Rebel Highway: Shake, Rattle and Rock!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The 50s, a time of contentment and family values.

(00:05):
But just under the surface, lurks the most insidious evil known to mom.
Look, Margo. There's your Susan.
Rock and roll.
Your mother and I are really worried about you.
Dad, it's rock and roll.
I am going to prove that this music is a drug, a very addictive drug

(00:28):
that puts you in a state of unrelenting ecstasy.
We're going to get some.
Rock and roll. We won't go.
Golden Globe winner, Renée Zellweger and Howie Mandel.
In the film that puts rock and roll on trial.
I think he's kind of cute.
They have Negroes on that show, Fred.
Hey, you have Ella Fitzgerald records. But I would never go see her in person.

(00:50):
But best of all, we got music!
Shake, rattle and rock.
I rest my case.
We're not talking about actors.
We mean a real monster.
I brought her back.
She'll live and I'll get her another body.
I know they’re gonna catch me, but don't let anyone see me like that! Please, Doctor! Help Me!
Biologically speaking, it's of primary importance that man should want to mate.

(01:14):
Hey, that’s right!
You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
And we want to get loaded.
You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
I'll see you in Hell first!
The American International Podcast.
Are you ready?

(01:37):
All right, it's time for the American International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
And today we're putting on our poodle skirts and saddleshoes to watch Shake, Rattle and Rock
from 1994.
I am not wearing a poodle skirt.
Haha.
We only have your word for it.
This is Rebel Highways episode number six released August 26, 1994.
Shake, Rattle and Rock! was written by Trish Soodik, directed by Allan Arkush, and produced by

(01:58):
Lou Arkoff and Deborah Hill and Willie Kutner for Driving Classics and Showtime Networks.
Shake, Rattle and Rock! stars Renee Zellweiger as Susan, Howie Mandel as Danny Clay, Patricia
Childress as Cookie, Max Perlick as Tony, Latanyia Baldwin as Sireena, Necia Bray, Josina
Elder, and Wendi Williams as the Sirens, Garrit Graham as Lipski, John Doe of X as Lucky,

(02:20):
James Intveld as Bubber.
Also appearing are Riki Rachtman as Eddie Cochran, Danny Boy as Cochran's Drummer Boy, Nora
Dunn as Margot, Mary Woronov as E. Joyce Togar, Dey Young as Kate Rambeau Sr, P.J. Soles
as Evelyn Randall, some of these names sound familiar.
Jenifer Lewis as Amanda, Ruth Brown as Ella, Stephen Furst as Frank, Dick Miller as

(02:45):
Officer Paisley, William Schallert as Judge Boone, and an uncredited Paul Anka as the butcher.
This is a movie about music and it opens with music.
We see Renee Zellweger bopping around her room, lips thinking too, the girl can't help it
using her hairbrush as a microphone and basically throwing herself all over her furniture.
As her scratchy record plays, she comes on the closet and immediately starts lipsinking.

(03:08):
When you say it comes out of the closet, it implies things that aren't true.
She literally came out of a closet.
That's true.
But she's making a grand entrance.
She is.
She's a performer and we'll find out later that she's a performer elsewhere besides
her bedroom.
And her thing is pretty hot because she's actually able to fry steaks in her hand.
What was with the steaks?
I don't know.

(03:28):
She pulls them basically out of nowhere and she's holding sizzling steaks and then she throws
them away.
Well they were hot.
Drop it like it's hot.
Meat shows up weirdly in this movie at least twice.
And the whole purpose of this is to show the opening credits.
It's weird how blurry this was.
Is that just our addition of this that we have that help to watch?
No, I think that was intentional.
Oh wow.

(03:49):
Really?
Yeah.
It was a weird effect that they decided to use and I don't think it was an effective effect.
No, it seemed like it was out of focus for most of her thrashing about.
It's shot at like two frames per minute.
No, it's almost like a series of stills.

(04:10):
And she's jumping around so much that they're all blurry.
I see.
But it's either just certain frames represented on screen or it's shot at such a low rate
that it's like a series of stills.
And it's kind of bizarre, but I think it's supposed to have kind of a more modern MTV feel
compared to a 50s movie.
It's definitely not something we would have seen in the 50s.

(04:30):
Definitely not.
For one thing it's in color.
And also it's four by three ratio.
So well they had color in the 50s, but AIP usually didn't.
Not these movies for the most part.
So the movie proper opens with an American bandstand type show.
It's local.
Howie Mandel is Danny Clay or I think he calls himself Danny the K sometimes.
Probably named after Marie the K probably.

(04:51):
And he's the host of this afternoon bout fest and Susan is there.
She's one of the kids in the audience are dancing around to the songs.
This particular song is Ain't That a Shame by Fats Domino.
Who does not appear in this movie like he did in the original unfortunately.
So we see this Susan's one of the dancers and we also see her friends Cookie and Tony.
We haven't met yet.

(05:12):
Nope.
And we found out their names via IMDB.
They don't really give their names until at least Cookie doesn't give her name until
later.
But anyway, there's something going on outside the studio as well.
There's a girl group performing on the sidewalk.
This is Serena and the sirens.
Yeah, they can't go inside because it's the segregated 50s.
Right.
And I don't think that's the main plot of this movie, but it's such a big side plot that

(05:36):
it's basically like two plots concurrently of the racism of the 50s.
It's very casual, but it's very very prevalent.
Yeah, and I think that was the main focus of what the story is here is to emphasize the
racism above everything else.
Right, because they do pick a lot of elements from the original movie, but that's not what's

(05:58):
important here really.
And we flip back and forth between what's going on outside and what's going on in the
studio.
Susan gets interviewed on camera where she says music is her life.
Yeah, Denny Clay focuses on Susan because she's a cute girl.
And when he goes to talk to the girl next to her, which is Cookie.
And her weird friend Tony also gets on camera.
Tony grabs the microphone and does a Denny Clay impression.

(06:21):
And Denny pretends to not know who it is, says it said Sullivan.
And his trademark is to point his finger and go, Kapow.
Yeah, we'll get a lot of Kapow's through the course of this movie.
And we learn that Susan goes to Lakeview High and she and Cookie love Connie Francis.
We love Connie Francis.
And Denny then promises that we'll have some Connie Francis later, but I don't think

(06:42):
we ever do.
We don't get any Connie Francis.
There's a lot of songs in this movie, but there are no Connie Francis songs, unfortunately.
Back outside the sirens are seeing blue moon and a beautiful harmony when a couple of
motorcycle toughs roll up on their bikes.
Yep, this is Lucky and Bubber.
Lucky is John Doe from the band X.
I thought that was super cool.
Bubber is, well, we said his name at the beginning, but I don't know what his other credits

(07:05):
may be.
Lucky tells the sirens that they should all sit together because they're not allowed
to go into that studio either.
But Serena, the head of the siren says, you can't go in because you're trouble, but we're
talent.
So they're not going to be outcast together.
At least not now.
Speaking of talent back in the studio, Danny Klaig is introducing the next person to take

(07:25):
the stage and that's Eddie Cochran.
That's a big get for this local show, although it's really a Ricky Rockman who I think was
on MTV, perhaps at this time or near that time.
So as Eddie performs, the kids dance again.
And we cut to what I've called the mother's club where we have Margot Doyle.
This is Susan's mother, played by Nora Dunn, each voice togar, played by Mary Warrenoff,

(07:47):
who played principal togar in rock and roll high school.
Also directed by Alan Arcus, you directed this, maybe.
Kate Rambo Sr. played by Day Young, who played Kate Rambo in rock and roll high school.
So this is her mom.
And Evelyn Randall, played by PJ Soles, who played riff Randall.
And you guessed it, rock and roll high school.
Wow, if they only could have got the remones on this movie.

