This is the Soho movie par excellence.I'd walked the same streets and been to the same clubs as Johnny on the fringe of 'The life' as they call it now.And in 1960 a certain innocence still prevailed in much of the square mile.OK,there were no tarts with hearts,but strippers and song-pluggers,wannabe drummers,agents,bookers,and their like filled the coffee bars and blocked Archer Street every day.It is a world that no longer exists,but if you stand around the 'Red Lion' at midday you can still see their ghosts.So this isn't going to be an objective review then. 'Expresso Bongo' belongs to my youth.I idolised jazz musicians like Johnny Jackson and derided little poppets like Bongo Herbert.Johnny's ambivalence towards his protegee was perfectly understandable to me as an extension of the jazzers'ideals of not compromising their art for filthy lucre(well,I was only 19).

Those two and the moderator were certainly not expecting the shtick Harvey gave them.

Best scene in the film when Harvey gets on a panel discussion show with a minister and psychologist about today's youth and their musical taste. Richard sings a couple of songs and does them well in the manner of Ricky Nelson. Expresso Bongo is a realistic look at the British music industry at the beginning of the sixties. Donlon manages to best Harvey, but the man does come out of the battle none the worst for wear. Sylvia Sims is Harvey's patient girl friend who works as a stripper in a Soho club and Yolande Donlon who was an American expatriate in London plays an American musical comedy star who takes a far more than motherly interest in young Richard. Harvey gives a nice performance here though he's almost as 'on' all the time as Phil Silvers. He plays what he is a young musical hopeful who gets discovered by Laurence Harvey, a fast talking British cockney version of Sammy Glick. Nevertheless he was and does remain a very big singing star in the British Commonwealth countries though he never was able to make it the USA market as the Beatles who symbolize the next generation of pop stars. Personally I saw a lot more Ricky Nelson or Frankie Avalon in his musical style. It's been said that Cliff Richard was the UK's equivalent of Elvis Presley.

Expresso Bongo by Wolf Mankowitz