Peter Viney's Blog

Play It Cool
1962

Directed by Michael Winner
Written by Jack Henry

Billy Fury – Billy Universe
Michael Anderson Jnr – Alvin
Dennis Price- Sir Charles Bryant
Anna Palk – Ann Bryant
Keith Hamshere – Ring-A-Ding
Ray Brooks- Freddy
Jeremy Bulloch – Joey
Richard Wattis – The Nervous Man
Maurice Kauffman – Larry Grainger
Peter Barkworth- Skinner
Monte Landis- Horace The Beatnik Man
Felicity Young – Yvonne Pemberton
Bobby Vee- self
Danny Williams – self
Helen Shapiro – self
Shane Fenton – self (aka Alvin Stardust) as Shane Fenton and The Fentones
Jim Crawford – self
Lionel Blair – self
Norrie Paramour- self
+
David Hemmings, Jeremy Lloyd, Hugh Lloyd are uncredited appearances

The 60s Retrospective series

Release dates: July 1962, UK, 29 May 1963 USA

In looking back at 1962, it is inevitable that ‘before The Beatles’ is the reference point. In July 1962, I was fifteen, and taking my first summer job. Goods inward in a motor parts wholesaler’s warehouse. I was paid £2.15s.0d a week, and managed to save up enough to buy a blue and cream Dansette record player. My first purchase was Sealed With A Kiss by Brian Hyland. The B-side was appropriately Summer Job. This is when I saw Play It Cool. I haven’t seen it since.

This film is the old 50s management style getting together to sell a product. Cigars and smoke-filled rooms and you pat my back, I’ll pat your back. Like What A Crazy World a year later, it starred a Larry Parnes managed artist, Billy Fury. The names around it are the pre-Beatles British pop industry. Norrie Paramor of EMI filling the film with his own compositions. Harold Shampan, a classic wheeler-dealer music publisher is writ large on the credits as “music associate”. A young Michael Winner directing his first feature film was already an aspiring member of the club.

Billy Fury and Helen Shapiro are the the human product.

There’s a Beatles rejection connection too with Fury and Shapiro.

Billy Fury

The Beatles had auditioned for Billy Fury’s backing group. The occasion is described at length with a suspiciously detailed memory of exact dialogue by their first “manager,” Alan Williams, in The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away. Billy Fury and Larry Parnes had travelled to Liverpool so that Billy could see his family, and they had heard about Liverpool’s rock scene and decided to audition for a new backing band. Alan Williams had met Parnes and was asked to set up the audition.

Larry and Billy looked like a million dollars. Their aftershave lotion swamped the place and both were wearing expensive silk suits, aty that time the emblem of success … Billy Fury was moody and tense. That was his stage image and it seemed to carry over into his everyday life. I suppose it was very difficult for him to shake it off. He was very pale, almost sick-looking. Even so, he had an air about him which said, ‘I’m number one. Proceed with Caution.”
Alan Williams / William Marshall, ‘The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away’ 1975

Apparently both Billy Fury and Larry Parnes wanted The Beatles, but only on condition they sacked Stu Sutcliffe who was a completely inept bass player. John Lennon declined to do so (delaying the inevitable until they went to Hamburg soon afterwards).

Like so many British rock singers, Billy Fury’s career in America was hampered by Parnes’ old school management insisting on covers of American hits. Billy Fury was known as the British Elvis … similar looks, black hair in a quiff, deep singing voice. He was a huge talent, noted for the 10″ LP The Sound of Fury in 1960 which was all his own compositions. He had to call himself ‘Wilbur Wilberforce’ on the credits – ‘Singing AND writing? No way!’ for Larry Parnes, his manager. That ability was never followed up, he was just forced into more covers. The Sound of Fury was cut in an hour in just one take, according to Joe Brown who played guitar on the album. The album also doubled bass guitar and acoustic bass … no, Brian Wilson wasn’t the first. His backing bands included The Blue Flames (Georgie Fame) then The Tornados. I noted the two sax players in the group backing him on stage on this, and wonder whether it was The Blue Flames.

 There is a British phenomenon where fairgrounds (in the South anyway) played Billy Fury endlessly on the rides, and the three that they never tired of were When Will You Say I Love You, Last Night Was Made For Love and In Summer. Fast forward to the 1990s, and the Dorset Steam Rally with a vintage fair, and yes, Billy Fury was still pumping out. Then to the grandkids in 2010, a funfair, and I thought “Billy Fury must have been replaced” but no, they were sill pumping out the fourth favourite, I Will. It must be a tradition. All those Billy Fury hits make me smell candy floss and hot dogs, and they are HUGE ballads.