(08:09):
Anyway, they're playing Majang together and talking about Campbell's soup recipes, this
typical mom stuff.
Yeah, there's been your discovery.
Chicken Ella King and a can.
All you have to do is add the potato chips.
Yep, just go up it out of the can, and bake it in the oven like it's your own.
But this is interrupted when Eve Joyce togar, the bichiest of the bich moms, sees Susan

(08:29):
on television.
And she's dancing.
And this scandalizes everybody, most of all, Margot or mom, especially this show because
they let Negroes play in front of the children.
And that's not us choosing to say that that's what they say.
And of course, they're supposed to be the 50s and their racism flag flies high.
Yeah, as we said, that's a prevalent theme in this film.

(08:50):
And they also mentioned that Danny Clay is an ex-con.
And by that they mean he's spent a couple years in juvenile detention.
Well, Evelyn does say that she likes the way they dance and that it's very expressive,
but looking at the expressions of the other mothers, she changes her tune and says it's too
wild for her chase.
Yeah, so no defection amongst the moms here.
Everyone will be on board by the time this movie ends.

(09:12):
So back out the sidewalk outside the studio, Lucky is still pretty grumpy because he couldn't
get in the studio.
And his friend, Bubber, is just now finishing on the road.
He's on the last page.
Yep, and Jack Kerawak.
And Lucky tries to read it, but then declares he hates books.
Back in the studio, it's pretty much cleared out, but Susan Cookie and Tony are hanging out.

(09:32):
They've hung behind and they've taken the stage.
Yeah, they do a quick rendition of "Come on, everybody, themselves."
They discuss how they're in a band and they need to find a place so they can practice.
But Cookie is really busy because she's a substitute mom to all her siblings because her
moms are alcoholic.
So she's not really available as much as they'd want her to be.
Then when they go outside, they see the sirens performing.

(09:53):
And there is a small crowd gathered around.
It's a lot of the kids from the studio.
They're just exiting and they hung out to listen to more music.
And Lucky and Bubber are still there, sitting on their bikes.
They're listening to.
Yeah, everyone seems to be enjoying it.
I mean, they're really good.
Except for Paul Anka.
Yeah, Paul Anka plays a butcher.
He runs out of his butcher shop, still choking his chicken and confronts the girls because

(10:16):
they're Negroes.
And they can't be in this neighborhood.
They should go back to where they belong.
But Susan's not going to take this line down.
No, as butcher Paul starts to storm off.
Susan says, why did you go back to Nazi Germany where you belong?
He spins around.
Well, she confronted him before that though.
She called him a pig to.
She's the one that chased him off.
He tries to get her to back down.

(10:37):
There's like a standoff and she wins.
She won't back down.
And as he slinks away, Sweeney turns to Susan and says, Nazi Germany.
She says it was the worst thing she could think of.
Yeah, boy.
All things have changed.
Most of the kids disperse except for Susan and Cookie.
And Lucky has now noticed Susan.
Yeah, he likes the way that she handles herself with the butcher.

(10:58):
He's smitten.
But Susan doesn't seem to like him much.
Well, he's a good 10, 15 years older than her.
He's also a motorcycle tough.
And who knows anything about him?
He could really be a bad guy.
So she's smart.
Yeah, Lucky offers her a ride, but she's not interested ever.
And she starts listening off random dates as examples of when she wouldn't be interested.
Nope.

(11:19):
If it was 1994, I still wouldn't ride with you.
She doesn't say that.
She does say that she doesn't like his shiny motorcycle or his shiny hair or his shiny slippery
personality.
Yeah, and Barbara tells Lucky that Susan's a waste of time.
But Lucky's not really giving up.
He tells Susan that if she ever wants to go dancing, that she should find him.
Because he's a fine dancer.

(11:39):
They write off and Cookie says that she thinks he's kind of cute and Susan can't help but
agree.
I mean, he's a little cute.
He's just bad news.
He's dangerous.
Let me go back into the studio where Lipski played by Garrett Graham, who apparently runs

(11:59):
the station.
And he's got some notes for Danny.
Yeah, they've gotten some complaints from parents about his show.
First of all, the kids are dancing too close to the camera.
I don't know why that's a big deal, but I guess they don't want to ID the kids.
I know dancing too close on camera.
Oh.
Oops.
Well, okay.
So we saw Renee Zellberger's face, like basically taking up the whole frame.

(12:24):
So that's what I thought it was something about.
Yeah, he's on a steak to make.
And that's how her mom found out what she's doing with her free time because that's not
what Susan said she was going to do.
Anyway, they don't want parents on complaints because the parents are the ones who buy the
products that they advertise.
Yep.
And if they don't buy the products, then there's no money for the show.
And then the station goes under.
So everybody loses.
Danny tries to put him at ease by using an analogy where rock and roll goes directly to the

(12:48):
libido, but that doesn't make Lipski feel any better.
He tells Danny to save the smut what he needs is good, clean, healthy teenagers on his show.
So now we're in Susan's room.
She and Cookie are together.
Susan is an artist in addition to being musical.
She's multi-talented.
Cookie is posing for her.
She's holding a saxophone over her head.
Yeah, that's what she does in the band.

(13:09):
She's a saxophonist.
Saxophonist.
She's a saxophonist.
And they start their girl talk.
They're talking about Lucky.
Yes, Susan knows that he's bad for her.
She's tempted.
She thinks maybe she should find a college boy named Walter and Cookie thinks that she would
like one of those two or a Brian.
And we know that Susan's planning to move away soon.

(13:29):
She wants to go to college as far away as she can get.
I also got the feeling she wants to pursue a career in music.
Like going to college?
That's a waste.
You can study music in college.
Maybe.
But yeah, her main goal is to get out of this town.
So Margot Bargesan and criticizes Susan Art.
She does knock, but she doesn't wait for her to come in.

(13:50):
She just goes in.
Right.
And Cookie and we get to see what Susan's painting looks like.
She's trying to compare herself to Salvador Dali.
And obviously Cookie has no idea who that is or else she would have stepped away from posing
long ago.
It's just kind of a weird abstract.
The saxophone.
You can tell it's a saxophone, but it's behind Cookie and Cookie looks nothing like Cookie.

(14:13):
And it looks nothing like a Dali painting either.
It's closer to Picasso maybe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
Anyway, Marco asked what she was doing dancing on that show.
Yeah, Susan plays dumb, but Margot has got her dead derites.
She lied about going to the library.
Cookie meanwhile has left the room because this is a family matter and she doesn't need
to be part of it.
Nope, she can go argue with her own mother.

