For a hilarious look at the pre-Beetle pop music scene in England, have a gander at the British 1963 film “It’s All Happening” with teen idol Tommy Steele. The “Boy on the Beach” number is quite campy and the last half-hour features several bizarre musical acts that must have been popular in Great Britain at the time. In the U.S., we had “Rock Around the Clock,” which was also a mashup of pop music acts and an annoying plot. The rock/pop exploitation genre has produced some wonderfully bad stuff from the 50s and 60s.
