Cringeworthy - Tutti Frutti

[packman]

?t=52

Note the white audience and their laughing

[Honeycombe8]

1. Excellent. There's nothing cringeworthy about it.

Everyone's rockin' out to a Little Richard performance, clapping & having a good time. Go, Little Richard, go! He was unique. I think he was a nice guy, too. A lot of people in the biz seemed to like him. He could get along with a lot of people.

[packman]

2. Oh, nothing but respect and admiration for Little Richard

It's the all-white audience and their reaction to the music. IMHO they were seeing it as a joke and mocking the dancers.

[Honeycombe8]

4. They're not mocking anyone.

Theyre sitting around, enjoying a performance, clapping. They're all having a good time, enjoying the music & dancing. No one is mocking anyone.

But I guess they are "guilty of being white"?

This was a segregated America back then. The people in the audience aren't responsible for that. The movies & tv shows from back then will reflect a segregated America.

There is nothing wrong with the way anyone in this video is behaving.

[jberryhill]

7. Actually, it was done in multiple takes and edited

See my comments below. But the mic positions, camera positions, and lighting, differ markedly among the segments from the different takes.

The most obvious is the magic microphone which is sometimes next to the piano, and sometimes isn't.

That was shot in several takes, the soundtrack done separately and the "audience" is part of the performance.

[ms liberty]

6. How old were you at the time that would have been filmed?

If you weren't alive and of an age to remember, then you might see it that way, but it was not. Little Richard was a big star and that song was wildly popular, and wildly popular with white kids.

[jberryhill]

11. The movie flopped

The video in the OP is not a "performance". It is a scene from a 1956 movie "Don't Knock The Rock", which was a dud followup to "Rock Around The Clock".

Here's another part of that same scene of the movie:

There's no way the audio was recorded in that room, and there's no way it was done in one take.

The same cheezy laughter was also added when the soundtrack was cut for the Bill Haley number.

[ms liberty]

17. Ah. I thought it looked familiar, but I haven't see that movie in probably 40 years.

Maybe longer. It was from slightly before I was born. by just four years, but those 50's movies were always showing up on teevee in the 60's and 70's. I probably saw all of them a dozen times before I was 18, lol.

[Glorfindel]

14. I loved that song! I was maybe eight years old and didn't have a record player

But I played it on every jukebox I could. I still love Little Richard. And I was a "white kid."

[jberryhill]

9. Oh, bullshit - its a scene from "Don't Knock The Rock" a 1956 movie

They are not an "audience". They are actors. The soundtrack is not the live sound in that room, I can assure you, since Little Richard doesn't have a microphone for several of the takes that were used for this composite "performance".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Knock_the_Rock

Notice the recycled crowd shot at 30 seconds here, from the same movie:

[Zambero]

3. No, that would be the godawful Pat Boone cover!

"Cringeworthy" does not do it justice!

[IADEMO2004]

10. Pat Boone was what I was thinking.

Awful

[Glorfindel]

15. ...the horror...the horror

I had never heard that abomination before. Believe me, everyone loved the original Little Richard version. I was there and I remember.

[ms liberty]

18. Almost makes me want to never wear white shoes again!

Blech!

[jberryhill]

19. Yeah, Pat Boone should have just stuck to heavy metal...

[Zambero]

21. I almost forgot about that "phase"

He actually did an album of heavy metal songs set to a big band accompaniment. I recall that Eddie Van Halen guested on one of those recordings. What the heck, he massacred classic R&B songs on the 50's, so why not kill death metal as well?

[bronxiteforever]

16. Yikes. I had never seen this version and I never will again!

Thanks for posting though as it is very interesting!

[jberryhill]

5. You realize that sound track was added, yes?

That was not shot in one take. It couldn't have been.

At 29 seconds, the couple is dancing by the piano. There is no microphone in front of the piano. Then, at 31 seconds, we cut to a closer shot of the piano. The camera is now positioned where the couple was dancing, and a microphone stand and mic magically appear where they weren't a moment ago.

Now, have a look at the wide shot at 9 seconds. There is no camera in the left corner of the soundstage. Now jump to 1:12. That is a shot from a camera positioned where there was no camera at 9 seconds.

Also at 9 seconds, while there is no mic by the piano, there is one on the stage.

When it was edited, the laughter seems to have been added to give it a "club" atmosphere (and I doubt those two mics would have produced the audio balance between the clapping, audience noises, band, piano and vocals in the final version). Since we know from the magic microphone there were multiple takes, then the audio track was probably done entirely separately.

On edit: After some further looking, the video is a scene from the 1956 movie "Don't Knock The Rock". It is not a live performance of anything.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Here's another one.

Rockin' in the 50s.

[Honeycombe8]

12. Swingin' in the 40s!

[Nitram]

20. Packman, you are wrong - the audience clearly lovin' it.

Great video!