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Good start, but then it gets ruined

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this film, not having seen it back in the day, or since. In some ways it is perhaps better than I had hoped and in another less so. The problem, for me, seems to lie in the stage musical origins. Never having been a fan of such fare, it is those elements, the all singing, all dancing with lush orchestration that I don't enjoy. The more 'street' sections with the lads getting established, the strip club and marvellous Soho location shooting is fine by me but I don't need fat impresarios singing and 'dancing' especially the incredible, 'Nausea' supposedly about the very youngsters he is promoting. Cliff is fine, strangely enough his wavering and erratic singing voice seeming his biggest problem. He must have sorted that out later by sticking to what he was able to deal with. So, I loved the London streets, the decent enough representation of Soho back in the late 50s, the slightly cheeky strip scenes and although the film is not very even, still harping back to its stage roots, it is very watchable.

Laurence Harvey gives an agonizing performance in the agonizing "Expresso Bongo," a British film from 1959.A fast-talking low-life agent, Johnny Jackson (Harvey) discovers a young bongo player/singer (Cliff Richard) from a poor family, renames him Bongo Herbert, and brings him to stardom by wheeling and dealing. Shades of Colonel Parker, especially when he takes half of Bongo's earnings. When the singer meets an American star, Dixie Collins (Yolande Donlan) who is making a triumphant return to London, Jackson starts to lose control of his talent.I have no idea what Laurence Harvey, normally a very fine actor, thought he was doing in his portrayal of Johnny Jackson. He comes off like an imitation of Phil Silvers, except when Phil Silvers did this kind of shtick he was hilarious. He's way, way over the top.I watched this film because I wanted to see the young Cliff Richard. Richard was not in this film enough, nor did he sing enough. The speaking voices of some of the other actors, such as Avis Bonnage as Bongo's mother, and Sylvia Syms as Jackson's girlfriend Maisie) were so annoying and incessantly high pitched and screamy, at one point I nearly stopped watching. Richard himself is very natural, not really acting, and he did well in the musical numbers.Sir Cliff Richard was the U.K.'s answer to Elvis and has more top 10 hits than any other artist, spanning a remarkable 50 years. He has the third-highest number of #1 hits in the UK, behind Elvis and The Beatles. He's an institution. And I hated this movie. Like some of Elvis', it's pretty unwatchable. It's a shame we couldn't do better by our national treasures.

Apart from a minor role as a delinquent in "Serious Charge", Cliff Richard made a splashy debut as Bert Rudge (a teenage singer, what else) in "Expresso Bongo". It had originally been a successful play on the West End - a biting satire on the music industry. It was voted the Best Musical of the Year. Paul Schofield had the Laurence Harvey part and James Kenney (who had the lead in a pretty nasty J.D. drama, "Cosh Boy") played Bert Rudge. The music was clever and wordy and inspired by song writers like Noel Coward. One song "The Gravy Train", had Shakespearian quotes while in another, "We Bought It", two shopaholics are described as "two eccentric socialites, dissipated sybarites". The play's depiction of Bert Rudge as a talentless idiot obviously had to be changed. Cliff Richard was Britain's latest singing sensation and couldn't be portrayed in that way. So, most of the songs had to go, to be replaced by ones written by Norrie Paramor (who wrote and produced most of Cliff Richard's hit songs).From the beginning, this film is designed to cash in on Cliff Richard's rising fame. The opening credits feature the names of the stars - then Cliff Richards' picture appears on a juke box. The rest of the credits really evoke the sleazy, seedy atmosphere of Soho. Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey is absolutely fabulous) is a hustler par excellence, and you are taken on a guided tour as he talks and hustles his way around the coffee clubs. Maisie (a fantastic performance by Sylvia Sims) drags him to a "beat club" where he finds singer and bongo player, Bert Rudge, and proceeds to build him into the latest singing sensation - as "Bongo" Herbert. Johnny is also Maisie's manager, but so far he hasn't been able to lift her out of the sleazy strip club, where she is a featured performer. She has a secret ambition - she wants to be an opera singer!! "Bongo" is taken under the wing of Dixie Collins, an almost over the hill singer, who genuinely wants to help him but is bitter when he is given a singing engagement instead of her.The film really slows down when Harvey takes a back seat in the last half - Cliff Richard, at this stage in his career, just didn't have the talent or charisma to hold viewers interest. Susan Hampshire, who was in the West End production of the play, may have "played the upper class twit to a T" (as one reviewer says) but she was a much beloved British actress who was Queen of Classic British TV. I can first remember seeing her in the television series "Katy" (1962), based on the "What Katy Did" series of books. She even made another film with Cliff Richard, "Wonderful Life" (1964) but the series that started the television ball rolling for her was "The Forsythe Saga", in which she played Soames' spoilt, willful daughter Fleur. After that it was almost as if she was forbidden to come into the 20th century with shows like "Vanity Fair", "David Copperfield", "The Pallisers" and "The Barchester Chronicles".Recommended.

Ignore anything or anybody that denigrates Espresso Bongo. It is loaded with period detail and attitude, is singularly risqué for it's time and sports great music and one of the best scripts about England's Tin Pan Alley, wisecracking and inside, besides an unprecedented performance by Laurence Harvey as you've never seen him, a hustler who recalls Sidney Falco in the "Sweet Smell of Success". Maier Tzelnicker is tremendous as the record company executive who calls it "rock dreck". Yolanda Donlan, Val Guest's wife, plays a "Sweet Bird of Youth" like aging diva Alexandra Del Lago who seduces Cliff Richard, whom many called the Pat Boone of England. See the opening strip number when the girls perform a burlesque version of the "Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond". It sets the tone for an overlooked gem. A "B" Movie Classic. Enjoy.