{"id":28425,"date":"2018-12-31T02:01:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=28425"},"modified":"2018-11-03T23:41:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T03:41:51","slug":"dont-knock-the-twist-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/dont-knock-the-twist-1962\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Knock The Twist (1962)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Chubby Checker managed to get a lot of mileage out of his dance hit \u201cTwist.\u201d Not only did he get three movies, but he presents variations of the dance with a variety of the songs where he beckons us to twist. There\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Knock the Twist,\u201d \u201cSlow Twistin\u2019,\u201d \u201cSalome Twist,\u201d \u201cBucket Twist,\u201d \u201cLa Paloma Twist,\u201d and \u201cI Love to Twist\u201d! \u201cDon\u2019t Knock the Twist\u201d is a sequel to the 1961 movie headlined by Chubby Checker. Though he\u2019s the headliner he\u2019s not the star per se, but he does show up every so often to present another performer or twist for us.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Knock the Twist\u201d is a sequel centered on a network president named Herb who wants to bank on the latest craze: The Twist! He tells his special programming manager Ted a deadline of four weeks to produce a ninety minute Twist special, so he can beat a rival network to the punch. From there Ted begins scrambling to find Twisting dancers, and enlists the help of Chubby Checker. Meanwhile Ted is pressuring his designer girlfriend Dulcie (the sexy Mari Blanchard) for marriage and she\u2019s struggling with criticism of her new clothesline. When Ted enlists the services of brother and sister dancer Billy and Madge, Ted\u2019s girlfriend Dulcie tries to sign Madge on to promote her clothing. The premise is shockingly complicated to the point of being convoluted, but this type of cinema that exploits a current dance fad has its charms here and there.<\/p>\n

The narrative takes a back seat to the dancing most of the time, presenting an interesting look at a dance craze that, for a moment, clicked with everyone thanks to its simplicity. Here, the twist solves just about every problem, and director Oscar Rudolph makes a point of zeroing in on women\u2019s waists and derrieres whenever they\u2019re doing the twist. Along the way there\u2019s a wonderful soundtrack, from \u201cDuke of Earl,\u201d the fun \u201cBristol Stomp,\u201d and one of my all time favorite pop diddies, \u201cThe Mash Potato Dance.\u201d It should be noted though Billy and Madge are charismatic dancers at no point do they actually do the mash potato. The acting is at the very least serviceable, with Mari Blanchard playing the heel well. Chubby Checker sure isn\u2019t an actor, but he\u2019s okay when working off of other people. \u201cDon\u2019t Knock the Twist\u201d isn\u2019t a masterpiece, but it\u2019s a solid bit of sixties escapism with raucous dancing, and some great pop music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chubby Checker managed to get a lot of mileage out of his dance hit \u201cTwist.\u201d Not only did he get three movies, but he presents variations of the dance with a variety of the songs where he beckons us to twist. There\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Knock the Twist,\u201d \u201cSlow Twistin\u2019,\u201d \u201cSalome Twist,\u201d \u201cBucket Twist,\u201d \u201cLa Paloma Twist,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1572],"tags":[1304,302,700,766,866,922],"class_list":["post-28425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-rockandrollny","tag-dance","tag-drama","tag-musical","tag-performance","tag-rock","tag-sequel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28427,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28425\/revisions\/28427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}