Ring-A-Ding Rhythm! (1962)

This was the first effort of British director Richard Lester (credited here as "Dick Lester") and it's an enjoyable-enough museum piece that tries to cash in on the fleeting popularity of Dixieland jazz among British teeners. To hedge his bets, Lester brought in a few American rock n' roll hold-overs -- Gary U.S. Bonds, Chubby Checker and Del Shannon. Their presence gives the movie a decidedly uneven feel, but there's a great deal of energy at work, and everybody seems to be having a good time.

The movie is a bit like "A Hard Day's Night" in its unrelentingly goofy sense of humor, and in how a very skeletal plot is used to string together a series of unrelated musical numbers.

By the following year, the Beatles had swept all these acts into the unemployment line, but this is a great example of the British rock n' roll movie of the antedeluvian era.