The Golden Era

The ‘Juke-box urli d’Amore’ (‘Juke-box screams for love’) was a musical comedy released in November 1959. Featuring Adriano Celentano, Mina and Colin Hicks and his Cabin Boys. Here’s Mina from another film ‘Urlatori alla sbara’ (‘Screaming at the Bush’) (1960).

From an Italian film titled ‘Europa di Notte’ (‘Europe by Night’ or ‘European Nights’ at its American release in 1963) (1959) looking at nightlife in European capitals Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, Brussels and more. Premiered in February 1959 A potpourri of contemporary nightclub acts, in Europe.Episodes presenting famous artists and people performing. EUROPA DI NOTTE […]

It’s well-known that the Beatles killed the quiff, but the story of how it happened can do with a retelling of the events surrounding that fateful day for us teds in Paris in October 1961. The Beatles were of course often referred to as ‘the Mop-Tops’ at the height of their fame fame between 1963 […]

No doubt the single best example of British teenage life in the 1950s, ‘We are the Lambeth Boys’ (1959) was filmed in the summer of 1958. It pictures the social and work life of the youth on one estate in Kennington in the London borough of Lambeth. Its ordinariness shows clearly that not all teenage […]

The ‘teddy boy calypso (bring back the cat-o’-nine)’, a 1959 recording on Pye by Lord Invader and his Calypso Rhythm Boys. the only thing to stop these hooligans from causing panic in Great Britain, the only thing to stop these teddy boys from causing panic in England, well I hope that the Government see they […]

In 1973, in the comic weekly Pilote, the cartoonist Jean Solé drew a 3-page story about a blouson noir which he entitled ‘Une vie comme ça’ (‘Such a Life’). It’s a condensed masterpiece which sums up the lives of the stereotypical blouson noir of the early 1960s. Solé was born in 1948 and so was […]