults. As is usual with this type of film, the primary value is in being able to see 1950's rock groups do their stuff. The rock groups are shuffled off, though, and replaced by, ready now, calypso acts, because rock and roll will soon be dead after 1957, to be replaced by the irresistible rhythms of the Caribbean. I wonder how that turned out? Otherwise the production values are pretty low, the plot (a term I use very loosely) is thin and any pleasure in watching this attempt at entertainment bottoms out pretty quickly. You do at least get to see Judy Tyler, the original Princess Summerfall Winterspring of Howdy Doody, who starred with Elvis in "Jailhouse Rock" and then tragically was lost in a car accident months later.

A movie recently surfaced of The Mary Kaaihue Trio at www.MaryKayeTrio.com

[mktrio · 1/10 · 4 September 2006]

We located Columbia Motion Picture by the name of Cha, Cha, Cha, Boom! Please contact Mary Kaye Trio website for updates. . You can visit the Mary Kaye Trio website for more information about the past history of the group that started lounge entertainment in Las Vegas back in the 40's. Mary passed away Feb. 17th 2007 from respiratory failure in the hospital in Las Vegas. Norman is still alive at the ages of 88 living in the Heights of Summerlin in Las Vegas. You can read The Mary Kaye Trio Story at this site. http://preview.heritagemakers.com/hmpreviewer/gallery/85728.pdf The recent discover of The Mary Kaaihue Trio is prior to Norman being part of the Trio. Here's a link to that private video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtSkyE9xhf4&feature=youtu.be The sound quality is bad because of the deterioration since 1945. Mary and Jules Pursley, Mary's only husband, sing a duet together while Frank Ross listens at the turntable picking up a chick !!!

Eager to drive the first nail into rock 'n roll's coffin, film fails to give us a substantial music substitute...

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 4 February 2010]

It's frantic, man, when a female rock 'n roll singer is nearly convinced by a professor's assistant that rock music is fading, its audience turning instead to the more mature sounds of calypso. Plot-less drive-in kitsch with lots of specialty acts padding the running time. Hard to fault any film opening with Nino Tempo playing the hottest saxophone of the 1950s, but that's just a teaser (albeit a good come-on for music novices!). The rest of the picture is made up of second-rate acts and novelties. The Rat Pack-styled clowning of the Mary Kaye Trio was enough to halt calypso music and trio-acts in their tracks. "Establishment" overtones permeate this premise (eagerly anticipating the swift death of rock 'n roll). It may have been the primary wish of many fogies at the time, but don't cry for Elvis just yet. *1/2 from ****

Calypso Rock

[crossbow0106 · 7/10 · 29 March 2008]

This story is a "B" picture, simply about a rock and roll singer who is told by a professor with a kind of applause meter at a night club tells her that rock and roll is fading out and calypso is the new hot genre of music to pursue. The title character is Jo Thomas, played by Judy Tyler, one of her few roles (she passed away young from a road accident). The film lets you listen to various groups at nightclubs, encompassing jazz, rock and roll, r & b and, of course, calypso. The story line is thin, but for someone who was born after the film was made and was raised on rock, the film is enjoyable due to the fairly solid performances of each act. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to find I've never heard of these acts, some were very good. Ms. Tyler is fairly engaging, and though the interaction between the main characters is fairly pedestrian, its still a fun film. It showed up on TCM, which is where I watched it. You can do much worse than this film, and all of us have. I kind of enjoyed it. Check it out.

You won't believe your eyes OR your ears!

[rooster_davis · 3/10 · 22 August 2009]

I don't know how to score this movie. If you're like me, once you start watching it, you'll just sit back dumbfounded by the whole premise that Calypso music could have ever been a serious threat to rock and roll as a popular form of music. And how is this determined? Why, how else? A guy with a decibel meter goes to a club showing a rock and roll group, and another club with a calypso band, and he measures the volume of the applause! The applause registers higher at the calypso club so it's 'sorry, rock and roll, calypso's got you beaten'. Yeah, that's how I'd measure it.