Twist Kid

However, following in Elvis’s footsteps, it was inevitable that Billy Fury would have to do a film. Play it Cool. They thought his name, Billy Fury, given him by Larry Parnes, sounded a trifle unrealistic, so in the film they call him Billy Universe.

Helen Shapiro

If Billy was Britain’s Elvis, then Helen Shapiro was Britain’s Brenda Lee. A star by the age of fourteen, when she debuted with a UK #3 hit, Don’t Treat Me Like A Child, swiftly followed by two #1 hits, You Don’t Know and Walkin’ Back to Happiness, and a #2 hit with Tell Me What He Said.

Her Beatles rejection connection came on their first tour, where she was the nominal headliner … no one enjoyed being the nominal headliner above The Beatles even then. She was having big hits and John Lennon and Paul McCartney offered her Misery as a single. She declined it. To be fair she was just seventeen or maybe still sixteen. It would have been her producer, Norrie Paramor’s choice to favour his own crap compositions. Kenny Lynch was on the same tour and snapped it up, becoming the first artiste to cover Lennon-McCartney songs.

There’s another story on this. John Wetton and Bob Jenkins had their first professional job backing Helen Shapiro on a tour of Rumania in 1968. I’ve described this in Tribute to John Wetton here. The audiences were shouting for Lady Madonna from the backing band AFTER Helen’s encores, and John obliged and sang it. The Beatles bite back.

Helen Shapiro sings. Norrie Paramor conducts. And gets the 50% royalty on the B-sides. No wonder he’s smiling.

Bobby Vee

Equal billing. He appears for around two minutes of screen time. The billing was a cynical ploy to lure his fans into spending 1/9d on a cinema ticket. Well, he’d had the hits, was still having them and was exotically American.

PLOT

The trouble is Billy could sing, but Billy was a dreadful actor. Not a clue. Michael Winner praised how hard he worked for someone who wasn’t a natural. As an actor, Elvis was no Marlon Brando, but Billy Fury’s acting is very weak compared to even Elvis. His speaking voice is soft, with a light Liverpool accent. He looks uncomfortable. He may have had on stage charisma and chemistry, but none of it transfers.

Billy Universe & The Satellites

It starts with a flash of Billy Universe (Billy Fury) and The Satellites playing in a basement.

Then the band are on their way to Brussels. The Satellites all appear very young and much shorter than Billy. I’m guessing by the placing in the credits that Alvin is the very short, very young, very irritating one (Michael Anderson Jnr) as he does all the talking, and that the others are Ring-A-Ding, Joey and Freddy.

So they’re travelling to Gatwick Airport in an open top car, as one does to accommodate a double bass. I think it’s an Armstrong-Siddly Hurricane from circa 1946.

Safety belts did exist in 1962. My dad used to promote them. Billy at the wheel

Next to them is a Rolls Royce with Sir Charles Bryant (Dennis Price) and his daughter, Ann (Anna Palk). He is sending her off to Brussels to get over her infatuation with pop star Larry Grainger (Maurice Kauffman). Now you’d think if you were making a pop exploitation film and one character was a major pop star, then they’d sing. But no. He never does. I guess with so many non-actors they couldn’t afford another one, and he does have actual lines later.

Ann Bryant (Anna Palk) and Sir Charles Bryant (Dennis Price)

The boys have never flown before but manage to check in. They meet “The Nervous Man” (Michael Wattis) who is scared of flying.

Richard Wattis on great form as the “Nervous Man.”

The airline is Anglo-Amalgamated, which was the name of the film production company, and is an ancient Douglas DC-3 (actually belonging to Derby Airways). No wonder the nervous man is nervous. Part of the pleasure of these films is the feel of the year, as here boarding the plane.

Billy takes a seat next to Ann. Naturally he gets up, moves along the aisle and sings You’re Swell to her. I’ve often done the same.

Billy Fury: You’re Swell. The lads have managed to take their instruments on board, fortunately

She picks up his copy of new Musical Express with an advert for Larry Grainger’s #1 single on the front.

Ann Bryant (Anna Palk)

The plane taxis about but has to return to Gatwick because of fog.

Stuck back in the airport, Billy treats us to Once Upon A Dream. They decide to help and go back into town and find Larry Grainger for her, and off they all go in the car to Paint The Town.

Danny Williams: Who Can Say

This means searching through a series of clubs, and most conveniently each club has a singer. First up is Danny Williams, a diminutive Afro-Caribbean singer who had a UK #1 hit the previous year with a cover of Moon River. His USP was singing bog standard MoR ballads. He sings a nondescript ballad, Who Can Say.

The Fentones. Note the matching shirts.

