It's easy to poke fun at Contino on the basis of a film like "Daddy-O", but he did have...something...or at least enough pop culture weight to rate his own entry in Wikipedia and a novella by James Ellroy ("Dick Contino's Blues") based partly on Contino's character and experiences. Apparently he was consistently billed as "the world's greatest accordion player" and appeared on the Ed Sullivan show over 40 times. So he apparently was (and is) a real professional performing musician, even if his performances as a teen idol and ladies' man in "D-O" are pure cheese.
While "Daddy-O" is not very "Goody-O", I have to admit that it has a lot of energy, and a nicely overloaded plot. It's obvious from this that Dick Contino isn't much of an actor but he's got decent pecs and a chiseled jaw. And he jumps with both feet into his role of Phil/Pete Plum, the fast drivin'/hard rockin'/blonde romancin'/Sonny avengin'/undercover investigatin'/scene chewin' hero of this 50's flick about UNTAMED YOUTH (Forty Year Old Actors Division).
It's all by the numbers and it's all very silly, but it moves along briskly, and every time your attention starts to wander, there will be a car crash or a car race, or someone will say or do something incredibly corny, or there will be a beating or a fistfight, or the movie will stun your adrenal glands with a shot of buttery meat mound Bruno Vesota getting a massage, or the Platinum Blondie will do her best Veronica Lake impression (she makes Mamie Van Doren look like Meryl Streep). So you won't think of it as a "good" movie, but you'll probably at least be entertained by this unintentionally hilarious artifact of another era of pop culture.
I give it 3 pants out of 10. Er, STARS, not "pants", STARS.
While "Daddy-O" is not very "Goody-O", I have to admit that it has a lot of energy, and a nicely overloaded plot. It's obvious from this that Dick Contino isn't much of an actor but he's got decent pecs and a chiseled jaw. And he jumps with both feet into his role of Phil/Pete Plum, the fast drivin'/hard rockin'/blonde romancin'/Sonny avengin'/undercover investigatin'/scene chewin' hero of this 50's flick about UNTAMED YOUTH (Forty Year Old Actors Division).
It's all by the numbers and it's all very silly, but it moves along briskly, and every time your attention starts to wander, there will be a car crash or a car race, or someone will say or do something incredibly corny, or there will be a beating or a fistfight, or the movie will stun your adrenal glands with a shot of buttery meat mound Bruno Vesota getting a massage, or the Platinum Blondie will do her best Veronica Lake impression (she makes Mamie Van Doren look like Meryl Streep). So you won't think of it as a "good" movie, but you'll probably at least be entertained by this unintentionally hilarious artifact of another era of pop culture.
I give it 3 pants out of 10. Er, STARS, not "pants", STARS.