American-International Pictures (AIP) was the king of the drive-in movie circuit from the 1950s through the 1970s. They specialized in genres that appealed to teenage audiences and had a knack for combining movie genres. In the wake of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and The Wild One (1953), they turned out juvenile delinquent dramas and gang pictures. When rock and roll took over the charts and Elvis got all shook up on the big screen, AIP put rock music (and often rock and roll stars themselves) in the their films. And as teens became mobile and car crazy, fast cars, road racing, and outlaw chases were added to the formula.

Hot Rod Gang (1958) managed to put all three into a film that defies easy categorization. John Ashley stars as John Abernathy III, a teenage heir to a fortune who is living a double life. By all appearances he's a clean-cut, well-spoken, dignified young man who gets good grades and plays classical violin under the supervision of his doting but oblivious spinster aunts, but he shucks the whole façade to drive fast cars and sing in a rock combo at the local teen hangout. He must remain on the straight and narrow to meet the conditions of his inheritance so he takes on yet another persona to go public with his singing: Jackson "The Beard" Dalyrymple. He hides behind a beatnik beard and beret to raise money to save the club hangout. Dub Taylor, the B-western sidekick turned character actor and Peckinpah regular, provides comic relief as the landlord who shows up for the rent money and offers comments about this young generation.

John Ashley was a mainstay in AIP's juvenile delinquent dramas, taking the lead in Dragstrip Girl (1957) and Motorcycle Gang (1957), and he made the leap from fifties leather jacket hood to sixties beach boy hunk playing Frankie Avalon's best friend in a series of beach party movies. Ashley also cut a number of records through the 1950s and does his own singing in the film, delivering a rocked-up version of the traditional "Annie Laurie" and the hot rod-themed original "Hit and Run Lover."

The film's featured musical attraction, however, is rockabilly legends Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps. They perform their signature hit "Dance to the Bop" and a couple of new singles, "Baby Blue" and "Dance in the Street." It turned out to be one of the last performances of Gene Vincent with The Blue Caps. After a number of line-up changes, the band disbanded for good at the end of 1958.

Director Lew Landers had a long career cranking out B-movies, from westerns to horror films to crime pictures to comedies, but had shifted almost entirely to TV when he was tapped for Hot Rod Gang by writer/producer Lou Rusoff. They'd worked together before on the TV adventure series Terry and the Pirates in the early 1950s. The years of low budgets and tight schedules, as well as the wide range of genres under his belt, serves Landers well. This Hot Rod Gang is not really a gang, despite the title. In fact, the working title was Hot Rod Rock, ostensibly changed to cash in on Ashley's early juvenile delinquent credits. The film does, however, deliver juvenile delinquents and a car theft ring along with dialogue strewn with teen slang and gearhead patter, rock and roll interludes, a tongue-in-cheek spoof of beat culture, and a kooky comedy of stuffed shirt high society types mixing with the goofy antics of John's sweetly dotty aunts. The film constantly shifts gears between genres and refuses to take itself seriously right to the end. According the epilogue: "This story is true--only the facts have been changed."

Sources:
Gene Vincent: A Companion, Derek Henderson. Spent Brothers Productions, 2005.
Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969, Thomas Lisanti. McFarland and Company, 2005.
AFI Catalog of Feature Films
IMDb
By Sean Axmaker