The film edits together footage of two concert from 1973, one at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, and a second at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan, during the height of a series of multi-artist tours known as the "Rock and Roll Revival," interspersed with footage of the singers from the 1950s and 60s. It also includes interviews with the singers.
Cast
The film features performances from numerous stars from the 1950s and early 1960s, including
The film ends with a rare, and apparently impromptu, duet between Berry and Diddley, who had recorded together before, but were not often filmed on stage together.
Style
The film uses split screen techniques to contrast the performers' appearances in the 1950s and in the 1970s. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, described it as "world's-fair avant-garde".
Themes
Canby noted that the film seemed to have a possibly unintentional social commentary, with the majority-white audience giving the black fist to the majority-African American performers. He suggests that it implied that "there are no black memories of the nineteen-fifties". Christine Sprengler suggested that the film was an attempt to show "musical milestones" in the context of the times, and, like American Graffiti and Grease, sets rock and roll as the soundtrack to the decade.
Release and reception
Let the Good Times Roll received its premiere in New York, New York on May 25, 1973. It was later shown in Finland, Hungary, and Sweden. Steven Otfinoski credits its success with bolstering Bo Diddley's career, which at the time was stagnating. Canby noted that the performers seemed much different than they were during their earlier careers, with gained weight, longer and thinner hair, and Little Richard having "openly embraced androgyny". Overall, he considered the film an "engaging, technically superior concert film that recalls music of the nineteen-fifties". A review in Variety stated, "Columbia's 'Let the Good Times Roll' is a smash recreation of 1950s rock 'n' roll frenzy, a moving and exciting nostalgia trip" that "could become one of the sleepers of 1973." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that it "gives us mostly the music of the late 1950s as performed 15 years later by the same artists. But it doesn’t condescend. It isn't a movie that finds anything camp about Chuck Berry singing 'Johnny B. Goode.' It understands that if the song and the singer were good then, they are both still good." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Interspersed among the 28 songs are film clips and photographs of the persons, movies, and fads that marked the time and, seen again, bring on laughter and a wistful feeling." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "an infectiously nostalgic—and therefore often amusing—entertainment that should appeal as much to the youth of today as to those of us who came of age in the 50s." Tom Zito of The Washington Post called it "the first film to view rock 'n' roll in its broad cultural perspective. The result may well be the best rock film yet." Mark Deming of Allmovie wrote that the artists are in "fine shape" and that Let the Good Times Roll is one of the "few movies about '50s rock that well and truly rocks".
Soundtrack album
The Bell Records label released a 2-disc soundtrack album featuring performances from the film, including complete versions of songs truncated in the film. Omitted from the album, however, are any of Chuck Berry's performances due to Berry being under contract to Chess Records at the time; this includes his jam session with Bo Diddley, although Diddley's other two performances are retained on the album.