They’re sent off to another club, The Twist Club where Shane Fenton & The Fentones are performing. They were good … as noted, Shane later became Alvin Stardust. They also had striped stage shirts before anyone in the UK had seen The Beach Boys. Like Cliff Richard’s The Shadows, Billy Fury’s The Tornados and Billy J. Kramer’s The Dakotas, the backing band, The Fentones, had their own guitar instrumental hits. They’re playing a B-side Why Little Girl for a few seconds, then do It’s Gonna Take Magic in full. It must have been galling to get such low billing on the film. For some reason the band face one direction and the singer is behind them facing the opposite way. Music in the round?

Shane Fenton and Billy Fury: It’s Gonna Take Magic

Billy Fury joins them on stage to finish the song. (Jeremy Lloyd turns up on the dance floor as a tall twit- he did the same two years later in A Hard Day’s Night.).

So off they go to the Fountain Club instead where there’s an instrumental groups. They order drinks … I’d forgotten rum and coke’s popularity.

Jimmy Crawford sings Take It Easy with amusingly attired orchestra and three male backing singers. Striped clothes seem popular.

Lionel Blair and some dancers are performing and then Jimmy “whatever happened to Jimmy Crawford” Crawford sings a ditty, Take It Easy.

Cry My Heart Out: Helen Shapiro. The crowd at the tables have ignored the director “Look as if you’re listening” and she was almost certainly too young to be allowed into a club where alcohol was sold in 1962

So off again to the Lotus Club for some Chinese Food and to watch Helen Shapiro warble Cry My Heart Out. Norrie Paramor is conducting the band himself.

Alvin (Michael Anderson Jnr) confronts Larry with a blonde!

The dastardly Larry Grainger is indeed there, spotted by Alvin “making love” to a girl on a table next to the dance floor.  (Hey! Larry Grainger’s here! I saw him making love to a girl on a table! he squeaks). That’s less interesting than it sounds. Language changes. In 1962 it meant whispering sweet nothings in her ear and a quick snog.

Ann Bryant (Anna Palk) and Larry Grainger (Maurice Kauffman). Perhaps she’s not fond of Chinese food? His eyes guarantee villainy.

Never mind, Ann goes to sit with him and Larry gets rid of the other girl.

Alvin (Michael Anderson Jnr) asks the club owner (Max Bacon) if Billy can sing. Alvin looks even younger than Helen (though he wasn’t).

Alvin asks if Billy can go on stage. The proprietor, (Max Bacon) is willing to let Billy Fury have a go. Max Bacon later appeared in Privilege (reviewed on this blog). Max was a big band drummer and singer of Yiddish songs as well as an actor. Yes, Bacon is an odd name for a singer of Yiddish songs. His portrayal of the cigar puffing club owner does suggest that the old music types behind this film DID have a sense of irony about themselves.

The club owner (Max Bacon) will let Billy sing.

Billy sings Twist Kid. He’s invited to come back for more, and a delighted and generous Max tears up the band’s outrageously huge restaurant food and drink bill … just over £10 for six people! (This is also how the old music types saw themselves … as generous souls).

Twist Kid: Billy Fury

There’s a lot of jumping in and out of taxis. Larry has persuaded the gullible Ann to elope to Gretna Green with him. (So Mr Grainger, what attracts you to this multi-millionaire’s daughter?) Hugh Lloyd is a taxi driver bribed to jump a red light. They get to Euston where the train is about to leave. Fortunately, Alvin has a plan! He tells the guard he’s just spotted a cracked wheel on the train. (In the days of steam, a man with a hammer used to walk the length of the platform knocking every wheel. They should ‘Ring!’ and if they don’t, they’re cracked.)

Billy persuades Larry to go into the train lavatory (as they were labelled in 1962). It’s not what you think.

This enables Billy to persuade Larry to go into the toilet for half an hour. He says Sir Charles is on the way. Ann is bustled off the train while Larry  is whisked off to Scotland.

Billy. He’s no good. Honest. He’s a louse.

At A Time Like This: Bobby Vee, The Vernons Girls and violinists

They return to The Lotus Club just in time for Bobby Vee’s extremely brief appearance with The Vernons Girls for At A Time Like This which includes six standing violinists, which one might have seen in twist clubs. They go back stage to find the girl Larry had been chatting up so as to persuade Ann that he was indeed a louse.

Yvonne: I’m one of a hundred girls that have been pushed around by that puffed up pop singer.

Sydney (Bernie Winters) backstage admiring the scenery. Note the hat.