(14:34):
Margot says that she knows that Susan lied about going to the library.
And she threatens to talk to her father about this.
An empty threat if ever there was one.
And then we meet Serena's family.
Her mom basically in the scene who runs a restaurant.
Yeah, there's a small diner that she owns and Serena's job is peeling potatoes at least
for the moment.

(14:54):
Yeah, her mom is making a meal for the church and she's trying to put together this big
pot of potatoes soup who knows.
But anyway, her mom is not really in tune with Serena's dreams.
She's more in tune with what Serena should be doing, which is helping her in the restaurant,
concentrating on her studies, going to church to sing if she really wants to sing.

(15:16):
Practical matters.
Right.
But Serena reminds her mother that she had at one time wanted to be a singer and asked her
if she remembers that and her mother Amanda claims that she doesn't.
Nope.
Serena wants to break the TV color barrier at least or just be famous in some way or another,
but she says she agrees to put away her dreams for now and focus on school and stuff.

(15:37):
But I don't think she means it.
So we turn to the Doyle house and it's dinner time and we get to meet Susan's father, Frank,
who I call flounder Altho.
I know it's a Steven first from Animal House and he is so milk toast in this.
He's a yes dear kind of dad.
So Margot was giving Frank the update about what's been happening with Susan.

(15:58):
She was dancing on that show and she lied about going there and it's probably not the first
time that she's lied.
But Margot also has very antiquated views about rock and roll music.
It's the nicest way to put it.
It's really racist.
She feels like it's African music, even Elvis, who's white.
Because I mean, obviously it is music from black people.

(16:20):
We owe rock and roll to them and I guess Margot's not gonna let Susan forget that.
Susan, though, points out that even Margot has Ella Fitzgerald records.
And I would never go see her in person, says Margot.
And then she makes her really strange comment.
Especially when she's talking to her 17 year old daughter, she compares the dancing that
happens when this music is played to foreplay.

(16:42):
Susan calls her mother perverted, which doesn't go over well with her.
And this whole time Frank is sitting there silently watching his conversation, trying hard
not to be involved.
No, he wants to eat in peace.
So Susan sends herself to her room where she can...
That perverted foreplay with her pillow.
To some African music.
That's really funny scene.

(17:04):
And meanwhile, Frank is just trying to eat his dinner.
He says it's just a phase.
He wants this to all be glossed over easily.
The next day we're at Lakeview High and Susan and Cookie are walking together outside the
school.
Yeah, they're cuddly discussing their easy, slut-tees classmate.
They're very pretty, well, she's got a nice body and she's surrounded by a gaggle of
guys.

(17:25):
They're not like bump into the sirens, so we're all walking together as well.
And Susan tells them they have great voices.
And they wouldn't know why she's being so friendly to them.
Yeah, they're not used to that from white people, which is really sad.
But that's just how Susan is.
She apologizes for bothering them and starts to walk away.
And Serena calls out to think her for the way she had on the butchery yesterday.

(17:45):
And then they start to discuss if things are tense or not.
But things get a lot less tense when Tony rides his bike right through the two groups
of girls.
And as an urgent message, she tells everyone to meet them at 10th and maple in an hour.
And that means the sirens too.
Right.
But Cookie can't make it because again, she's the eldest daughter.
So Tony rides off on his bicycle, leaving everyone wondering what's on 10th and maple.

(18:07):
Cookie explains to the puzzle sirens that he's in their band.
And the sirens are really interested to hear that they have a band.
Yeah, now they have one other thing in common.
Well, I think it was the way they had it gone.
Well, they both hate that.
It puts your cat in.
Okay, so if you're wondering what 10th and maple is, it's a defunct Chinese restaurant.
Who's Chao Feng?
It's gone out of business.
And somehow this high school kid was given the lease of it.

(18:31):
I got the impression his father would bought it, was opening an entire restaurant, but it
wasn't going to be ready for a while.
So they've got free run of the place until then.
Yes, but he's still a high school boy.
Can they be trusted with an entire restaurant with no supervision?
I'm going to say no.
No, he says they could use it for whatever.
There whatever is music practice.
So they're not doing anything bad.
So right now it's just Tony and Susan.

(18:52):
Nobody else has arrived yet.
You know, cookie's not coming.
Right.
And Tony wants to practice, but Susan doesn't want to practice without cookie there.
Just then Danny Clay walks in, turns out that Tony had called him and invited him to hear
them play.
He's not such a big celebrity that he can't come to a defunct restaurant where a teenage
boy asked to meet him.
Yeah, he realizes he used to eat there and it still smells like egg rolls.

(19:14):
And then Tony dubs their band, the egg rolls.
And this would be a great time for them to perform for Danny, but cookie's not there.
Right.
So Susan's not going to do it.
Tony does offer to do a drum solo while Danny waits and he starts playing.
Susan tells Tony to just give it up.
Danny tells her to never give up because he's willing to help anyone if he thinks they're
ready.

(19:34):
And then he turns around and walks smack dab into the four sirens.
They immediately start singing.
They're ready.
And they're ready.
Yeah.
Because we cut to the TV station and they're on the show.
That's awesome.
And they're hit.
The kids listen rapidly.
They're not bopping and driving.
They're just listening.
They're just so entranced by the music.
Because like I said, they're are really good at the diner where serena's mother works.

(19:58):
She and her older sister Ella see the sirens performing on TV.
Apparently was a big secret because they didn't know they were going to be on.
Well, maybe there was no time.
Maybe they had to rush there and perform or maybe like with Susan's mom.
Serena doesn't think that she can trust her own mother with this information.
Regardless, they're very excited to see this because they seem to be doing well.
They're kind of living the dream that Amanda and her sister had always wondered for themselves.

(20:21):
Right.
And Aunt Ella is really on serena's side here because Amanda still has doubts.
But Aunt Ella reminds her that this is what we wanted to do.
And maybe serena should be able to live her dream.
Back at the studio, the sirens wrapped her song and the crowd of plots and everybody looks
like they're having a swell time except for Lipski, the station manager.
No, because he's going to get more phone calls.

(20:43):
Because why?
You guessed it.
They're black.
They just don't have black people on the show.
When Fat's Domino played, it was just a song.
He didn't appear there.
And apparently he's the only black artist they even play.
We've got to cut back to the diner and Amanda and Ella discuss serena's possible future.
But Amanda tells Ella not to indulge serena's pipe dreams.

(21:03):
So back at the station, the show is over and everybody's gone except for Lipski and Danny.
Lipski tells Danny that they did indeed receive some calls and informs him that he can't
have everyone on the show.
And you know what that means.
Danny thinks that Lipski is an asshole and then Lipski fires Danny who seems to have expected
this and even wanted it.

(21:24):
He must have a lot of money saved up.
Now we're back at the Doyle house and it's dinner time once again, but they have an unexpected
visitor.
And you know who it is before Mario even opens the door.
Well, his theme plays.
What's his theme?
He has his own music cue.
Oh, I didn't catch that.

