Music History Events: Movies
December 16, 1957 Pat Boone's "April Love" hits #1 in the US for the first of six weeks. The song is from the movie of the same name starring Boone and Shirley Jones.
December 7, 1957 The movie Jamboree, featuring a scene where Jerry Lee Lewis performs "Great Balls of Fire," debuts in theaters. Also appearing in the film are Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Frankie Avalon and Connie Francis.
November 8, 1957 Elvis Presley's third movie, Jailhouse Rock, opens nationally. It had a premiere a few weeks earlier at the Memphis theater where Elvis was once an usher.
October 17, 1957 The Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock premieres in Memphis, Tennessee.
September 24, 1957 The movie Mister Rock And Roll, starring the famous disc jockey Alan Freed, debuts in America. In the film, Freed tells the story of Rock and Roll, with performances by Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon and Brook Benton.
July 9, 1957 Elvis Presley's second film, Loving You, has its US premiere (Elvis does not attend since he got a special showing the night before).
February 22, 1957 Gladys and Vernon Presley, Elvis' parents, are filmed in the audience as their son performs "Got A Lot O' Livin' To Do" for Loving You. After his mother's death, Elvis will never watch the scene again.
February 13, 1957 Filming is completed on the UK's first rock and roll movie, Rock You Sinners.
January 23, 1957 Bill Haley & his Comets attend the Australian premiere of their movie Don't Knock The Rock while on tour there.
January 21, 1957 Filming begins on Elvis Presley's second movie, Loving You.
December 7, 1956 Rock! Rock! Rock!, one of the earliest Rock and Roll movies, opens in theaters. The film features the popular disc jockey Alan Freed along with Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and LaVern Baker.
December 1, 1956 One of the first rock movies, The Girl Can't Help It, opens in America. Featuring performances by Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Platters and Fats Domino, the film stars Jayne Mansfield as an aspiring singer.
October 13, 1956 The Bill Haley film Don't Knock The Rock starts filming.
October 12, 1956 Massively influential DJ Alan Freed's second film, Don't Knock The Rock, starring Little Richard, Bill Haley, and the Treniers, opens in New York.
April 6, 1956 Having impressed Paramount Studios with his screen test five days earlier, Elvis Presley is signed to a seven-year, three-picture deal worth nearly half a million dollars.
April 1, 1956 Elvis Presley gets his film career going with a screen test at Paramount Studios, where he performs a scene from The Rainmaker. He lands a contract and ends up starring in 31 movies.
March 21, 1956 The movie Rock Around The Clock, about a concert promoter (played by DJ Alan Freed) who brings Rock and Roll to the masses, opens in theaters. The film stars Bill Haley and His Comets and is named after their hit song. It is one of the first movies based on rock music and aimed at teenagers.
September 29, 1954 The original musical version of A Star Is Born, featuring Judy Garland, opens in Hollywood. The first non-musical version debuted in 1932 as What Price Hollywood?, starring Constance Bennett.
February 10, 1954 The Glenn Miller Story, a biopic about the bandleader starring Jimmy Stewart, opens in theaters.
August 4, 1942 The movie Holiday Inn premieres in New York, introducing Bing Crosby's holiday classic "White Christmas."
July 26, 1942 Judy Garland and Gene Kelly record a cover of "For Me And My Gal" for their film of the same name.
August 15, 1939 After five directors, several script drafts, and endless casting changes, the movie musical The Wizard Of Oz premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
February 18, 1938 Bob Hope's film The Big Broadcast of 1938 debuts in New York. The film introduces Hope's signature song, "Thanks For The Memory."
November 15, 1934 Gene Autry appears in his first film, In Old Santa Fe, becoming the first "singing cowboy" on the silver screen.
June 24, 2022 The movie Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, hits theaters, starring Austin Butler as Presley. The soundtrack includes new songs by Eminem ("The King and I") and Doja Cat ("Vegas") along with Elvis songs in their original form and in new versions by the likes of Kacey Musgraves ("Can't Help Falling In Love") and Måneskin ("If I Can Dream").
November 25, 2021 The Beatles: Get Back, a three-part series comprised of outtakes from their Let It Be documentary, debuts on Disney+. Directed by Peter Jackson (Lord Of The Rings), it provides a very detailed look at the 1969 recording of their album Let It Be.
October 17, 2020 Directed by Spike Lee, the film version of David Byrne's American Utopia, which ran on Broadway from October 2019 to February 2020, debuts on HBO. Many of the songs from Stop Making Sense, the concert film Byrne did with the Talking Heads, are also in this one, but a showstopper is a cover of Janelle Monáe's "Hell You Talmbout," which ties into the Black Lives Matter movement.
October 4, 2019 The blockbuster film Joker becomes the first film to use "Rock And Roll Part 2" since Gary Glitter's 2015 conviction for pedophilia. Many in the UK, where Glitter's crimes are well-known, are outraged because it earns the disgraced glam rocker substantial royalties.
September 25, 2019 The first installment of Ken Burns' eight-part documentary series Country Music airs on PBS. The film chronicles the evolution of the genre from the early "hillbilly" musicians of the '20s with Fiddlin' John Carson through the New Traditionalists of the '90s with Garth Brooks.
April 5, 2019 The Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace is finally released in theaters, 47 years after it was recorded in 1972.More
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