Watch It's Trad, Dad! For Free

Too much of everything

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

odd mixture of rock, dixieland and jazz breaks 4th wall--comes off screen music video mayor banning music really like dixieland"It's Trad, Dad!" (later renamed "Ring-a-Ding Rhythm!") is not much of a movie in many ways. There's barely any plot and it consists mostly of a bunch of music video-like performances all strung together. Yet, it might be worth your seeing it if you like this sort of music or if you are curious what Richard Lester's first film as a director looks like.As for the music, it's a VERY strange combination. Some of it is clearly pop and rock but quite a bit also is Dixieland Jazz! Was there some sort of Dixieland fad in the UK in the early 60s?! I dunno...but these are actually more fun to listen to than the pop numbers...as they are VERY easy to listen to and tap along with as you listen! The Lester touch is obvious when they're not doing musical numbers. Weird stuff like breaking through the fourth wall by having actors walking OFF the film early on and some of the other silly sight gags seem like his later films and I could see why the Beatles would use him because of his odd, hip style.So what's the story? Well, there's about 10% story and about 90% just song after song after song. The Mayor of some town is mad because young people love their music...and it drives him crazy. So he tries, in vain, to stop the invasion of noxious music into his town!Overall, a VERY odd film and one that is VERY difficult to rate. The bottom line is that this movie is NOT for everyone....you have to love the music and you have to be very patient to see an almost plot-less picture! Mostly for Lester fans and for folks who like the music. I enjoyed it and recommend it...but could easily understand someone NOT liking or recommending it.

I watched this because it's the first feature from director Richard Lester, and while often first films are forgettably generic, Lester's film is imaginative and funny. Unfortunately, most of the movie is given to endless musical rock and jazz performances, which range from pretty good to quite dull, with more of the latter. These numbers are imaginatively filmed, but by the halfway point I was fast forwarding through most of them.The acting is pretty awful; both leads are apparently pop stars of the time (Shapiro's voice, when she sings, is shockingly deep compared to her singing voice; she kind of sounds like a guy) and Lester hadn't yet learned how to pull good performances out of unskilled actors.For fans of Lester it's at least worth watching the intro. And if you like the music then this would be a swell film.Once read a comment from John Lennon that when he was starting out in music everything in England was jazz, now I see what he means. Jazz was apparently a big thing in the early sixties, and according to this movie put off the older generation just as much as rock & roll!

I never heard of this movie until seeing it tonight on Turner Classic Movies. Who would have thought that Trad meant Dixieland Jazz in Britain? This movie is full of excellent jazz performances but the American rock and roll artists seem out of place. Most of their careers, like Gene Vincent, were on the decline in the US. Chubby Checkers' was on the rise due to the twist craze.This was the first time I've seen Helen Shapiro though I've heard of her in conjunction with the Beatles. Lovely girl, I never would have guessed that she was only 15 when this was filmed. Luckily I was able to find out more on her web site.Too bad this movie isn't out on tape or DVD. If it's broadcast again, I'll record it.

I first saw this movie as "Ring-A-Ding Rhythm" in 1963 and have revisited it several times since. "It's Trad Dad" was Richard Lester's first film, and many of the humorous and surreal touches he later brought to the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" are clearly in evidence here. This British film essentially borrows the basic plot of all those terrible 1950s American rock 'n' roll movies: The mayor and town council try to banish the music that young people are listening to, so the kids try to get major disk jockeys and musical artists to come to town for a liberating concert. But Lester and writer Milton Subotsky (who wrote the earlier U.S. film "Rock, Rock, Rock") spoof the plot throughout and acknowledge that the main appeal of this type of film was that it presented musical performances by charting artists in the days before MTV. The only drawback is that when "It's Trad Dad" was shot in late 1961, trad jazz (known as Dixieland in the U.S.) was sweeping England, which means we're treated to a seemingly endless series of British retro-jazz cats like Acker Bilk and Chris Barber. Fortunately, a couple of Yank expatriates, Del Shannon and the great Gene Vincent, were having second careers in the U.K. at the time, so Lester worked them into the story. (Gene Vincent's performance of "Spaceship to Mars" itself recommends this movie.) Lester also had the presence of mind to fly to America to shoot several cutaways of U.S. artists like Chubby Checker (who was on the verge of storming the U.K. with the Twist), Gary "U.S." Bonds, the Paris Sisters (with soft-focus attention paid to enchanting lead singer Priscilla Paris) and Gene McDaniels, although their material is not up to par with their earlier hits. But the real star of the show is the sense of fun that Lester brings to the proceedings. The scenes literally crackle with wit and energy totally lacking in the earlier Alan Freed/Sam Katzman-style rock films. Topping it all off is the amateurish but utterly charming leading lady,15-year-old Helen Shapiro, whose foghorn singing voice and giant beehive hairdo easily steal the show. Though Shapiro was a big pop star in England at the time, she never clicked in America, which is too bad because she made some very effective records. (After starring in a second film, "Play It Cool," with Bobby Vee and Billy Fury, her singing career went into decline.) "It's Trad Dad" is ultimately an interesting museum piece that captures the British entertainment industry in its last innocence before the Beatles arrived. Not only would Richard Lester go on to direct their two films, but Helen Shapiro would headline their first big tour--during which Lennon and McCartney wrote "Misery" for her. "It's Trad Dad" is highly recommended despite all the Dixieland music.