Fantastic!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Rookie director Ray Dennis Steckler's musical romance "Wild Guitar" chronicles the rags-to-riches rise of a naïve, young singer from South Dakota who suffers at the hands of producer Mike McCauley (Arch Hall, Sir.) who deceives him from the start. Good looking Bud Eagle cruises into Hollywood on his motorcycle with a suitcase of clothes, a guitar, and fifteen cents. At a café, our blond protagonist meets a dancer who is about to go on stage and shake her fanny. When the guy scheduled to perform chickens out, Bud takes his place without argument and strums a tune before the cameras. The crowd mobs him after he performs his first tune. Before he realizes it, Bud (Arch Hall, Jr. of "Eegah") buys into everything that the unscrupulous Mike tells him. For example, Mike explains the ropes to Bud in one scene when he says, "This is something I want you to get straight. You don't believe what you read, only what I tell you." Everybody tries to tell Bud that he is being taken for a ride before he is too dumb to know any better. Meanwhile, the gal he met at the café, Vicki (Nancy Czar) pines for him. They spend an evening skating before Mike's henchman lines up a dame for him. Vicki intrudes on them and flees in horror because Bud appears to be two-timing her. Three incompetent kidnappers with a shotgun abduct Bud. Everybody seems to know the kidnapping is a publicity stunt except the fans. Eventually, Bud wises up and pulls a fast one of Mike. Indeed, this is the surprise of surprises of this modest movie. A clean-cut kid shows up at Mike's office and demands $20 or he will spill it to the press that the abduction is a hoax. He tells Mike where Bud is hanging out. Earlier in the action, Mike gave Bud a small reel-to-reel tape recorder. Bud uses it to record Mike without Mike's awareness that he is being recording. Bud cuts a new deal with Mike so that he will no longer we exploited. Incredibly enough, the black & white photography was lensed by Joseph C. Mascelli who wrote the best technological book about cinematography entitled "The 5 C's of Cinematography." Even more incredibly, the great Vilmos Zsigmond served as the second unit photographer. Zsigmond won an Oscar for his lensing of Spielberg's "Close Encounters of a Third Kind."

Of course this is a very bad movie by most conventional standards, but it did have a couple of redeeming qualities. First, the basic storyline, while a bit convoluted, does contain a kernel of authenticity: many artists of that era were blatantly ripped off by crooked managers, producers, promoters, record companies, etc. The scene in the ice skating rink I thought was surprisingly effective, in fact it almost didn't fit. And the closing shot of the teens doing the twist on the beach brought back memories of that era, since I was a kid growing up in Southern California at the time, and yes, people of all ages did the twist.

Tonight's feature: Wild Guitar, starring Arch Hall Jr. and Ms. Vicky.Oh, where to begin? Just say Arch Hall Jr. and you have a good start. He has it all. The pushed in, pug nosed, beady eyed face that only a mother could love. The massive, "wish a mad barber would chop it off" type of hair that he can't stop running his comb through endlessly.Its not hard for Arch to play the dumb hick from sticksville USA. He's a natural. Can anyone do the chicken neck, wide beady-eyed look better than Arch? Can anyone claim to be any more wooden or sing and deliver lines with more obvious raw amateurism? No need to answer.The crowd that went wild at his fortuitous singing debut must have been paid off or they were listening to something off stage that we didn't see. Aside from the absorbing plot points, of which there were many, the highlight of the film has to be the hip three stooges act that abducts Arch for a ransom. I was on my knees begging for relief by the time they finished their negotiations with Arch over how much money to demand.No wait, the real highlight was Arch's touching, molasses slow, romantic ballad to his girlfriend, Vicky. Dogs two blocks away howled for hours after he hit those yodeling off pitch high note croons.Wild guitar? Arch! Pick it up or Ms. Vicky is going to dump you and go back to ice skating.

Your typical 'wannabe rock star finds fame, gets his ethics tested, but finds his heart too' story.Arch Hall Jr. was very likable in the lead. Supposedly, he was a musician first and only made films because his father talked him into it. I think he's a retired cargo pilot in Colorado now.Arch Hall Sr. 's role as the manager was basically a sleazier version of himself.Steckler (aka Cash Flagg) as Steak was fun to watch too. Because he and Hall Jr. were supposed to fight in the end, and Hall Jr. was visibly larger, he played the Steak character as an evil sleaze too. This way no one felt sympathy for this little guy getting beat up by a big guy. R.D.S is a professional even if it's all low budget.Nancy Czar looked great too. She was also the lone survivor of that plane crash that killed most of a figure skating team a few years before.Classic 60's rock movie. It belongs in a time capsule.