Hmm. Does anyone remember any calypso bands? Any calypso hits? Ever been to a calypso concert? I can think of zero, zero, and zero respectively. (Well, actually, maybe that Harry Belafonte thing about 'daylight come and me wanna go home' would count....) However, if you give me a little time, I can probably jot down a couple hundred rock / rock & roll bands, just as many songs, and a couple dozen concerts that I attended. I have to say, I think that guy's decibel meter, scientific as it looked, was not a valid way to measure the popularity of a music form in a culture. Slightly wrong, it was.

Anyhow - this movie has a thin plot and plenty of excuses to make you listen to calypso bands to make sure you know how much you (are supposed to) like calypso music. Oh, yeah, mon! Not. I can almost feel myself blacking out, it's got to be like being violated in some way, letting this movie inflict this tropical racket on your ears! Ow, help.

Simply Horrid!

[Jed from Toronto · 1/10 · 19 March 2008]

There is absolutely nothing in this ridiculous mess of a film that I find redeeming. From the embarrassingly silly "Hard Rock Candy Baby" number, to the hat-wobbling nonsense-act of Lord Flea, to the pigtails Judy Tyler wears at one point that look like they were braided by a 3-year old. Method acting I suppose - if the method is assembling a cast of remarkable incompetence and giving them puerile lines to deliver without rehearsal. Most of these 1950s films, aimed at teenagers of the time, are not high art, but this is the very worst I have seen of the genre. Watch it if you wish - but to employ the famous BBC radio blooper from eons ago (speaking of the wonderful Jessie Matthews) this is a film that "truly belongs on every British hit list".

An Accidental Masterpiece

[cbonaire · 10/10 · 24 November 2001]

Written by a Scandinavian with the peculiar notion that calypso was about to overtake rock 'n'roll, "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" tells the tale of young club-hopper Bob Hilton (Bobby Troupe), an academic trying to find the singer who will launch the next wave of mass hysteria -- which, according to his applause meter, will be calypso.

The film is laced with musical acts, all obscure, chief among them The Goofers, whose members like to take their solos on the trapeze, and the Lord Flea band, who provide the only genuine calypso in the movie. The subject of the film, Jo Thomas (Judy Tyler), is a laughable "bop" singer, whose attempts at calypso are even more ludicrous. Mix in cornball dialogue and quirky performances -- and lots of bad songs -- and you've got a great movie, albeit for all the wrong reasons. A stand-out song is "Rovin' Gal," sung by Tyler with inept dance moves that are wet-your-pants funny.

Besides the film's awful original calypso compositions, look for cool old Plymouths and sharp performances by George O'Hanlon (voice of George Jetson) as the club owner and veteran character actor Lucien Littlefield as Hilton's screwy professor. I have turned countless people on to this film, and all agree it's a wonder "Bop Girl" is not a cult classic. Often the funniest films are ones that weren't supposed to be, and by my lights "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" is chief among them.

Charlie Bonaire

Go Bop Girl Go

[Katie_Homewrecker · 2/10 · 24 March 2024]

I've wanted to see this movie for years. Youtube can sometimes be a goldmine for hard to find movies that arent going to be streaming anywhere. It's not a lost film, TCM played it in 2008, but I don't think it's easy to find.

Back in the 80's a circle of underground artists stumbled on a VHS copy and used to play it at parties acting out scenes like Rocky Horror. And you'll understand why if you ever watch: it definitely deserves a place in the sun on MST3K. It doesnt really fit the "so bad its good," category, its more of a "what did I just watch...?"

The plot is exactly what you can read in the movie description. But the plot isn't what makes it a bizarre little gem, it's the band The Goofers that you have to see, especially the number "I'm gonna rock n roll 'till I die." To really nail this point home they have dark circles around their eyes and lie in coffins - the Goofers were early emo rock pioneers, really. They also perform instruments on the trapeze or jumping on Pogo sticks which is funny but also kinda impressive. They'd probably win AGT if they were around today.

