Don't Knock the Rock

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Don't Knock the Rock was a 1956 rock and roll film starring Alan Dale as a rock star who returns to his hometown to rest up for the summer only to find that rock and roll has been banned there by disapproving adults. With the help of disc jockey Alan Freed and film headliners Bill Haley and His Comets, they set out to prove that the music isn't as bad as adults think.

Co-starring in the film was Little Richard, The Treniers, the energetic R&B combo who recorded what are regarded as several of the first rock and roll recordings and recorded the first version of "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie" (which Bill Haley wrote), which Haley later claimed inspired Alan Freed to coin the term "rock and roll", and Philadelphia's Dave Appell and the Applejacks, who were the house band for the famed Cameo-Parkway Records and led by guitarist Appell who produced, arranged, and co-wrote many Cameo-Parkway hits during the early 1960s including "Let's Twist Again," "Wild One," "Bristol Stomp," "Mashed Potato Time" and "South Street."

The film was an immediate follow-up to the earlier Rock Around the Clock, which had also starred Haley and Freed. Although Haley and the Comets were the top-billed stars of this film, their role in it was relatively minor and the film failed to duplicate the box office success of its predecessor. Today it is mostly remembered for introducing Little Richard to a mass audience.

The title of the film comes from one of Haley's hit records of 1956. The Haley recording is played over the opening credits, but in the film it is Alan Dale who actually performs the number.

Don't Knock the Rock is often listed in reference books as being a 1957 release, due to it receiving its US premiere in mid-December 1956.

[edit] Songs performed in the movie

"Don't Knock the Rock" - Bill Haley and His Comets
"I Cry More" - Alan Dale
"You're Just Right" - Dale
"Hot Dog Buddy Buddy" - Haley
"Goofin' Around" - Haley
"Hook, Line And Sinker" - Haley
"Applejack" - Dave Appell and the Applejacks
"Your Love Is My Love" - Dale
"Calling All Comets" - Haley
"Out Of The Bushes" - The Treniers
"Rip It Up" - Haley
"Rocking On Saturday Night" - Treniers
"Gonna Run" - Dale
"Long Tall Sally" - Little Richard
"Tutti-Frutti" - Richard
"Country Dance" - Appell
"Don't Knock the Rock" - Dale

The version of the guitar instrumental "Goofin' Around" performed in this film differs from the version released on Decca Records; it has yet to be officially issued although a film audio recording of the scene in which it was played (as opposed to the original studio recording) was released in the late 1990s by the German label Hydra Records. Due to sheet music for the songs "Applejack" and "Country Dance" being released as a tie-in with this movie but with Bill Haley's, not Dave Appell's, photo on the cover, these songs, although Haley-sounding, are often erroneously cited as Bill Haley recordings.

[edit] Home video release

Don't Knock the Rock was never released officially on VHS or laserdisc in North America. On January 23, 2007, Sony Pictures (current owners of the Columbia catalog) released the first Region 1 DVD edition of the film alongside Rock Around the Clock.[1]