(21:45):
So it kind of announced him.
It's lucky, of course.
Mario's not happy to see him, obviously.
Susan says she's not happy, but her eyes tell a different story.
Lucky comes in and Margot goes, did you dance on that show again?
Which she did, but that's not really relevant.
No, Lucky doesn't come from the show.
He kind of makes moves on her, but Susan plays a cool.

(22:08):
Yeah, well, I would say this is heavy duty flirting without any touching.
But Lucky parks himself on the couch and Margot is just scandalized.
And Susan says down beside him and things start to look like they are getting somewhere.
Susan's playing hard to get, but you can tell she's going to cave.

(22:28):
And finally Margot can't stand it anymore.
And she screams in and to get out, get out.
So Lucky leaves and she closes the door behind him and turns around and says, I thought
I saw a knife in his pocket.
She's afraid that Susan's going to get knocked by this guy.
Yeah, she doesn't like the idea of her daughter fraternizing with people who carry knives.
Susan thinks it's stupid to imagine this guy knifing her, which shows that she's never

(22:51):
listened to true crime podcasts.
Anyway, Margot is reading Susan the riot act now.
She needs to see a change in Susan and pronto.
She threatens to send her to community college so she can keep an eye on her.
And Susan predictably responds that she hates her mom and storms off.
Where she goes is 10th and Maple, where Tony is sweeping the floor.
Tony's got some interesting news for her.

(23:13):
The one that Susan had no idea about.
Yeah, and unfortunately their name stuck to the egg rolls.
No getting out of that one.
Also Serena and the cyborgs are going to perform and also the concerts like in three days.
Saturday night and to the best of my knowledge, they've never practiced together.
Not that we've seen.
That's true.
Susan sits down at the piano and lip syncs to Julianna racing and low knee teenager.

(23:35):
Was that a slow down version?
You seem to be thinking slow down version.
You seem to think it should go faster.
It was a song by Dion originally and it had more of an upbeat tempo.
But this version is more of a mournful ballad.
It works.
It works on Lucky.
But it's kind of a solemn song this way.
It is.

(23:56):
And it especially works on Lucky who has chosen this moment to come in probably to find Susan
but he finds her singing.
He listens respectfully from behind the beaded curtain.
And when the song's over, he backs out of the restaurant without interacting with her.

(24:18):
At least not now.
That night Susan is back in her room when her father knocks on the door.
And we see that Lucky is lurking outside her bedroom window.
It's on the first floor.
She probably say that.
He's not levitating.
Frank asks if they could talk.
She opens the door.
She says, "How could she lover?"
And Frank explains this not that she isn't trust her, it's the music.
Then he says, "Let's talk about the music and Susan lights up and lets him in."

(24:39):
Yeah, she explains how rock and roll makes her feel.
In an almost erotic kind of way, it touches her deep inside and places she didn't even
know she had.
Frank is holding a couple of 45s and looking at her and looking down at the records and
looking at her and looking down at the records.
And you can tell he feels a little uncomfortable at this moment.
He feels a lot uncomfortable because he's also not the confrontational parent.

(25:00):
He's not the parent who actually parents.
He's just the dad.
Brings home the money and listens, I guess.
But surprisingly, Frank admits that he felt like that once himself and that he understands
and he's going to go have a talk with Margo.
Oh, I'm sure he will and I'm sure it won't matter a bit.
So he leaves and Lucky takes the opportunity to wrap it Susan's window.

(25:21):
Susan opens her window and tries to shoe Lucky away, but he's a very persistent stalker.
He wants her to come away with him.
Yeah, he says he understands her and that he knows that she doesn't belong to her.
He's not belonging to this town any more than he does when he thinks that she knows that
too, but she tells him that she does have plans and he's not in them.
And yet they kiss.
Well, he kisses her and she doesn't fight him off.

(25:41):
No, because as we've seen, there is an attraction there.
So now it's time for a montage.
Yep, it's time to hang up the posters for the egg rolls gig on Saturday night.
Right.
There's not much time and we need a crowd.
They're going to use this to raise money.
So we first see them going up all around the school and then at Amanda's restaurant and
then all over town.
And we see the sirens will be singing there too, which we already knew.

(26:04):
And even Danny K gets a poster smacked on his box full of things he's taking out of his
office.
So now he knows.
And we see the tables are being cleared at the former Who's Child Fun?
It's a big room for dancing as this is going to be at least temporarily a music club.
And we get to see Cookie playing.
She's really rocking out on the saxophone and the kids are all dancing.
Next scene is in the library where Togar is throwing away books.

(26:29):
She tosses on copies of Ketchar in the Rye, Invisible Man and Naked End the Dead.
And she's not doing this as an official library representative.
She's just there as a patron tossing out books because she doesn't like them.
Margot comes in and asks Togar what she's doing.
Togar explains and asks if she's sure she wants to read that Fitzgerald book that she's
holding because he was a terrible alcoholic.

(26:50):
Margot says she had no idea.
Then she asks if Margot is comfortable with the idea of Susan as an unwed mother because
this jungle music leads to fornication.
She holds up a poster for the egg rolls gig and this is the first Margot's heard about it.
And they vowed to go there together to check this out.
So now it's Saturday night and we're at the club and there seems to be a decent turnout.

(27:10):
The sirens arrive minus Serena.
Yeah, because she's at home getting less minute advice from Amanda and Ella, which gives
Amanda and Ella an opportunity to sing Blue Moon with Serena.
That was nice.
Yeah, as the closest they'll be coming to living the dream themselves.
No, but they're really happy for Serena.
Amanda's on board now.
They do give her some advice to shake her thing and to dip in scoop when she's singing.

(27:33):
And Amanda can't make it to the concert because there's a restaurant, but she promises to
be at the next show.
And we see that the mothers are on their way to the club as well.
They'd never been in this neighborhood before.
It's so Chinese.
The food's good there though.
Or at least Evelyn is heard so.
Lucky sitting on his bike outside the club and he greets Mrs. Doyle as she goes by
and says it's nice to see her again.

(27:55):
And the other mothers look a little concerned to see that Marco has already made this man's
acquaintance.
Right.
He's being awful familiar with her and Marco has to kind of downplay that.
And they go in the club where Tony is lonely trying to warm up the crowd.
Lucky for him, Danny Clay is there and he offers to MC.
And he explains that Tony was very persistent in calling him so he felt he had to be there.

(28:15):
Kipow.
So he takes a stage and he tells the crowd what they're in for.
The sirens will be playing.
And.
The egg rolls.
Yes, Tony.
Tony nods.
But when his badmate says I hate that name.
They both ate it.
I'm sure.
So Danny continues to the crowd saying at other surprises.
And now we're back outside the club where Lucky and Bubba are trying to get past officer

(28:38):
Paisley that's Dick Miller.
A character name he often adopts and they have no success.
Officer Paisley is kind of the bouncer at this club.
Yep.
He's there to keep undesirables like Lucky and Bubba around the club.
And Serena comes up.
She's late.
She needs to get inside.
And at first second, I thought he wasn't going to let her in either.
But she says she's performing and he waves her in inside and on stage.