One thing to note though - the movie and the music might be hysterically bad but Judy Tyler - both as an actor and singer - is not. She's got some serious singing chops - she was in the starring role of the musical Pipe Dream (Life did a story on rising Broadway talent with Tyler on its cover as an up and coming star) and after this, Jail House Rock. She's likeable and charming and doesnt speak in that stilted faux-British mamner most actresses affected back then. And she's pretty darn adorable too.

Sadly, she was in only one thing after JHR, an episode of Perry Mason which aired 6 months after she was killed in a car accident along with her second husband. She was 24. Who knows, she could have become another Ann-Margret or Rita Moreno. She had the talent.

I have read that this is considered a lost movie.no known copies exist

[walsh6006 · 8/10 · 28 May 2005]

I have read a couple of reviews in movies history books,and both seem to agree Bop Girl goes Calypso is a lost movie.....no known copies of the movie are available for evaluation.If this is true,and someone out there has a copy,please let us know and start burning the copies for all of us to enjoy this camp classic! Also,I have also read that the movie was originally titled Bop Girl,and the goes Calypso was added at the last minute to cash in on the then recent Calypso craze.Apparently,from some still photos of the picture that i have seen,there were more rock and roll acts in the movie than there were actual Calypso acts.But no matter.This looks like it was another good example of the low budget music movies of the fifties aimed for the teenage audience.It would be great to see Judy Tyler in the starring role,since she only appeared in one other movie before her death.

Not Even So Bad It's Good

[Michael_Elliott · 27 June 2012]

Bop Girl Goes Calypso (1957)

* (out of 4)

Excruciating mix of drama and music has Robert Hilton (Bobby Troup) warning people that rock and roll is on its way out and that calypso is the next big thing. No one believes him except for singer Jo Thomas (Judy Tyler) and soon the two are dating while trying to make the newest thing work. BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO was just one of many "rock" musicals to be released in the 1950s and it's perhaps the worst one I've seen. Now to be fair, none of these musicals were all that good but the majority of them at least featured some interesting acts and a decent story but that's really not the case here. Music wise, Nino Tempo is about the best thing in the film and sadly this music is on so early that it leaves you a long time remaining with many less interesting acts. I think the biggest problem with this thing is that there's really no story to speak of. Instead of any real story we've got a very silly and unbelievable love story that has no sparks and we also have two leads with very little chemistry for one another. Tyler, on her own, isn't too bad as she manages to carry a tune and the "performance" is better than average. For the most part the music isn't all that good and if rock was really on its way out then nothing here would make you believe that. The cinematography isn't that bad for such a low-budget film but this here isn't strong enough to where it's going to keep viewers interested. Music buffs might want to check it out as a curiosity but that's about it.

Fun and Unique 1957 Rock and Calypso Fest

[jayraskin · 8/10 · 5 May 2012]

Bill Haley recorded "Rock Around the Clock" in April of 1954. It became a sensation and "rock and roll" became the craze. In January, 1956, Elvis Presley recorded "Heartbreak Hotel." It took a four or five months, but it reached number one and was the biggest selling record of the year. However, Elvis sharply divided people along generation lines. The young loved him, but the older generation was generally sharply critical. They hated him and it looked like he might be just a one hit wonder. Meanwhile in April 1956, Harry Belafonte released his album "Calypso" and it rose quickly to number one and stayed there for 33 weeks. It was the number one selling album of 1956 and the first album to sell a million copies. Given the fact that Calypso was embraced by everyone and rock and roll was embraced only by teenagers, it seemed that Calypso was possibly going to be the next wave craze. Given this background, the plot of this movie, that Calypso was going to be the next big sensation was not strange, but quite a reasonable guess.

The Rock and Roll and Calypso acts in this movie are unknowns. Songs rang from the tolerable to the very good. It is often like watching a very good variety show from the 1950's.

The one stand-out is the lead Judy Tyler. She is a fine singer and dancer and a fine actress. It is easy to see why she was picked to star with Elvis Presley in "Jail House Rock."

Sadly, Judy became a female version of James Dean. Like Dean, she died in a car accident before her films were released, so she never got to enjoy the super stardom that certainly would have come her way.

This movie is really all we have foreshadowing her talent.