Shake Rattle And Rock!

Shake Rattle and Rock! is an approximate remake of a 1956 rock & roll comedy that featured Fats Domino and Joe Turner in concert, and starred Mike Connors, Sterling Holloway and Margaret Dumont in a story about killjoy adults trying to ban a teen-dance television show. Renée Zellweger's stars in the 1994 updated version, made as part of Showtime Cable's Rebel Highway series, is similarly set during rock's late-50s primordial beginnings, and co-stars Nora Dunn, Mary Woronov and PJ Soles as uptight citizens putting the squeeze on a dance show hosted by a chipper hipster (Howie Mandel). Director Allan Arkush (Rock 'n' Roll High School) brings his arch touch to this silly but endearing tale (with a big boost from former Warhol mainstay Woronov), while America's sweetheart, Zellweger, literally throws herself into the high-octane part of a wannabe singer-songwriter relentlessly wooed by a bad-boy biker (nice work by musician John Doe). The original tunes could be better, but a subplot involving the uphill aspirations of an African American girl group (led by Latanyia Baldwin) in a racist entertainment industry allows for some vibrant doo-wop performances. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com