Rebirth in America

After entering the 1950s, the number of films produced by MGM declined year by year, and the funds for filming films became less and less. But judging from the increase in salary, they really want Alex to participate. It’s just that big studios have their own rules, and it’s not feasible for Alex to go against such rules.

"Then just say no, I won't star in this film." Alex replied without hesitation.

"Why? Do you think the reward given by the other party is too low?"

"No, I'm just not interested in playing a role like a bad boy. Besides, I'm not the protagonist."

Dill thought for a moment and didn't continue to say anything. He knew that once Alex decided on something, it would be difficult to change it.

Alex believes that the script of "Blackboard Jungle" simply portrays bad white students and good black students, and does not highlight the depth of the characters. He asked to revise the script because he hoped to dig deeper into this character and increase the drama. Unfortunately, MGM did not agree to this request, so he no longer wanted to participate.

Alex did not appear in this film, but the song "Rock Around the Clock" was still used as the theme song of the film. This is the first time that rock music has appeared in a movie, marking the new era of subculture that has become a tool for Hollywood to cater to young audiences.

When "Blackboard Jungle" was released, Alex went to the cinema to see it. He wanted to see how the film he missed was doing. The poster of the movie is very scary, showing a female teacher clenching her fist to her mouth in horror, with a black silhouette of a man in front of her.

People who see this poster will definitely wonder what happened to that woman and what happened. In fact, this is just a gimmick by the movie company to attract people to the cinema.

This time when he went to the cinema to watch a movie, Alex came out after being carefully dressed up. He wore a peaked cap and old clothes, and then went out alone. When he walked to the street and was among the crowd, he suddenly felt a little regretful.

"I should have brought bodyguards out. It's too dangerous."

It is indeed very dangerous. The rapid development of the United States in this era is also accompanied by chaos. Public safety and order have been disrupted, and crimes have occurred everywhere.

A speeding car passed by Alex just now. It was a convertible, and the guys in the car were obviously gangsters. They yelled and ran rampant all the way, knocking over cars parked on the roadside and falling to the ground.

The knocked-out car rolled over in front of Alex, then burst into flames and burned into a black mass. At that time, if he only took a few steps quickly, he would be hit by something unexpected coming from the sky. Fortunately, no one was injured, otherwise he would have died without knowing who to seek revenge from.

Beneath the bustle of New York City lies countless evils. At night, various gangsters go on a rampage, burning, killing, looting, and committing all kinds of evil.

Even in broad daylight, people only dared to walk on the streets and did not dare to walk through some dark alleys. In that kind of place, there are most cases of robbery, murder, rape and so on.

"You must bring a bodyguard with you next time, definitely bring one!"

After Alex bought the ticket, he sat down in his seat in shock and began to watch the movie called "Blackboard Jungle" attentively. The title of MGM's movie is still a roaring lion, but there is a big gap between it and the lion in my memory. This lion looked less majestic than the one in later generations, and seemed to have escaped from the zoo.

Before the film started, a large subtitle scrolled on the screen, which stated that the purpose of the film was to "concern juvenile crime, its causes and effects, etc."

At the beginning of the film, students and teachers are seen filing in at the gate of a middle school campus. The background music is "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley! This is a fast-paced piece of music that gives the film a period feel.

Alex brought this song to Bill Haley, and the lyricist and composer became himself.

In July 1955, "Rock Around the Clock" topped the pop charts, marking the arrival of the rock era. Its singer, Bill Haley, became the first rock music idol worshiped by teenagers. From then on, rock music became popular all over the country.

The song stayed at the top of the charts for a long time, and many teenage audiences were attracted to watch the movie in theaters because of the song.

Nowadays, film companies are paying more and more attention to the users of young audiences. Some research and analysis said: “The audience who actually buy tickets to watch movies is composed of younger people.

Movies depend on children between the ages of 10 and 19, who automatically and habitually sneak away to see movies.

Half of people over 30 years old do not watch one movie per month on average, while half of people over 50 years old do not watch movies at all. "

The protagonist Dadi is a soldier who retired from the army. He came to a middle school for an interview and wanted to become a professional teacher after the war. He has a pregnant fiancée who is beautiful, cute, sensitive and suspicious.

When Alex saw Dadi's fiancée, he thought she looked familiar. The clothes, hairstyle, makeup, etc., seemed to have been seen before somewhere. He used his "retrospective" ability a little and immediately found the answer in his memory. It turned out that the reason he looked familiar was because the woman was dressed exactly like Don's wife Betty in the American TV series "Mad Men."

Alex smiled and shook his head and said, "They should be almost the same person. They are so similar."

Perhaps Betty's look was borrowed from the film's character, or perhaps this image of a woman was fashionable in the 1950s.

In the film, after Dadi entered the school, he quickly discovered that the school was difficult to restrain its students, and even normal class order was difficult to maintain. In particular, there was a white bad student in the class who was always against him. At the beginning, he could still be calm and persuade others with his reason.

In the office, Dadi also argued with other teachers. He accused other teachers of not really entering into the teacher's obligation. Through these scene clips, the director wants to highlight Dadi's persistence and sense of responsibility that is different from other teachers. From these shots, it can be seen that the director is very skilled in scene scheduling.

