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Daddy-O (1958)


Truck driver, singer and high trouser enthusiast Daddy-o is a real hip cat. He hangs out at a pizza parlour where he acts moody, sings deep songs like rock candy and dances aggressively with women while repeatedly pointing out to them that if they weren’t a woman he would punch them, right in the face. Because their driving is substandard.

While Daddy-o is racing against a pointy breasted stranger his best friend gets run off the road and killed. How close were they? Some people have brothers, daddy-o had this guy. That’s how close these two were, though they are only seen to exchange five lines of dialog in the entire movie.

Naturally Daddy-o isn’t best pleased and after a run in with a myopic gym manager he drifts into some shady business delivering dope for a fat man who inexplicably spends all his time in the gym. Maybe he isn’t getting any thinner because the gym doesn’t have any actual gym equipment that I could see.

There are two reasons that I can think of to watch this movie, hence the two star rating. The first is that the songs are just so crap they have to be heard to be believed, most of them just have the same line repeated endlessly like Rock Candy which goes “rock candy, rock, rock, rock candy, rock, rock candy.” (repeat 50 times).

The other reason for tuning in to this highly dated yarn is the way the script can’t decide if Daddy-o is a mean moody type or a fun loving hipster liable to burst into song at any moment. It probably doesn’t help that the teenage rebel looks about 40 either.