SIX-FIVE SPECIAL - "Calling All Cats" (1958)

This week's Saturday Night Special is SO special, it's even got the word special in the title!

My good friend Lord Litter in Berlin knows how much I love music, so he provided me a link to this film, just because he knew I would like it, and he was absolutely correct in that assumption. From a music lover's point of view, this film is an incredible piece of musical history. I daresay many people outside of the British Isles think popular music from England started and stopped with The Beatles, and most people, including myself, have very little or limited knowledge of what lead up to that. This movie puts a lot of that into perspective, at least for me!

"Six-Five Special" was originally a popular music TV show, and this movie was a spinoff from that show. It begins with a gal singing her heart out while she's taking a bath. Her roommate thinks she's good enough to perform professionally and decides to kind of be her manager. The singer is Diane Todd as Anne, and her roommate is Avril (The Revenge Of Frankenstein) Leslie as Judy.

The two girls decide to take the 6-5 to London to see if they can jumpstart Ann's career.

It doesn't take long before they realize that the train is full of some of the popular musicians of the day like Jim Dale, who does an impromptu number for them. Before becoming a musician, Jim Dale was a comedian, and has won awards for his many voices in Harry Potter audio books.

Another group on the train was called The Ken-Tones. If you've never heard of them, don't feel bad, I hadn't either, but they did have a single called "Rock 'n' Rollin' Santa Claus" in 1956.

There is SO much music in this film, I can't get into all of it, but this band featuring Johnny Dankworth on sax was blowing some hot stuff! John ended up being the main man behind the music of "The Avengers" TV series, and also has a credit for composing the music for one episode of "The Twilight Zone."

The Johnny Dankworth band also accompanies the great Cleo Laine on one tune! Cleo is one of the few artists in this film I had ever heard of before. Cleo was not only a killer jazz singer, she was also married to Johnny Dankworth. Cleo became Dame Laine in 1997, and Sir John Dankworth was knighted in 2006.

I found these synchronized hand dancers to be quite fascinating as they do the hand jive along with Johnny Dankforth's music!

Even the two chefs on the train are talented singers. Jimmy Lloyd is on the left, and on the right is Victor Soverall. Victor's song is slow, and the kind of music being left behind, but Jimmy's song "Ever Since I met Lucy" is pure unadulterated rock and roll.

A very young Petula Clark auditions her new song for the girls.

Right about here is where it gets pretty weird. Man, what a transition period. The teenage girls go crazy over "The Penny-Whistle Man" Desmond Lane and his song called "Midgets." I'll just say that it's a fairly bizarre scene. Going from this to The Beatles, no wonder the girls went ape shit for The Fab Four!

Then, the movie goes from fairly bizarre to totally bizarre with the appearance of the John Barry Seven. Yep, that's right, the same John Barry who composed almost all the music for the James Bond movies.

The John Barry Seven play a couple of great songs, and the second one was called "Every Which Way."  I love this song too much, and it sounded so familiar to me, but I couldn't figure out why. This is the kind of music this blog was based on, and then it dawned on me that this song reminded me of the music in Jess Franco's "Kiss Me, Monster."

The song  in "Kiss Me, Monster" even has the same twin sax sound and riff, but slower.

Here's the song from "Kiss Me, Monster." You tell me!

Then it hit me like "a kiss at the end of a wet fist," I always wondered who this band was, and I have spent hours researching it and coming up empty handed, but I think finally after fourteen years, I have come to the conclusion that this uncredited and unnamed band is fronted by John Barry. I can find no information to collaborate this, but look at him, and listen to the music, and then tell me I'm wrong! Now why the Hell would John Barry step in for this uncredited bit part after composing the music for "Dr. No," "From Russia With Love, "Goldfinger," "Thunderball" etc.? I have no idea. Maybe it was a Jess Franco tribute to John Barry, or maybe it was just for fun.

Any of you Sherlock's with ideas of your own, I'm all ears!

Back to the movie, and the music is still going on strong, this time with fifteen year old Scottish singer Jackie Dennis, who usually appeared wearing kilts, not plaid pants. Jackie had a meager hit in the UK with "The Purple People Eater" in 1958.

I thought The King Brothers were pretty cool. Their first song was folky like The Brothers Four, but on their second number when one of the brothers sat down at the piano, and they played a song called "The 6-5 Jive," it rocked solid!

There hasn't been another trombone playing leader of a band like Don Lang and his Frantic Five until Trombone Shorty came around!

Skiffle artist Lonnie Donegan puts in a totally solid performance on two songs, especially "Jack Of Diamonds," but in America he was known only as a novelty act with his hit song "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour."

 

I  don't think it was intentional but Dickie Valentine's set really showed that the old stiff and stale music of the past was really headed off the edge!

There were more dull songs from Joan Regan and Russ Hamilton that are just as well left behind.
 

Ann gets a job as background singer for this big Dickie Valentine number, and her stand out voice lands her a contract. (But not in real life!)