A 78 minute black and white Amicus/Columbia Pictures film released in 1962 starring Craig Douglas and Helen Shapiro (who was only 15 at the time), directed by Richard Lester; produced and with a screenplay by Milton Subotsky. It was released in America under the name ‘Ring A Ding Rhythm’. Producer Subotsky had originally made the movie ‘Rock Rock Rock’ in 1956 and moved to Britain in 1960 with his business partner Max Rosenberg. The two formed a company called Amicus Films and ‘It’s Trad, Dad’ was their first production. |
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Subotsky decided to virtually re-package ‘Rock Rock Rock’ in an English setting with the current British musical trend, Traditional Jazz. Subotsky had seen Dick Lester’s Oscar nominated ‘The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film’ and also his 30-minute pilot short ‘Have Jazz, Will Travel.’ Subotsky had a tradition of giving a chance to first-time directors and offered Lester the opportunity of directing his first feature film. When Subotsky gave him the script, Lester thought it was the synopsis. He recalled, "Subotsky sent me a 24-page script and I said ‘I think I can do something with it’ - it was with pop-stars, with Gene Vincent and Helen Shapiro and a lot of Trad bands, so I said, ‘I've been around this kind of music all my life. I think I know how to deal with it as soon as you get a first draft screenplay I'd be delighted to read it.’ He said, ‘That's the shooting script and you start in three weeks.’ I said, ‘But it's only 24 pages long’ but he said, ‘You'll find a way to pad it out.’ “So we gathered these poor pop people with this feast of moveable sets behind them and shot them three a day. At the end of the last week of shooting, the Twist started - Chubby Checker and his first big Twist success. So I said to Milton "I think it would be a great idea. We could be the first film in history to have the twist in it. He's in New York. I could go over and shoot him." And he said "If you pay your own way you can go." So I did and we got him in the film, and that was one of the contributing factors to getting ‘A Hard Day's Night’." ‘It’s Trad, Dad’ was filmed in three weeks at a cost of £50,000 and Lester did travel to New York at his own expense to film Chubby Checker although, due to the rush-release of ‘Twist Around The Clock’, he didn’t produce the first film to introduce the Twist, as he’d intended. |
To
an extent, Lester was also able to choose which performers he’d like
to include in the film and says, “To my utter shame, I rejected George
Melly, because he never sang in tune. Not that the others did, but George
was even more noticeable.” The brief plot revolved around Craig (Craig
Douglas) and Helen (Helen Shapiro), who are among the young residents
of “a New Town which must remain nameless” who enjoy listening to Trad
Jazz on the jukebox of a local coffee shop. The town Mayor (Felix Felton), together with his councillors, decides to ban the use of the jukebox as he believes it has a harmful effect on teenagers. The two youngsters decide that they mustn’t allow their favourite music to be banished and decide to prove its popularity by organising a rock and jazz concert. They visit a radio station, engaging the help of a disc jockey. When the Mayor hears about the concert he decides to try and prevent it happening and finds a way to block the coach carrying the disc jockey and entertainers with the use of a series of traps, even having the police erect a road block. Craig and Helen manage to fill the gap until the coach finally gets through by presenting some of the local talent. Seeing how much the youngsters are enjoying the music, the adults grudgingly accept that they were wrong. Liverpool actor Derek Guyler, who was to appear in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was the narrator. |
He was also satirising the attitude of adults to young people and said, “I prefer the social attitudes of the young people to the disapproval of their parents. If you deal with a subject then you have to take sides somewhere so I’ve chosen the side which I have the most sympathy for.” Lester also introduced a lot of humour into the film. The narrator announced, “These are the recording studios, barred to all except highly skilled technical staff” and suddenly Helen and Craig make their way into the studio with a tea trolley. |