This sequence consists of a single shot that lasts for nearly two minutes. The other teachers are sitting at the table, and Dadi stands and walks around them talking. The only person who is in tit-for-tat with Duddy is Murdoch, who has always been at the center of the picture. The movement and silence of the two people formed a sharp contrast.

In the film, not all teachers are as sleek and sophisticated as Murdoch, who treats students with bad nature with a negative attitude. A math teacher played jazz to his students in an attempt to communicate with them, but the students smashed the records.

In the eyes of these students, jazz is outdated music, and what they like is rock music. The director uses this storyline to imply the deep generation gap between adults and teenagers.

The film attributes the reason why the children are so naughty to the fact that when they were growing up, their father was at war and their mother was busy at work, so they lacked a family life and could only hang out on the streets.

During this period, Hollywood produced many films that reflected social issues, all of which pointed to the disintegration of families caused by the war as the reason why teenagers became bad, so that children grew up in incomplete families. However, in 1954, according to a survey report by Dr. Werthan, the main causes of adolescent bad behavior should be superhero comics and Hollywood movies.

This investigative report directly caused a major rectification of the comic industry. American comic companies suffered heavy losses, and almost 90% of comic companies closed down as a result. Seeing that this fire is still spreading to the film industry, this is of course something that Hollywood will never agree to.

The film uses David Bordwell's "retreat mise-en-scène" in many scenes to activate the depth of field of the film's clips.

For example, after the students smashed the math teacher's records, Dadi educated them.

The director used a single shot with a fixed camera position to present this sequence, and placed the two leaders of the students, the black Miller and the Irish West, in the center foreground, so that the audience could carefully compare and examine the two. People have different reactions, and the sports center teacher Dadi in this scene is placed in the background.

Irish West is the character that MGM wanted Alex to play. The actor in the film played this character as unruly and bad-natured. It's a pity that there is no deep exploration into why this character has become so hateful.

The good black students and the bad white students are like a pair of positive and negative characters in the film. They often appear on the screen at the same time. At this time, the two of them are like yin and yang, always able to tightly capture the audience's attention.

After watching half of the movie, Alex felt that the male protagonist Daadi seemed to have appeared in other movies. He once again used his "retrospective" ability and found other films of this actor.

The actor who played Duddy was Glenn Ford, who also played Clark Kent's father in the 1978 movie "Superman." Interestingly, in the movie "Superman", the song "Rock Around the Clock" also appeared.

The movie "Blackboard Jungle" is like other movies, the ending is always so cliché, the bad guys finally get punished, and the good people can finally live happily. This film reflects the problems that exist in society, but does not delve into why such problems exist and how to solve them.

After the film was released, it attracted the attention of many young viewers and went to the cinema to watch it. This low-budget film, without a popular star like Alex, was able to achieve unexpected box office revenue.

The film also caused a lot of commotion and confusion during its release. In many movie theaters, teenagers stomped their feet in excitement when they saw students smashing their teachers' records.

When teachers and students clashed head-on, the young people in the movie felt the same, waving their arms and shouting loudly. Especially in one of the scenes, there is a wonderful confrontation between Mr. Dadi and the bad white students.

The teacher said: "I said bring the homework."

"I said 'Why?'" the student said.

Seeing such a tense atmosphere made many teenagers in the cinema stand up and throw mineral water bottles at the teacher on the screen. Some people even rebelled in the cinema, causing great commotion.

In the end, the film was banned from being released, not only in the United States, but also in many cities in the UK. This troublesome film was banned from being released. Rock star Billy Haley, who was already very popular, became even more popular after this film was released.

Teenagers all over the world went crazy because of this movie insert and coined a new term "Rock and Roll".

In fact, looking at the rock music of this era from Alex's perspective, I always feel that the arrangements are crude and the lyrics are superficial, but people just like such songs. The Carpenters' songs were also popular, but not to the point of going crazy.

Elvis, Billy Harry, Chuck and others have this ability. It is due to their efforts that rock music has continued to develop and grow over the years, and more and more people like this new music. musical form.

Billy is a unique rock star. He does not have outstanding looks and gorgeous clothes like other singers. Billy always wore a crisp suit and tie, and his hair was combed to a shiny finish. He looked exactly like Alex remembered Superman.

Such a person, UU Reading www.uukanshu.net If you walk on the street, you will never believe that he is a singer. No one would think that he is a rock star, but he is a rock star.

After meeting Alex, Harry became the biggest star in the rock and roll world.

In these short two years, he had 12 consecutive hit songs, including "Bumthat Candle", "See You Later Al-ligator", "Rock and Roll" (R-O-) C-K), "HotDogBuddyBuddy" (HotDogBuddyBuddy) and "Rudy's Rock" (Rudy's Rock) and so on.

From a ranking perspective, Harry is clearly more popular in the UK than in the US. After all, the United States has too many rock singers. In addition to rock music, there are also jazz and country music singers competing for the market.

In the UK he faced few obstacles, while in his homeland only five songs reached the top 20.

Until March 1957, every record Harry released in the UK through Brunswick reached the top 20. In February 1957, Harry received a warm welcome upon arriving in the UK.

From Southampton to London, Harry took the Harry Train provided by the Daily Mirror. At Waterloo, he received a warm welcome from thousands of fans, many of whom had been waiting all day.

This scene is called the "Second Battle of Waterloo" by some. This shows how much influence it had on the British music scene at that time.