{"id":11686,"date":"2015-06-25T13:33:38","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T17:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11686"},"modified":"2015-06-25T14:01:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T18:01:04","slug":"pat-boones-1957-one-two-punch-bernadine-april-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11686","title":{"rendered":"Pat Boone’s 1957 one-two punch: Bernadine + April Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AprilLove_poster\"<\/a>Previously filmed in 1944 by Fox house director Henry Hathaway as Home in Indiana<\/strong>, George Agnew Chamberlain\u2019s story \u2013 first a serialized tale, then a novel \u2013 morphed into April Love<\/strong><\/a> (1957), a vehicle for the studio\u2019s latest star, Pat Boone, whom film historian Julie Kirgo describes in different vernacular as the anti-Elvis: less hip-swinging, a cleaner crooning style, and an image that wouldn\u2019t have made neither parents, extended relatives, or the family pets worry.<\/p>\n

Prior to being known as a gospel singer and for his staunchly conservative religious and political views, he was a top-charting performer during the 1950s, reportedly behind Fox\u2019 other contract star, Elvis.<\/p>\n

Balancing a recording, TV and film career, Boone appeared in 14 feature films between 1957 and 1970, but it was perhaps two films for which he\u2019s best known: April Love<\/strong>, the film with the massive best-selling, Oscar-nominated single, and Journey to the Center of the Earth<\/a><\/strong> (1959), the latter a movie he was less crazy about, but one that became a top moneymaker for Boone, since his deal included a piece of the profits.<\/p>\n

\"Bernardine1957_poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

April Love<\/strong>\u00a0makes its\u2019 Blu-ray debut via Twilight Time, and features a great commentary track and an isolated score . Both April Love<\/strong> and Journey<\/strong>\u00a0were directed by Henry Levin, and I\u2019ve included a review of Boone\u2019s actual film debut, Bernadine<\/strong><\/a>, which Levin also directed in 1957.<\/p>\n

Bernadine<\/strong> remains unavailable on video, but there\u2019s a panned & scanned version floating around on YouTube. It’s\u00a0a musical of sorts, and proves the practice of casting older actors as teens wasn’t exclusive to the 1970s. The film also demonstrates there are certain aspects of a teen comedy which never really age, and there\u2019s a peculiar sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu to the film, as certain archetypes proved central to the oeuvre of one John Hughes.<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> Massacre Video’s special edition DVD of Spine<\/strong> (1986), a once rare shot-on-video slasher directed by ‘specialty’ filmmakers Justin Simonds and John Howard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviews of Pat Boone’s one-two film debut in 1957: Bernadine (still unavailable on video) + April Love on Blu from Twilight Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3735,3734,3733,2562,2563,3736,1335,2844],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/AprilLove_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-32u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11705,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11686\/revisions\/11705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}