That does it. Meanwhile, Sydney (Bernie Winters) is trying to pitch a song to Helen Shapiro. He hands her the music and she sings I Don’t Care at once with backing as the band walk in to assist. Bobby Vee’s remaining presence is the name on the dressing room door.

I Don’t Care. Helen Shapiro

So off to Gatwick they go with a grateful Sir Charles to wave Ann goodbye . Billy reprises Play It Cool at the airport.

Play It Cool: Billy Fury

OVERALL

The DVD transfer is very good. Michael Winner proved adept at filming large numbers of extras in the club scenes. Overall, it shows just how great A Hard Day’s Night is in comparison. The script is thin. It’s odd. A major character, Larry, is a number one pop singer. If you were trying to shoehorn in as many performers as you have contracts with, wouldn’t you cast one as Larry? Not here. Apart from Billy Fury, none of the singers gets a line. It may be that managers in 1962 did not put their clients in negative or unflattering roles. It may be that Larry requires a modicum of acting ablity and they knew they had no one with that ability.

The dialogue is ropey. The worst thing is that it was snouts in the trough time for the likes of Norrie Paramor, so that the songs are generic and weak, which is why they all got relegated to B-sides (see below).

It does have period fascination. The best performance is Billy Fury on Twist Kid because he gets to gyrate. I Don’t Care is probably the best song (and it is Norrie Paramor).

SOUNDTRACK

I can’t find any sign of a full soundtrack

Five of the six singles from the film relegated Play It Cool songs to the B-side. I realized I had five of them, and three were bought by me in 1962. None of them because of the B-sides.

Billy Fury released Once Upon A Dream as an A side of a single (UK #7) and put the other four on an EP. I’ll bet they did a deal on the fake Larry Grainger New Musical Express by buying the advertising space fr Once Upon A Dream on another issue’s front page.

Helen Shapiro, on EMI’s Columbia label, released I Don’t Care as the B-side of Little Miss Lonely (UK #8)

Shane Fenton & The Fentones put both songs from the film on B-sides of EMI Parlophone releases, Why Little Girl was the B-side of It’s All Over Now in April 1962, before the film was released (UK #29). It’s Gonna Take Magic was the B-side of his cover of Cindy’s Birthday in July 1962 (UK #19).

Danny Williams, on EMI’s HMV label, put Who Can Say as the B-side of My Own True Love a year later in July 1963.

Bobby Vee gets star billing on the film, and sings At A Time Like This. It’s not listed ion the IMDB soundtrack, but was the B-side of the Goffin-King song Sharing You (UK #10) released in June 1962 just ahead of the film. Note it was the British B-side, but not the American one. It was on the Liberty label, which EMI had just started distributing. The single credits Bobby Vee’s usual Los Angeles producer, Snuff Garrett as well as Norrie Paramor. Bobby Vee’s miming and the Vernons Girls appear to “do” the backing singing. I suspect the whole thing is an American production, so as usual the actual backing would be the Johnny Mann Singers.

It was considered fine then for an EMI producer to put his own songs on the B-sides of more promising singles (and reap half the writing royalties). None of the artistes involved chose songs as A-sides.

We’re at the end of the sheet music era. Try saying sheet music with a Mexican accent.

Most of the music was by EMI’s main staff producer, Norrie Paramor, head producer from EMI’s Columbia label (soon to be supplanted in the EMI heirarchy by George Martin of Parlophone). Norman Newell was the main lyricist, though Larry Parnes ventured into composition with Norrie Paramor on Twist Kid. I guess Paramor brought in the EMI artistes to a film staring Decca’s greatest asset, which makes it complicated.

Bernard Jewry who wrote Why Little Girl was Shane Fenton’s real name, and he changed names again to become Alvin Stardust a decade later. He thought Shane Fenton sounded made-up, perhaps.

Who Can Say (Paramor-Newell) – Danny Williams
It’s Gonna Take Magic (Paramor-Barratt) – Shane Fenton & The Fentones
Why Little Girl  (Fraser & Jewry) –  Shane Fenton & The Fentones
Take It Easy (Paramor-Newell)  – Jimmy Crawford
Cry My Heart Out (Paramor-Newell)  – Helen Shapiro
But I Don’t Care (Paramor-Newell)  – Helen Shapiro
At A Time Like This (Paramor-Newell)- Bobby Vee
Play It Cool (Paramor) – Billy Fury
Once Upon A Dream (Paramor-Rowe) – Billy Fury
Twist Kid (Paramor-Parnes) – Billy Fury
Let’s Paint The Town  – (Paramor-Rowe) – Billy Fury
You’re Swell (Rowe) – Billy Fury

POP EXPLOITATION FILMS

The Young Ones (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Help! (1965)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Performance (1970)