The Golden Disc (also known as The In-Between Age) is a 1958 British pop musical film directed by Don Sharp and starring Terry Dene and Mary Steele.[1] A young man and woman open a trendy coffee bar and discover a singing star.
Joan Farmer, with the help of her friend Harry Blair, persuades her aunt to turn her worn-out cafe into a trendy expresso bar for teenagers. They discover a singing star, Terry Dene, and form a record company. After various adventures Terry sells a million records in America, and Joan and Harry fall in love.
The film was shot at Walton Studios. It was a vehicle for Terry Dene who had three top twenty hits in Britain.[2]
It was one of several British pop films set around coffee bars, others including The Tommy Steele Story, Serious Charge, Beat Girl and Expresso Bongo.[3] Director Don Sharp said it was made at a time when "everybody was making a musical". His wife Mary played the female lead.[4]
Filming started on 23 September 1957. Jack Phillips of Butchers Film Productions, who made the film, claimed the film was "not an imitation of The Tommy Steele Story or anything like this" even though it was a musical vehicle for a pop star.[5]
In a 1958 review The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Rock'n'roll music 1s loud and exnibitionist; its exponents usually noisy, vital, eccentric, often larger than life. With an immense following both here and in the States, this interesting phenomenon deserves a more full-blooded investigation or exposition than The Golden Disc manages. In fact the performances which the film wraps in its somewhat vapid plot are all genteel and disappointingly inhibited."[6]
In the same year Variety wrote: "The pic would have been more acceptable had the screenplay by Don Nicholl and Don Sharp not been completely devoid of wit and suspense, and also had Sharp's direction not been so ploding."[7]
The Radio Times Guide to Films (2017) gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "The coffee bar was the only place to be seen in the early rock 'n' roll years, but it is almost impossible to see how they became teen meccas from this risible British pop picture. In the very worst "it's trad, dad" manner, it shows how Lee Patterson and Mary Steele jazz up her aunt's coffee shop with a record booth and the singing talents of odd-jobman Terry Dene. "[8]
InBritish Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959David Quinlan rated the film as "mediocre", writing: "Halting pop musical with a lot of inhibited acting."[9]
^Donnelly, K.J. "The Perpetual Busman's Holiday: Sir Cliff Richard and British pop musicals". Journal of Popular Film & Television. 25 (4): 146–154.
^Sharp, Don (2 November 1993). "Don Sharp Side 3" (Interview). Interviewed by Teddy Darvas and Alan Lawson. London: History Project. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
^Evans, Peter (19 September 1957). "Studio Round-Up". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 32. (subscription required to access article)
