Floy Mutrux wrote the musical theater productions Million Dollar Quartet, Baby It's You! and Heartbreak Hotel after a career in films, including directing Aloha Bobby and Rose and The Hollywood Knights. He's also written scripts for movies like Freebie and the Bean and Two-Lane Blacktop.
The strange thing is, this movie failed at the box office while its soundtrack went to #31 on the Billboard charts with no pr. And the movie itself is packed with the real artists of the era playing themselves, like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Ford and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
This movie was well-reviewed - notorious haters Gene Siskel and Pauline Kael spoke well of it - and yet it died nearly unseen.
Tim McIntire - Blood's voice in A Boy and His Dog - plays Alan Freed, the first DJ to get black artists on mainstream radio (or at least the first to be recognized for such a brave act). He's also George Jones in Stand By Your Man, if you want to do a music movie double feature.
It's also a romance, with Freed's Freed's secretary Sheryl (Fran Drescher) getting hit by Cupid's arrow for chauffeur Mookie (Jay Leno). Jeff Altman, who for some reason has showed up in numerous rock and roll movies this week, plays a record exec. And hey - Larraine Newman is here, on break from SNL, as a young songwriter whose parents don't approve of her being around black people (Caroline King but not in name, basically).
Planet Records owner Richard Perry - the man who produced Nilsson Schmilsson - is a record producer. There's also plenty of great music and this film takes a more glowing look at Alan Freed than other films. It's a shame more people don't know about this movie.
The strange thing is, this movie failed at the box office while its soundtrack went to #31 on the Billboard charts with no pr. And the movie itself is packed with the real artists of the era playing themselves, like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Ford and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
This movie was well-reviewed - notorious haters Gene Siskel and Pauline Kael spoke well of it - and yet it died nearly unseen.
Tim McIntire - Blood's voice in A Boy and His Dog - plays Alan Freed, the first DJ to get black artists on mainstream radio (or at least the first to be recognized for such a brave act). He's also George Jones in Stand By Your Man, if you want to do a music movie double feature.
It's also a romance, with Freed's Freed's secretary Sheryl (Fran Drescher) getting hit by Cupid's arrow for chauffeur Mookie (Jay Leno). Jeff Altman, who for some reason has showed up in numerous rock and roll movies this week, plays a record exec. And hey - Larraine Newman is here, on break from SNL, as a young songwriter whose parents don't approve of her being around black people (Caroline King but not in name, basically).
Planet Records owner Richard Perry - the man who produced Nilsson Schmilsson - is a record producer. There's also plenty of great music and this film takes a more glowing look at Alan Freed than other films. It's a shame more people don't know about this movie.