(29:00):
The egg rolls are up and they play you ought to know be better.
Susan sings lead, but she has her own voice.
Well, Renee Zellberger doesn't use her own voice.
And I don't know if she can sing or not.
If she can, she's not going to sound like the person who actually is singing.
It was a very deep, throaty, rich voice that seems like it could never come out of
Renee Zellberger in a million years of practicing.

(29:21):
She's good though.
I mean, it sounds great.
And the mothers are all there.
They're standing in the back and Margot has a look on her face that I can't really discern.
She's looking at her daughter singing and rocking out.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't know if she really looks concerned.
Jellis.
She's shocked.
Excited?
It's pretty emotionless.
Yeah.
Nor done.

(29:42):
She doesn't have a lot of affect in this movie.
She gets angry.
But we never really get to know her very much.
We don't get a lot of depth in her.
So she's just the disapproving mom.
But yeah, here, it's hard to read what she's really thinking.
Yeah.
And I think her character could have used a little more development.
Right.
Because it's very one note.
A lot of the characters are kind of one note in this movie.

(30:02):
Well, they're going to be, but this one in particular, I think, is important because
you don't know if she's just falling in line with what Togara is telling her to feel.
Like the other moms do.
Right.
Or if she actually has some understanding of what her daughter is going through.
She says she does, and she's towing the line in front of her daughter.
But we don't know if there's something else there because it kind of apply.
Maybe there is, but they don't show it.

(30:24):
It could be that her mom wants her to be safe.
But she's also seeing that there's a lot of talent in her daughter.
And she's doing this for her own good.
But maybe she's regretting it a little bit because she's keeping her daughter from something
she's really talented in.
So I don't know.
Yeah.
I'd like to think that's it.

(30:44):
It would be nice if the script dealt with that as well.
But we don't get any more intel on what Margot thinks from here on out.
But Margot is not in charge.
Togara is.
And she marches to the mother's outside to lodge a complaint with Officer Paisley.
Yeah.
She's got a noise complaint already filled out and ready to go.
So Officer Paisley has no choice but to take it seriously.

(31:04):
And they want him to close down the club, which is ridiculous because as someone will say
later, all the buildings around there are empty.
There's no one to offend with their noise, which isn't really that bad.
Nevertheless, Officer Paisley signals for backup, which arrives.
He goes in and tells Danny to shut everything down.
And Danny asks who put in the complaint saying there's nothing around but empty buildings.

(31:26):
Officer Paisley tells him that's confidential.
Well, Togara is glaring at them from the side.
She'll be wearing a sign saying, yeah, I did it.
So Danny decides to rile up the kids and then the cops arrive to turn it into a full scale
riot.
It's not really the kids who are rioting.
No, but Danny did get them to start chanting rock and roll.
We won't go as he's dragged away in handcuffs.

(31:49):
Outside the club as the kids are leaving.
Susan sees that among the people beating the hell out of a cop car is lucky.
And Bubba is another.
Bubba is another, but she doesn't care about Bubba.
Well, neither should we.
It's just someone for Lucky to talk to you.
But Lucky's the guy she's interested in and this isn't cool.
Togara insists that Paisley take care of this.

(32:11):
He officially puts Danny under arrest and Lucky and the other thugs get rounded up as
well.
A real bummer ending to a night that should have been a glorious triumph for everybody.
The silence is never even got to perform.
So later the club is empty leaving the egg rolls left to clean up the mess.

(32:34):
Yeah.
And they're trying to console each other.
So Rina got hurt on her way out of the concert.
She fell and she heard her arm and she goes home and Amanda patches her up.
The only people who are happy are the mom's club.
Yep, they're celebrating the drinks.
Well, at least three of them are.
Margot is at home with Frank and Frank's holding an empty garbage can.

(32:55):
And Margot is throwing Susan's 45s into it one by one.
Yeah, it's so sad.
And Susan's in a room crying.
And I think you can tell that Susan's also made a plan at this point.
The next day at three o'clock on the three o'clock hop Danny Clay has been fired.
So he's nowhere in sight.
But instead the mothers are there on the television.

(33:16):
I think it's no their plans for the future of rock and roll.
Yeah, this is great TV.
For some reason, they're still an audience of kids and they're sitting on the bleachers
where they normally sit when the acts are performing and they look so glum and lifeless.
And Todd gives her anti rock and roll message.
There's no music anymore.
This is becoming an editorial program.

(33:36):
And I'm sure that their ratings won't sink at all.
Next we have Danny coming back to the station where he no longer has a job.
But he does have a proposal for Lipski, one that will send ratings soaring.
Yep, he has an idea to get people to watch his channel again.
And that idea is of course court TV.
He's a little before his time.
And it's not court TV like we know it.

(33:58):
There's no judge Judy or the people's court.
This is putting rock and roll on trial in a very literal but non-binding sense.
So what happened in the original Shake Battle in Rock?
It is.
Like I said, they did borrow some stuff.
And the best part is this case will be heard by Judge William Schallert or William Boone
or Judge Boone.
Well, his name is William Schallert and all my notes.

(34:19):
He was in one of the original AIP movies.
He was in the gunslinger briefly before getting murdered.
Yeah, before the credits, I believe.
But he was there and it's great to see him again.
Well, obviously the trial is going forward because we have a judge and a mocked up judges bench.
And he's presiding over his court.

(34:39):
The prosecutors are the mothers.
Basically, Togar is going to be the one doing all the interrogation with Danny Clay working
defense.
And the kids are watching, but they're not the jury.
The jury is you at home.
Once the trial is over, you will call in and place your verdict.
His rock and roll guilty or not guilty and the votes will have it.

(35:00):
Yeah, how he man dealt made a career out of this.
Wait, are you talking about deal or no deal?
No, I'm talking about America's Got Talent.
Oh, actually, I haven't kept up with his career.
So the prosecution goes first and prosecutor Togar calls Danny to the stand.
She asked him if he ever considered that kids' parents might not approve of the music he's

(35:20):
choosing to play for them.
And that's not really one of his concerns.
No, he does try to object and ask if he could do that because he's the witness, but he's
also the defending attorney.
And Judge Boone tells him that he can do that, but he's going to overrule it anyway.
And then Togar gets Danny to confess that he did help kids at the concert.
And she recalls his juvenile delinquent record and his recent arrest.

(35:43):
So he's a bad influence because of that.
And ultimately, she's trying to prove that rock and roll is a drug with hypnotic effects.
And that Danny himself is leading children away from church and home.
The path of righteousness.
And she has a demonstration that's going to prove it.
She has a music played and kids come up in dance.
The other moms go in and select a few couples to come up in dance.

(36:05):
And to put her point, she steps the music mid-song and the kids all freeze in their position.
And this gives Togar the opportunity to show the judge and jury exactly what he's talking
about.
Right. One poor girl gets unfortunately caught up in mid-flip with her skirt up in her underpants
showing or at least her bottoms.

(36:25):
Another couple get caught dancing very closely in what Togar calls grinding.
Do they have grinding back then in the 90s when this movie came out?
When did grinding start?
Obviously in the 50s.
Well, yeah.
I'm sure they had grinding long before that.
I just met the term grinding.
That probably is a 90s thing.
That's probably a little wink to the 90s dance styles.

