Review of Carnival Rock (1957) by Jim E — 27 Jul 2010

The basic story/idea is fine, and this could have ended up being a much better movie than it did. The real problem was the character of Mr. Christakos (Christie), the club owner (and the most important character in the movie); simply put, Christie is too pathetic, stupid, and whiny. In fact that's basically all there is to his personality. He turns a potentially good movie into a laughable, silly melodrama. This is partly the actor's (David J. Stewart's) fault; but it is mostly a flaw in the writing. If the Christie character had been closer to average in intelligence, less pathetic, and had some kind of complexity to his personality, the movie would have had much more dramatic effect. But as a one-dimensional fool constantly feeling sorry for himself, whining about how Nathalie doesn't love him anymore, the only effect was that I hoped his scenes ended quickly.

But I managed to enjoy the movie, because the music is great. It's worth watching it just for the music. And so even though the movie is probably more like a 5/10, I rated it at 60%, so that it would count as a recommendation.