Wild Guitar
Wild Guitar
NR | 01 December 1962 (USA)
Wild Guitar Trailers

A young rock & roll hopeful is given a shot at the big time by the unscrupulous owner of a small record company.

Reviews
Kailansorac

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

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FuzzyTagz

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

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Chirphymium

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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Robert Joyner

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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zee

yes, I only rated it a two, but I thought I'd want to rate it negative 5. I had no idea Ray Dennis Steckler had unpretentious competence in him as a director, but he does exhibit just that in this clichéd but not terribly offensive teen drive-in flick. Some okay supporting performances. The music and dancing aren't good, but they're miles beyond the junk on stage in Incredibly Strange...Zombies.I hate to be cruel, but the girl love interest is one of the ugliest women I've seen a love-interest role. In real life, she may have been a beauty and a delightful human being, but the camera didn't like her. I suspect Arch would have done much better in real life.

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rooprect

Well OK, maybe not the best movie ever, but definitely the best rock 'n' roll movie ever. Or at least the best r'n'r movie of 1962. How about the best 1962 r'n'r movie that has an Olympic figure skating scene? Settled.This is one of those films that's so bad it wraps around the scale back to the good side. IMDb voters must have a collective colon blockage if they can't appreciate the magnificence of this picture. It truly breaks all the laws (and I suspect deliberately so, knowing the bizarre, tongue in cheek humour of director/co-star Steckler).First you have an anti-antihero: a punk who comes motoring into town looking like Brando on a bad hair day, but as it turns out, he's about as square as a boyscout, polite as a busboy and has babyface cheeks you just want to pinch and say oogyboogyboo.Next you have a bunch of felonious thugs who are so endearing & hilarious you want to make them the best man at your wedding. We have a goofy chick who suddenly breaks into a world class ice skating routine. And finally--here's the clincher--totally out of left field we have director Steckler himself playing the role of "Steak", a psychopathic headcase who would make Jeffrey Dahmer turn in his meat cleaver. This movie has it all!!The story itself gives us a hyper-cynical satire of the filthy entertainment industry, but it's packaged in a neat, wholesome, early-Elvis type show. Still, there are indeed some moments of dark lucidity, especially in a particular scene where a drunk Willem Dafoe-looking fellow gives us a powerful prophecy of how all rock sensations die in LA. Throughout the film, we get camera shots from bizarre angles & creepy closeups, again giving us the impression of a bad acid trip. But somehow the film manages to stay squarely in the realm of campy fun.So I can't make up my mind... Is this film so bad that it's good? Or is it so groundbreakingly good that it's bad? In either case you need to check it out. If nothing else, you will remember it forever.

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cutterccbaxter

Wild Guitar has great economic story telling. It only takes Arch Hall Jr an afternoon to become a singing sensation. He arrives in Hollywood and before he has a chance to even tune his guitar he's making his TV debut. By nightfall he's hooked up with a crooked manager and is well on his way to becoming an overnight sensation. Personally I think the cherub faced Hal Jr has more talent in his left pinkie than all the American Idol winners combined. He doesn't really play a wild guitar however. The skating scene nicely showcases Nancy Czar's talents on blades. It also reveals why Arch Hall Jr would never be up for the lead part in The Bobby Orr Story. Unless of course, his dad produced it.

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sol

Formula plot about a small time boy Bud Eagle, Arch Hall Jr, from North Dakota coming to Hollywood looking to make it big in the world of Rock & Roll music.Meeting cute Vicki Wills,Nancy Czar, who gives the starving and broke Bud her lunch to eat at a local diner she tells the naive and shy out of towner that's she to appear at the local amateur hour TV show that evening and invites him to come along. Just like in the movies, damn I keep forgetting this is a movie, the person thats to appear with Vickie on the stage gets stage fright and runs out of the theater and now the shows MC Hal Kenton, Paul Voorhees, is forced to put the startled North Dakotan with Vickie on stage! Bud ends up knocking the crowd dead with his wild guitar and high-pitched voice to becomes an instant Rock & Roll success and teenage idol.The movie "Wild Guitar" has it's moments with a bunch of Bowery Boys wannabes, that's really aiming high in Hollywood, who kidnap Bud only having him turn the tables on them and then using the three jerks Weasel Stupid & Brains,Bill Llyod Jonathon Krle & Mike Trelbor, to shake down his manager Mike McCauley,Arch Hall Sr, for $15,000.00. The kidnappers end up losing the ransom money when Mike's top henchman Stake, Ray Dennis, breaks into their hideout. After what has to be one of the most insane and crazy slug-feasts this side of the World Wresteling Federation the three take off after dropping Stake but forgetting to take the ransom money with them!Bud who fell in love with Vickie has the devious and scheming Mike split them up because he felt that she would hurt his career by making him not available, as a boyfriend or husband, to the millions of frenzied young girls and teeny-boppers, calling themselves Eagle Feathers, all over the USA in Bud Eagel fan clubs who are just wild and crazy about him. Hiding out in Madge's,Marie Denn, diner as a dishwasher Bud gets in touch with his All-American football hero brother Ted, Al Scott, back in North Dakota for help and the two set up his manager Mike McCauley together with his #1 henchman Stake with of all things a gift that Mike gave him to improve his music and singing. Even though the movie "Wild Guitar" is both corny and cheaply made it did show how things in the music business is done in regards to taking an up and coming Rock & Roll singer, who's not too sharp when it comes to his or her financial future, and how after he's no longer popular and not putting cash in the till he's then drop like a case of the Black Plague.There's a very effective scene in the film where Buds, after he was held captive and almost raped by Mike's sexy dancer Daisy/Virginia Broderick,having a heart to heart talk with another Mike McCauley discovery former Rock & Roll phenomenon Don Proctor, Robert Crumb, with him telling Bud what he's in store for with a sleazy crumb like his former boss McCauley as his manager.

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