Teenage Millionaire

I had wanted to see "Teenage Millionaire" for a long time. For one thing, I have found many "teensploitation" movies from the 1950s and 1960s to be campy fun, and the idea of portraying a teenage millionaire had the potential to be a hoot. Also, I like music from the 1960s, and hearing that this movie was full of musical numbers made me want to see it more.

After seeing the movie, I must confess I was very disappointed with the results. Even though the central youth of the movie is a teenage millionaire, there's almost nothing done with it. Where's the acting wild? Where's doing whatever you want? There's nothing like that here.

In fact, I'd say about half of the movie is instead devoted to cut-aways to top recording stars of the era lip-synching their hits. If the music had been good, this might have saved the movie. But almost all of the music is terrible, even though it comes from famed singers like Dion. I hadn't heard just about any of these songs before, and listening to them, it's clear why oldies stations haven't resurrected them. The songs are slow and not catchy. That is, except for Chubby Checker's numbers - they are spirited and directed with some energy. However, even his numbers suffer from a problem with all the song numbers - the annoying color tints used to try and pass this off as a partially color movie instead of 100% black and white.

This movie has never been issued on video or DVD. I suspect that issues with music rights have prevented this. But trust me, you are not missing anything.