Expresso Bongo (1959) ***

On the surface, Expresso Bongo seems like a slice of life in the London music industry in the late 1950s when in fact it is a timeless story about the trials and travesties of the music industry applicable by even today's standards. We're introduced to the sarcastic and glib Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey) who has recently made the change to agent for musical acts and is meeting with only modest success. Harvey's superb portrayal ensures that the smooth talking and scheming vagabond is an instant hit with the audience and there is never a second the audience loses sympathy with his character when rationally he should really be despised. He is the driving force of the first half of the film and the center of attention as he is in practically every scene. The rapid-fire dialogue and the wit of the script holds the audience's attention through largely dialogue scenes as there is very little action in the film. The scheming Jackson is able to play the supporting characters off one another and able to promote his new find, bongo playing Bert Rudge (Cliff Richard) into an overnight success and tying him to a contract which sees that his agent gets fifty percent of his earnings. Jackson is such a humorous and charming fellow however, much like the people he is playing, it is hard not to like him even when you know what he is up to.

Bert Rudge becomes Herbert Bongo, a singing sensation with the London youth culture largely due to Jackson's machinations. Bongo, however would much rather play the bongos rather than do the singing act Jackson has set him up as. His silent discontent echoes an internal struggle within himself that even though his success has brought him fame and fortune, he is not as happy in his new lifestyle as he was in his old doing his act for fun in front of friends. He's also too young to comprehend and understand what is going on around him and his immaturity is best demonstrated when he is asked whether he has a girlfriend. Girls simply do not interest him and even though he is eighteen and in modern society this would be unheard of and carry other implications, here the fact just serves as proof that he is all too innocent in the ways of the world and susceptible to manipulation by others who wish to feed off his success.

On the other side of the music spectrum we meet Dixie Collins (Yolande Donlan) an aging and fading music sensation who is trying to be reinvented yet again by the head of the record label that also promotes Bongo. When she first meets Bongo she quickly invites him for a drink and when he passes out from the quick ingestion of liquor and spilling about his unfair contract with Jackson, the stage is set for Collins to take advantage of Bongo's inexperience for her own benefit. The introduction of this new scheme sidelines Johnny for much of the second half as he is outmaneuvered by Collins and Mayer (Meier Tzelniker), the head of the record label, for them to take over his contract. Bongo is the victim of everyone else's dreams while his desires go unheeded. He is truly a victim of his own success, or rather, marketability. Mayer is all too knowing that Bongo is the flavor of the month and plans to utilize him as much as possible before the next teen sensation comes around. Dixie, who used her feminine wiles to sway Bongo away from Jackson gets her own comeuppance when she learns that the act she had planned for Bongo and herself will just be for Bongo as no one else has any interest in the fading starlet.

Throughout the film the Jackson and Maisie (Sylvia Syms) romantic subplot had been a humorous diversion. Jackson is supposed to be her agent as well however she can't seem to find any other jobs other than at a gentleman's club with other scantily clad girls. Despite the fact that Jackson appears only interested in her for a purely physical sense, he does have a subtle caring and sincere demeanor that he only uses around her. Once he fails as Bongo's agent, he plans to go back to arranging music, his previous profession, in order to continue to support Maisie in her pursuit for fame. Luckily our hero in the end is able to discover an opportunity for Maisie, and surely himself, to take advantage of. It is only because of Harvey's charming portrayal as Jackson that he is probably the only character the audience cheers for and the fact that he wins in the end leaves the audience truly satisfied.

Favorite moment: Mayer as the mouthpiece of the audience with his direct delivery of "He really is a likable fellow" once Jackson leaves after tricking him to give him something he wants. It's exactly what I was thinking at that moment and that bit of self-referential humor was a great addition to an already captivating script.