(36:47):
Well, the word does cause Susan to burst into a fit of giggles.
All right.
Next witness.
She calls Margot to the stand because she's a victim of rock and roll.
Oh, definitely.
Margot has a sweet little girl with a wonderful house and nice clothes.
She always wanted a little girl to dress up.
But this girl is 17 and she wants to express herself now.
What can she possibly have to express when she's only 17?

(37:08):
Yeah.
Kids are blank slates until they leave the house.
She's laying it on the cure.
She's fake weeping, trying to get the parents on her side.
And this is all Togor has the prosecution rests.
And now Danny takes over for the defense.
And the defense consists of Susan and Serena and the sirens seeing as the egg rolls play.

(37:29):
And we should mention that everybody in the diner was watching too.
Amanda and Ella are there.
Right.
A customer comes in.
He wants to be served.
But that's going to have to wait till after the trial.
This is more important.
So after the sirens finish their song, everyone applauds.
And the judge pounds his gavel and calls for order and the defense rests.
So now they say that it's up to you, the jury and to call Harrison 7555 with your vote.

(37:51):
We see in the diner, Ella making a call saying that rock and roll is innocent.
Then she gets phone to that customer who came in telling him he should vote too.
And it turns out he's from septic records, which is the shurels label.
And he would like to talk to Serena.
He saw her perform and obviously was impressed.
Well, then he better vote.
He better vote.
So now the verdict's in.
It is not guilty.

(38:13):
There's much rejoicing until talkar stands up and has a word with the judge.
Then judge boon pounds his gavel again and says that there may have been discrepancies
in the vote since the voter spaces weren't seen.
So it's possible that some people may have voted more than once.
So he feels he has no choice but to overturn the vote.
This court finds rock and roll guilty.
Wait a minute.
You could say the same about the verdict being true because even though parents voted

(38:38):
more than once.
Because people voted more than once doesn't mean it was the kids voting innocent.
Last year's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
So if they would improve it, he shouldn't be able to overturn the ruling and say guilty.
Right.
They didn't set any ground rules beforehand that it could only be one vote per person.
And they didn't have the lines open that long and there's only three people taking calls.

(38:59):
It's probably only half an hour show.
Right.
So how many people could have really voted in that time period more than once?
I would say not that many.
But anyway, it's like American Idol rules.
But most of the people who would have voted are actually in the studio.
What voting with their cell phones?
No, they wouldn't be able to because they're in the studio.
Oh, yes.
Well, the whole teenage population wasn't there.
But there were a lot.

(39:20):
A lot of the people that this affects were there.
It's kind of funny because it doesn't seem like a very large town.
And the studio is filled with kids during this half hour.
So who's watching the show?
Their parents are apparently because that's all we ever see watching the show is the
parents.
Right.
The votes are coming from the people who would you think would vote guilty?

(39:40):
And yet it came out not guilty.
So I think that's a fair verdict.
And I think he was wrong to overturn it.
I think there's some judicial malfeasance there.
Regardless, rock and roll is guilty.
But not only that, so is Danny.
He's going to get re-arrested.
Yep.
They're going to reinstate that charge of inciting a riot, contributed to the
delinquency of minors, etc.
So the police come in and escort Danny from the studio.

(40:02):
Not before he gets on camera to tell the young people out there to keep calling, but also
to turn off their televisions because they don't want this bar to get any more ratings,
I guess.
And then we see Margot smugly spurking at her daughter.
So Susan goes home.
She puts on a leather jacket and packs a bag.
And then she goes to meet Tony and Cookie outside the club.
Well, first she vandalizes her walls.

(40:25):
She paints a Wamp Baluma Wamp Bam boom on the wall in big black letters.
We also had a scene back at the diner where Amanda and Ella and everyone were really upset
on Serena's behalf due to the verdict.
But anyway, now we're back at the club with Cookie, Tony and Susan.
Tony and Cookie both say that they're going to miss her.
It's a tearful goodbye.

(40:45):
Lucky rides up on his bike and Susan climbs on the back.
Tony asks where she's going to go and she says, "I don't know.
A telecard comes up morning us that that's not the end for the credits play."
And it's not the end because there's an end credit scene where Ella is helping the
sirens negotiate their contracts with the guy from Scepter Records.
She's not going to let that record company get away with anything.

(41:08):
Nope, no raw deals for the sirens.
And that's the end.
Welcome back to the American International Podcast where we're talking about Shake,
Rutherland Rock from 1994.
Alan Arcus directed Rock and Roll High School and cast PJ Soles, Day Young and Mary Warnoff
as the concerned parents in Shake, Rutherland Rock.

(41:29):
The characters they played, Evelyn Randall, Kate Rambo Sr., and E. Joyce Togar respectively
referenced their characters in this film.
In addition, Dick Miller plays a police officer in both movies.
This marks another collaboration for actress PJ Soles and producer Deborah Hill.
Hill produced and co-wrote John Carpenter's Halloween from 1978, which starred PJ Soles
as Linda, one of Jamie Lee Curtis' character's best friends.

(41:53):
The soundtrack for Shake, Rutherland Rock probably has the most songs for any in that Rebel
Highway series.
Yeah, and that's kind of why I like this so much.
There's so much music and it's really good.
We start out with the opening credit sequence when we heard the little Richard's original
version of the Girl Can't Help It.
And then we hear Ate That Is Shame from Fat Stomano, which I believe is on the original
Shake, Rutherland Rock soundtrack.

(42:14):
We hear Eddie Cochrane's version of "Come On Everybody."
And then "Bloomoon" by For Real.
For Real has a lot of songs on this.
I think that's the sirens, right?
Yeah, they did the scene for the sirens.
So in addition to "Bloomoon," they say, "Do you want to dance?"
She put the bomb, look in my eyes.
And they're joined by Julianna Ray for "All Around the World," which is the song they sing
at the trial when the sirens and the egg rolls perform together.

(42:38):
Julianna Ray did the vocalization for Renee Zellweger's songs.
And there's two songs by the Robbins every night and since I first met you.
And the other songs that Susan sings, "Lonely Teenager," and "You Want to Know Me Better,"
both performed by Julianna Ray.
It was a fantastic voice.
But we both agreed that if Renee Zellweger sang, she probably sound like Jewel, not like

(42:59):
Tina Turner, the deep, throaty voice.
In fact, Jewel could have played the main character in this movie.
I think she's done some acting.
But I thought Renee Zellweger did a great job.
Variety's review of Shake, Rutherland Rock said the film was easy-going fun with good music
and several well-cast cameos.
Casting is film's strong point headed by Zellweger, a fresh new face.

