Vintage movies

"Rock, Rock, Rock!" (Alpha, 1956, b/w, $6.98). This Alan Freed vehicle is truly awful, with stilted performances, an idiotic story about a high school love triangle and an array of blossoming rock stars who each get one number, and most of whom went nowhere. Highlights are the Moonglows and Chuck Berry, and Tuesday Weld's songs are dubbed by Connie Francis!

What makes this disc worthwhile, however, is "Rhythm & Blues Review" (1955, b/w). Listed as a bonus feature, this sprightly stage show deserves to be on its own — with a spruced-up print that isn't as raggedy as this one. Still, the bright comedy (Nipsey Russell, Montan Moreland and other comics), and especially the musical numbers by one great act after another — including Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway (doing "Minnie the Moocher"), Nat King Cole (on a calypso tune), Bill Bailey dancing up a storm, Sarah Vaughn and many more — is a real treat for jazz/R&B fans.

Extras: Full frame

"Delightfully Dangerous" (Alpha, 1945, b/w, $6.98). Jane Powell is a free-wheeling 15-year-old with an adult voice who tries to get her older sister to leave burlesque and take up with legit producer Ralph Bellamy. Frivolous but has some laughs — especially when Arthur Treacher and Louise Beavers play off each other in one scene.

Extras: Full frame

"Vanity Fair" (Alpha, 1937, b/w, $6.98). This adaptation of the Thackery story is understandably upstaged by "Becky Sharp," which was filmed two years earlier with Miriam Hopkins and was the first three-strip Technicolor feature. Both are from the same book, but this one is a lower-budget rush job that's hardly worth a look, except for the presence of luminous Myrna Loy in the lead. Also, the print on this disc is very weak.

Extras: Full frame

"You're Out of Luck" (Alpha, 1941, b/w, $6.98). Mantan Moreland and Frankie Darro team up in this comic mystery from the Monogram studio. It's silly, of course, but has more laughs than you might expect, thanks to the deft veteran players.

Extras: Full frame

"Harlem Double Feature: 'Harlem Rides the Range' plus 'Murder in Harlem"' (Alpha, 1939/1935, b/w, $6.98). "Harlem Rides the Range" is a hokey oater, very low-budget with stiff acting, notable primarily as an all-black Western from 1939, with charismatic Herb Jeffries in the lead. Unfortunately, "Murder in Harlem" had a technical problem on the disc I watched; the sound was so low it was unintelligible.

Extras: Full frame

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E-mail: hicks@desnews.com