THE picture in the fan-mag showed this gangly kid in jeans and a sweat shirt, his face contorted, mouth wide open, beating with both hands on a bongo set round his shoulder, over it the headline BONGO ...

From the golden era of teenage exploitation films comes two vintage Brit beat classics, “Expresso Bongo” and “Beat Girl,” available on the Kino on Video label. They’ve got rock royalty, “daddy-o” ...

THE seedier side of the music business has provided rich pickings for film-makers down the years. From the fabulously downbeat Flame (1974) , which positioned the poptastic Slade at the very heart of ...

Dig those crazy bongos! A bizarre, energetic little gem from 1959, director Val Guest’s “Expresso Bongo” means a lot to lovers of the cult musical but isn’t well known here in the colonies. Based on a ...

What sort of people are they growing up to be?” Although the stuffed-shirt narrator cannot bring himself to say the word “teenager” of the film’s subjects, it’s a question asked in the 1954 Government ...

Entertaining musical about a sleazy, opportunistic talent agent who discovers a bongo player. While the agent is busy trying to turn his new find into a teen idol, and in turn rescue his own flagging ...