Watch American Hot Wax For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

American HOT WAX. Is a very beautifully nostalgia look at the 1950's. And its a fond look at Alan Freed the DJ who first coined the term Rock and Roll. To describe the new music that the kids were listening to. And the tag line was very true there was a war being fought and the battle lines were drawn on Rock and Roll.On one side the parents the authorities. On the other side the Teenagers a newly coined term for kids between 13 and 18.They were looking for something to give them a a indenity. something to help define them. Alongside them were the Rock and Roll singers themselves just struggling to find a voice and along them were men like Alan Freed who loved them for what they wee doing. Freed dragged Rock and Roll out of the dirty musty shadows. He brought it into the light and He didn't try to change it . He just wanted it to be played. Freed for all of his efforts was a hunted man. The authorities wanted him on every charge they could think of.And they finally got it in the form of payola. In which highly influential DJs were given money to play certain records and push them up to number one. Not very ethical. but in a industry still struggling to come to terms with itself. And no set rules What could it hurt they figured. but it did hurt them and effectively shut Freed down as a result Freed began drinking harder and died at the age of 42. He never survived the 60's and never lived long enough to see his creation become widely accepted and a major force for change. I think Alan Freed would have been proud.American Hot Wax tells the story of Freed struggling to put on the rock and roll show of 1959. the authorities want to shut it down and shut him down. And Freed well he wants it to go on. With the kids at his side and Rock and roll stars backing them up. Freed is determined to put the show on. A compassionate look at a man whose life was hectic and chaotic. Who still had time for his fans. And A man who still had the power to make a few dreams come true for some . A fond look at what was. And one of the best Rock and Roll movies ever made.

Viewers of this film should know that this is a piece of historical fiction centering around the 1950's disc jockey Alan Freed, who is credited, erroneously, as the person who first coined the phrase "rock and roll"(the phrase was a sexual euphemism and was used in the lyrics of many blues songs prior to becoming a term to describe a specific musical genre). Viewers of the film may be a bit confused about the actuality of the characters and events depicted. Actor Tim MacIntyre plays Alan Freed. Musicians Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins play themselves. And then there are characters in the movie who never existed in real life, but are meant to represent certain actual persons. For instance, Larraine Newman plays character "Teenage Louise," an aspiring songwriter, obviously based on real-life musician Carol King. The vocal group The Chesterfields are a composite of Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers and The Coasters. Compounding the confusion is the fact that these characters sing actual songs from the fifties that were hits for artists who aren't acknowledged in the movie at all. The end result is a convoluted hodgepodge of actual and fictional characters and events. The real pleasure of watching this film lies in the performances of the actors and musicians. MacIntyre gives a great interpretation of renegade DJ Freed. Ms. Newman, although too old to play a character with the word "teenage" in her name, is touching as a girl pursuing, and realizing, her dream of being a professional songwriter. Jay Leno, then virtually unknown as a stand-up comic, is hilarious as Alan Freed's driver Mike, and the interplay between Leno and Fran Drescher, who plays Freed's secretary Cheryl is wonderful. Comedian Jeff Altman has short scenes as an obnoxious agent trying, literally, to get his foot in Freed's door, and he shines. The highlight of the film, however, is Alan Freed's live Rock 'n Roll show at Brooklyn's Paramount Theatre. The musicianship is top-rate. Pay particular attention to the lead singer of the fictional girl group The Delites, whose vocal on the song "Maybe" is breathtaking. Rock 'n Roll legends Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry perform as well. Lewis is red-hot; Chuck, true to his reputation at the time, gives a perfunctory and uninspired performance with his medley of "Reelin' and Rockin'/Roll Over Beethoven." Lost in the editing of the film is Screaming Jay Hawkins's performance of his R&B hit "I Put A Spell On You." The film devotes only a few seconds to his wonderfully original and oddball stage show. I have the soundtrack album in my collection, which includes Hawkins' song in its entirety, along with other performances that are either not included, or abbreviated in the editing of the film. The soundtrack also includes the original hit recordings of songs performed by Jackie Wilson, Bobby Darin, Buddy Holly, and others, and the soundtrack stands on its own apart from the film. I think I saw a VHS version of the film at a video store, so it may be available. Otherwise, good luck trying to see it. Copies of the soundtrack may be floating around second-hand record shops. If you can't find it, c'mon over to my place and we'll all listen together.

you'll all be thrilled to know that "American Hot Wax" is available in DVD format from Whirlin' Disc.com........the quality is not outstanding but it's certainly watchable.....Centerpieces of this terrific little film remain the late Tim McIntire's fabulous performance as Alan Freed as well as the great late 50's rock soundtrack................Who can forget that sensational scene when Freed gets a disturbing call from his father in Ohio....Freed hangs up, cues up the Drifters and says in a voice husky and mysterious "it's raining in Akron Ohio, but it's a beautiful night in New York...here are the Drifters and "There Goes My Baby"....He turns up the swirling string intro as loud as he can and you can tell the music soothes something deep inside him just as it did for the rest of us...Maybe someday Paramount will get hip and commercially release "WAX" for the home video market.

Floyd Mutrux is a golden god of American film making. "Hollywood Knights" is the greatest movie ever made, and this (American Hot Wax) may be the second. If "American Graffiti" can make it to DVD, this can.I would imagine the reason it hasn't yet been released is licensing of all the songs, the reason the Hollywood Knights disc was delayed for so long. Everyone is greedy these days, but isn't a little something better than nothing at all? Let it go, people!It is a great movie about a great time not only in America, but music. This is the 'big bang' of rock n'roll. Chuck Berry wears the exact same clothes from his very own closet as he did in '56, in this movie. The reason the RnR Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, is because that's where Alan Freed started - and he coined the phrase "rock n'roll". In this movie, like the aforementioned HK movie, Mutrux's eye for talent brings to the screen for the first time actors/actresses that would become luminaries in the future. Leno, Drescher, who knew? GET THIS MOVIE TO DVD NOW, thank you. :)