Though he never dredged the same depths as Elvis, there is little doubt that Cliff Richard made some really horrible movies. There were three of them -- Finders Keepers, Two a Penny, and the truly execrable Take Me High -- and one could search the earth for the rest of one's life and still never... [+] Expand

Though he never dredged the same depths as Elvis, there is little doubt that Cliff Richard made some really horrible movies. There were three of them -- Finders Keepers, Two a Penny, and the truly execrable Take Me High -- and one could search the earth for the rest of one's life and still never find anyone who would admit to enjoying them. So it's absolutely astonishing to discover that not only do the accompanying soundtracks stand proud alongside some of Richard's regular albums, they don't look too shoddy up there with his best ones, either. And the fact that category includes two other soundtracks just goes to prove your old granny was right all along. You really can't judge a movie score by the movie. At the time of his breakthrough, in 1958, Richard was (in the parlance of the day), "the boy who rocked the world." Little Richard was passe, Elvis was past it, Jerry Lee was, well, we've all seen Great Balls of Fire, so let's just leave it at that. So far as the British entertainment industry was concerned, America had already had its rock & rolling day; now it was their turn, and Cliff Richard was still coming down from his first hit single, the magnificent moodiness of "Move It," when he was co-opted for his first film, Serious Charge. The gritty realism of the movie's theme summed up Cliff's box office appeal. He was rough, he was tough, and the songs he performed on the soundtrack, "No Turning Back" and "Mad About You" (both making their CD debuts here), adhered perfectly to that image. So did a third number, the rollicking "Living Doll," but Richard soon changed that. Although the singer loved the song, he disliked its up-tempo rock arrangement, and by the time it became his first number one, "Living Doll" had been transformed into his first major ballad, and the template around which much of his subsequent career would be designed. Certainly it's no surprise that many of Richard's biggest hits over the next five years should also be ballads, or that the musical highlights of his next three movies would supply many of the most memorable examples. "A Voice in yhe Wilderness" and the magnificently maudlin "The Shrine on the Second Floor" (from Expresso Bongo, 1959); "When the Girl in Your Arms" (The Young Ones, 1961); and "Bachelor Boy" and "The Next Time" (Summer Holiday, 1962) are no strangers to a thousand best-of collections, and the only injustice is that their radiance often blinded listeners to some equally deserving material. Spread over two discs, and amply annotated in the accompanying booklet, At the Movies goes a long way toward remedying this travesty. Trimming the fat from the original soundtrack albums, it bolsters what's left with a handful of unissued alternate takes, and several more CD debutantes. And though the collectors' interest does wane as the second disc progresses toward Take Me High, still, At the Movies ends on a high note, with the original, and radically different, movie mixes of "The Young Ones," "Lessons in Love," and "Bachelor Boy," plus a sensational bazouki-powered "Summer Holiday." ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide [-] Collapse

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