(43:20):
Nor done it, Susan's uptight mother and Steven First has her more understanding father.
Nathan Rayben reviewed Shake, Rutherland Rock for the AV Club, writing, "Rubble Highway
Rebounds Smashingly with Shake, Rutherland Rock, a delightful comedy from Alan Arkish,
who's Rock and Roll High School ranks as one of the greatest rock movies of all time.
Like Rock and Roll High School, Shake understands the life-affirming spirit of both B-movies

(43:40):
and Rock and Roll.
David derives his joyous energy from the exhilaration of everyday kids throwing up the shackles
of societal control and giving themselves over to a primal driving beat.
Smart, funny and wonderfully kinetic, shake does right by its impeccable influences, while
maintaining a uniquely giddy innocent charm."
Jonathan Rosenbaum's review in the Chicago Reader said, "Of the four, this is the one that's

(44:03):
most attended to black characters routinely omitted in the original AIP quickies, even
when they would have had an immediate bearing on the story as they do here.
And, actronistically, the plot of Shake, Rutherland Rock occasionally recalls John Watter's
hairspray set in the 1960s.
There, another teenage TV dance show becomes the public forum for desegregation, whereas
here, Rock and Roll is literally placed on trial during a TV call-in show.

(44:27):
Postmodernism with a political edge, Shake, Rutherland Rock is like an urgent message placed
at a bottle, addressed not to the '50s, but to the '90s.
Yet given who we are and what we want, it has to be routed through the '50s and '60s
in order to reach us."
John Martin of the New York Times Syndicate said, "Shake, Rutherland Rock was a third-rate
ripoff of John Watter's hairspray, and that the acting is nightmarishly strained and the

(44:50):
story is feebly simple.
It's too silly to be camp, it's a big waste of time."
John Brillengame in his tune in tonight column wrote, "Shake, Rutherland Rock doesn't have
much of a plot.
The fun comes in identifying the many familiar supporting characters in the slice of late
'50s life in Suburbia."
Stephen H. Schur, writing for King Feature Syndicate, wrote, "There's more music in this TV

(45:10):
film than you'd find anywhere else on television except MTV."
That was back in the '90s, by the way.
The plot gets tiresome before long, but the cast of young actors gives it all they've
got, especially in the dance numbers.
Okay, Jeff, we have heard a few critics response to this movie.

(45:31):
Do you feel any differently?
I guess there's a slight variety of opinion.
I probably agree with some of them, and not with others.
I can say the same.
I think Rock and Roll is guilty.
Oh.
No, I think this movie is a lot of fun.
I do too, and the music is so infectious.
This play is so differently than the other movies we've seen in the Ripple Highway series.

(45:54):
It's very light in comparison to everything.
I mean, this seems even less heavy than Runaway Daughters.
Runaway Daughters was more of a parody of the original movie, or at least the themes in
it.
Whereas, this one seems like its own movie, because they've added in elements that weren't
in the original, while keeping a bit of the original movie intact.
Yeah, I think keeping the idea of having Rock and Roll on trial on television was a good

(46:17):
move.
I think it was even more interesting that this time Rock and Roll lost.
Right, because it won the first time around.
And you'd expect it to.
It really comes as a shock when Rock and Roll has found guilty, and that's the end of
the movie.
I think this trial was a fix.
I think the trial would be really good television though.
It's so much fun when you're watching these kids dance, and the judge is sitting there trying
to look stoic.

(46:38):
All these girls are doing flips right in front of him.
Flashing their undies.
I thought that what they did add was really good.
The character of Serena, she wasn't just a stand-in for racial injustice.
She was her own person, and they gave her character some depth.
She has these dreams, and she has a mom that's kind of like Margot, but better, who wants

(47:00):
her daughter to focus on what's really going to make her happy, to be realistic.
While still acknowledging that her daughter has a lot of talent, and maybe could go ahead
and follow her dreams.
Her mom's trying to write the fence where, as Margot is just disapproving and mean, and
like we said, one note.
Yeah, and I also think that's interesting because Renee Zellweiger's surrogate from the original

(47:21):
is not the main character in that film.
It's more from the DJ's point of view, the touch-conner's character.
And those were adults.
They weren't kids.
Right, but I'm still her mother who was Margot Dumas, who was heading the anti-rock and roll
movement.
Right, but her mom wasn't a middle-aged person.
Her mom was elderly.
Yeah, or dad was Raymond Hatton.

(47:42):
It was like 98 years old.
But yeah, she wasn't one of the kids who was involved with the show.
They were just pro kids in pro-rock and roll.
They were younger adults.
And they did have some kids with minor plotlines in that movie.
One was, I think, a juvenile delinquent that they were trying to get back on the straight

(48:02):
and narrow.
And one was an orphan or something like that.
But it wasn't about them.
They were sort of the instruments who were being used as pods in the movie, but they
weren't characters.
Here they're the characters.
And I think that was a big improvement.
Yeah, and it seems like it would have been a better approach for AAP to have used in
the original to make the teens the protagonists.

(48:23):
Because the movie was 14s.
But on the other hand, this is a movie that never would have been made in the 50s.
Of course not.
No, there's too much perversion in it for a 1950s movie.
Well, also dealing with a segregation so blatantly, that would never fly.
No, and it's not like they never had a black person in any AAP movie, but it's very rare.

(48:45):
Until the 70s, then they're everywhere.
Thank God.
But yeah, this movie just even being so frank about racism.
And I mean, people being so blatantly racist when the audience that they're playing to
knows it's bad, whereas in the 50s, if they were to say that, the audience would be like,
"Oh, yeah, they'd be nodding a lot."
Got that right.

(49:06):
Not the kids, but the adults.
And the silence deserved their record contracting because they were good.
They were so good.
Well, of course, they were for real.
But even so, yeah, they were probably even more compelling than Susan, I think.
At least Serena was more compelling than Susan.
And it would have loved to spend more time with her.
But Susan's the rebel and she's the star.

(49:27):
Not to say I didn't want to see Susan's story either.
I just wish it had been more balanced.
Yeah, I feel lucky that we saw so much of Serena's story that we did.
We got to meet her mother and her aunt and see how they feel about her chances of
success.
Right.
She had an element that she lived in, a life and it was not anything like Susan's.
So it was good to have that contrast.

(49:49):
And the characters of Amanda and Ella could have handled Serena's eventual success much
more differently than Margot would have?
Well, I mean, it could have been handled in a different way that wouldn't necessarily
have been better.
They could have been jealous.
They could have been less supportive.
Right.
But they weren't.
And that's why we liked them so much better than the other moms.

(50:09):
What do you think about the moms where they were like really cartoonishly bad?
They were.
I thought it was fun that they were named after their characters in rock and roll high school,
which is a movie that I love.
Oh, me too.
And they weren't just named after them.
They were like, well, okay, Togor was principal Togor in rock and roll high school.
She wasn't a kid, but Riff Randall and Kate Rambo were the rebels there.

(50:34):
And now they're the moms of their characters and shake rattling rock, basically.
Yeah, we don't want to think of them as the same characters.
And that's what they grew up to be.
Right.
But even though Kate Rambo has the same name, but now she's Kate Rambo's senior.
Well, that's why I think that she's the mom of the character and shake rattling rock.
But why would she be the mom of somebody in the 70s and the 50s?
No, if she had a kid now who's a little kid in 20 years or, well, 17 years, whatever,

(50:59):
who's going to be in high school, they're all young enough to still have children.
Well, Eddie Cockroon's still alive, so it's before 1960.
Well, the always maybe they're setting the 50s.
So it has to be 1950 something.
Rock and roll high school came out in '79.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Pretty close.
Well, I don't mean literally.
I just meant figuratively in a continuation of their characters.

