Paul Anka Movies
Pop singer Paul Anka was a successful teenage heartthrob of the late '50s and early '60s. His life was chronicled in the 1962 documentary Lonely Boy (1962). Occasionally, Anka plays small roles in feature films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1959
Three Murderesses stars Alain Delon as a French playboy who gets more than he bargained for when he begins romancing three women at once. All three ladies (Mylene Demongeot, Pascale Petit and Jacqueline Sassard) are sisters, of wildly divergent personalities. Eventually all three tire of Delon toying with their emotions and plot a wry revenge. Director Michel Boisrone can't completely avoid the healthy vulgarity that is his trademark, but Three Murderesses strives to please without unduly offending. Released in France in 1957 as Faibles Femmes, Three Murderesses was initially distributed in the US under the title Women are Weak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mylène Demongeot, Pascale Petit, (more)
- 1959
Director Samuel Fuller skillfully intercuts footage of the German death camps with scenes from this thought-provoking drama about a forbidden, post-war love affair. David (James Best) is a G.I. stationed in Germany with the American Military Government. He falls in love with Helga (Susan Cummings), a young German woman, and she reciprocates his feelings. But their romance is not condoned by either culture and made all the more difficult because a troublesome gang of neo-Nazis is on the rampage, killing, stealing, and helping war criminals evade capture. Helga's younger brother is a member of the gang who suddenly breaks down when he attends the Nuremburg trials and sees footage on the death camps. That changes his mind and he is ready to help the American military, and maybe the relationship between his sister and David as well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Best, Susan Cummings, (more)
- 1959
This sexually explicit, low-budget film makes no pretensions about being anything other than offensive. There is no plot since none is especially necessary. Director Charles Haas (his last film was the following year), opens with a scene of sexually active men and women at a party. Then one of these women, Silver Morgan (Mamie Van Doren), is mistakenly accused of a crime and sent to an institution, run by Catholic nuns, for wayward young women. As it turns out, the inmates in the institution actually run it through sadistic means. One of them is even more seriously mentally disturbed than the others, and so the nuns welcome her as a novitiate, making even a non-Catholic viewer grimace. The content of this story, such as it is, is made all the worse by an accompanying disregard of the craft of filmmaking. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mamie van Doren, Mel Tormé, (more)
- 1958
Singer Julius LaRosa, whose greatest fame lies in the fact that he was fired on the air by radio-TV personality Arthur Godfrey, heads the cast of the near-plotless musicfest Let's Rock. LaRosa plays a top recording star who suffers a dip in popularity when rock-n-roll becomes the national craze. With the help of girlfriend Phyllis Newman, LaRosa is able to recapture his audience by adjusting to the "new sound." Forget the plot: this the film in which Danny and the Juniors perform their hit single "At the Hop" and the Royal Teens participate in a production-number version of their smash "Short Shorts". And besides, who couldn't love a film which offers not only Paul Anka and Della Reese, but also the legendary Wink Martindale!!! Let's Rock was later reissued as Keep It Cool. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julius LaRosa, Phyllis Newman, (more)
Chuck Berry: Maybellene, a part of the Songs That Changed the World series, details how the legendary rock single fused styles in order to create a sound that provided the blueprint for much of the rock and roll that followed. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
