Urlatori alla sbarra (1960)

Urlatori alla sbarra (1960)

Italian One Panel Poster

Urlatori alla sbarra (aka Howlers of the Dock) is an Italian musical/comedy directed by Lucio Fulci, who was to go on to later fame as a director of Italian giallo and horror films.  In fact, his One on Top of the Other (1969), A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), and Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) are amongst my favorites of those genres. I was able to watch Urlatori alla sbarra thanks to someone posting it on youtube.  Otherwise, it had been a very difficult film to track down.  Since I do not speak Italian, I am relying on the following plot summary (with spoilers) from someone on IMDB (English errors and all):

"Fast-pasted, almost plot less musical-comedy showing the adventures of a band of friends, teddy boys, and rock n' roll chicks, whose crazy, fun-loving habits inspire jiving from some citizens and bitter complains from others.

When a prominent jeans company owner feels that the kids bad reputation is adversely affecting the sales and public image of their product. Prevailing upon the youths to help, he engineers a series of promotional stunts to lighten the publics opinion of these good-hearted rock n roll naïf, and their lovely jeans. But an unscrupulous politician makes things difficult for the youngsters, but all turns out well.

After helping a few women across the street and carrying an elderly man bodily up flights of stairs, but finds that their kind gesture futile for the old man states: "I live on the ground floor you knuckleheads!" The film ends with the solid Roman bourgeois dancing in the streets, seduced by the wonders of rock and roll music."

It appears that this film was aimed squarely at the youth market in Italy.  The cast includes Adriana Celentano, Mina, Joe Sentieri, and Brunetta, all of whom had varying degress of success and longevity in the Italian music industry.  About half of the 79-minute running time (IMDB shows a running time of 83 minutes) consists of musical numbers.  Celentano appears to be channeling his inner hip-swiveling Elvis in most of his numbers.  Mina is my personal favorite of the bunch, particularly her first number, Nessuno.

 
American trumpeter Chet Baker even appears in the film, though for some reason he mostly seems to be half asleep or dazed.  On an interesting sidenote, Baker would become the inspiration for one of Jess Franco's better films, 1969's Venus in Furs.

The comedy seems to be of the silly variety, for the most part.  One of the actors seems to be doing his best to look like Marlon Brando from The Wild One.

 
One insane looking group, Brutos ("Uglies"), performs in a field with Aldo Maccione and appears to be imitating Jerry Lewis.

 
We also get German-born Elke Sommer in an early role before she attained international fame as an actress.  Sommer is really the lead actress in the film.

As for Jocelyn, I am perplexed at why she appeared in this film.  It's hard to see how this could have possibly done anything for her career, and I highly doubt any significant compensation was involved.  For crying out loud, there was even a typo in her name in the opening credits, which lists her as "Jakie Lane."

 
Perhaps she was friendly at the time with someone involved with the production, and it was a good time on a short shoot.  She has only one line (which was most likely dubbed in Italian by someone else), and she is relegated to mostly being in the background with a group of young ladies, only occasionally receiving brief close-ups.  On a positive note for us, we get to see some of her dance moves (while chomping on chewing gum).  If you can speak Italian, love Italian music, or are simply a Jocelyn Lane completist, then take the time to watch this one.  Otherwise, don't bother.

I kept wondering how Jocelyn felt hanging out with the young, Italian hipsters in this film just after having dated famous 43-year-old millionaire Brazilian playboy Baby Pignatari for a brief time.  That had to be quite a different world.

Here are a few captures of Jocelyn:

My presumption is that this film was shot in late 1959, based on IMDB's listing of a March 13, 1960 release in Italy.  Also, the weather seems to be cool, based on the clothes of the cast and the fact that you can see their breath in the air in a couple of scenes outdoors.  I have seen no indication that it was ever released in any English-speaking country.  I can find no reference to the film in Variety, which is unusual, because that trade paper tended to give good coverage to the Italian film industry in that era.  Perhaps that is an indication of how far down the ladder this film was considered to be at the time.

I have seen no indication of a home video release for the film, but it looks like the youtube video was probably sourced from an old VHS tape, or perhaps even a 16mm film version.  There is no television logo on the screen, so that makes me think that it was not a version recorded from a TV broadcast.  You can find some of the individual musical performances in a much higher quality on youtube than the one of the entire movie.

Here is an Italian two panel poster and an Italian locandina poster (courtesy of the archives at emovieposter.com):

Those are the only promotional items that I have been able to locate for the film.