(51:19):
And that's why they have the same names because they're like the parents of the characters
from Rock and Roll.
They certainly is a family resemblance.
See?
Now you're on my side.
Yeah, I think the only character of the mom that got any kind of personality was PJ Soles
as Evelyn Randall, where she got to be a little bit entranced by the dancing, where you can

(51:44):
tell if her peer group was different, she would be all for Rock and Roll.
Yeah, it's that one line that gives her all that backstory, though.
Right.
Because nothing else because I don't think she has a lot of other lines.
No, not really.
And she does at the end, she is one of the moms on the prosecution side.
And she's one of the people that pick out the dancers.
So she's really under togar spell.

(52:06):
Yeah, it's an Easter egg performance because there's nothing to it.
Right.
But I guess they need the club of four so that we see that they have numbers.
But it's fun to see these actors reunited.
Yeah.
Even if we don't like the characters as well.
And speaking of returning characters, we have Dick Miller returning as officer.
I assume Walter Paisley.

(52:28):
Right.
Hey, there's Susan's guy named Walter.
Now how many movies is he Walter Paisley in our officer Paisley?
Well, the first was an A.I.P. film.
Bucket of Blood, right?
And that character name just recurs throughout.
He was in Runaway Daughters also playing an officer who was not named Paisley.
He was like a private detective.
Oh, right.
Yeah, they should spin off that character in his own series.

(52:50):
They should have.
They should have, yeah.
When he was alive, yeah.
R.A.P. Dick Miller, great guy.
All right.
So let's see which set of reviewers you agree with.
How would you rate Shake, Rital and Rock on our A.I.P.
scale where A is awesome.
I as intermediate in P.S. pathetic.
Well, as I started out saying, this movie is a lot of fun.
And the opening credit sequence when Renee Selwecker is just bouncing all around the room.

(53:13):
You could tell this is going to be kind of a higher energy movie.
Right.
I would not be able to do that.
I probably did when I was her age, but at least her reported age.
I think that dropping in the character names for the mothers is a lot of fun.
Getting Dick Miller as another Paisley character is a nice touch.
I don't know if I like this better than the original.

(53:34):
I don't remember what I gave the original, but I do know that I like that one.
I don't know if this is superior, but I'd say it's close.
I don't know how I feel about the end when Rock and Roll has found guilty and Susan
goes off to another life.
It certainly doesn't feel 1950s.
No, it doesn't.
That's more of a 70s ending.
But yeah, I love this movie.
I'm going to give it a day.

(53:54):
How are you going to rate this one?
Oh, it's also an A for me.
I had a good time watching this.
I think I like the Nathan Raven review where he says that it's life affirming.
There's a joyous energy, exhilaration of everyday kids throwing off the shackles of society.
I agree with all that.
It was really nice to see a rebellion that's not about breaking things and doing crime,

(54:18):
just about being yourself and just about enjoying what you enjoy.
I think that that spirit is something that we should all feel, even old people like us.
It's okay to be you.
It's okay to reach for what you want.
They weren't hurting anybody.
I mean, lucky probably did, but it was just a car in the movie.
You should be able to live your dreams.

(54:39):
And anyone that's stopping you for the reasons that we're given here, where it's just not
done, or we don't mix with those kind of people, well, they're wrong.
And I think this movie just takes that spirit and runs with it in a way that's very fun
to watch.
It's funny.
This movie is really funny.
The music is fantastic.
And like I said, it's really infectious.

(55:01):
It just brings you along to its conclusion, which, yeah, it was a bummer conclusion.
But until you get there, you're really having fun.
And I definitely give it an A as well.
We're getting a little closer to the end of our Ripple Highway series.
Looking back, I noticed how these changed from week to week in the order that they aired,
which is the order that we're covering them.

(55:23):
Every other one is really, really dark.
I don't mean in themes or tone.
I just mean the way it looks.
The odd number of ones, one, three, five are road racers, motorcycle gang, girls in prison.
And the even ones are Confessions of Sorority girl, which dark themes, but it was very bright.
Runaway daughters.
And now shake Rail and rock.

(55:43):
And now shake Rail and rock.
Right, very sunny, a lot of primary colors, bright.
Whereas girls in prison was kind of a noir.
Even though it wasn't filmed in black and white, it kept that darkness with the occasional
splash of red.
Whereas here, everything is pastels and primary colors.
It does look kind of 90s, not their outfits, but the color schemes.

(56:04):
Susan's walls were kind of a bright redish pink color, which seems kind of unusual for a
1950s household.
Yeah, and I have to think that was an intentional choice to mix it up from week to week.
Probably.
We'll have to look at these last few and see if that maintains that pattern or maybe they
just made out of bright ones because the next few look pretty dark.
And I wonder if we'll continue our streak of liking every movie this much because I think

(56:28):
we've given them all A's at this point.
We have.
Yeah.
And I wonder if we're going to be able to maintain that.
I think I've confessed earlier to have seen part of the cool and the crazy and not enjoying
that.
And that's coming up pretty soon.
So I wonder if maybe watching it a second time all the way through will win me over.
Maybe once we get to the last one, we can give the whole series an average grade.

(56:50):
But I think so far we're going to end up in the A's.
Yeah, I have been very pleased with these movies so far and a little surprise because I was
expecting to like them as well as I did.
No, I thought they'd be cheesier, cornier, campier.
Maybe the production values wouldn't be there.
But I've been wrong for all of that.
I guess we need to have more faith in the directors that were selected for this project.

(57:11):
That's true.
They did pick at least for the most part good directors.
We have the guy who directed the exorcist who did one of them and Robert Rodriguez.
But he had done one film at that point.
Right, but it's not 1994 anymore.
It's 2025 and we know what Robert Rodriguez is capable of.
And especially knowing that what that first film was so early in his career, how great

(57:35):
it turned out.
And he was a backup person.
He was originally chosen.
That's right.
It was going to be Wes Craven.
Yeah, Wes Craven was going to do Rock All Night.
It wasn't even going to be Road Racers.
Oh, wow.
I can only imagine.
So I'm sorry we never got to see Rock All Night in this series because Jacob and Rock
was a lot of fun and it would have been in the same vein.
But I'm really, really glad we got Road Racers.

(57:55):
Yeah, we're really on a roll.
I hope it continues.
But you'll have to tune in next week and find out.
And find out whether movies we've covered on our podcast at our website, aippod.com.
There you can find trailers, posters and other advertising paraphernalia as well as message
us.
Let us know what movies you want us to cover on the podcast and you can find links to our
social media and our online store and a purchase from that store will help us to bring

(58:19):
you the best content that we can.
That's aippod.com.
All right.
So now I think it's time to chase our destiny on the back of a motorcycle for the American
International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot and I'm Jeff Markin.
I'll meet you at the drive-in.
Follow the American International Podcast on Instagram and Letterbox at aip_pod and on Facebook
at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast.

(58:44):
The American International Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin.
A man whose mind is distorted by hatred.
And Cheryl Lightfoot.
A girl hungry for too many things.
The American International Podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.

(59:08):
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