Jersey Boys

Even if you’re too young to remember Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, you may still find a lot of their songs sound familiar. They had quite a few hits in their day, and tunes such as “Sherry”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, “My Eyes Adored You”, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, and “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” are classics that are part of the soundtrack of most people’s lives. This film, directed by Clint Eastwood and based on the Tony Award-winning musical of the same name, takes the audience on a journey beginning in the early fifties, when a very young Frankie Castelluccio first joins forces with Tommy DeVito’s band the Four Lovers. Frankie changes his surname to Valli, and the band eventually achieves musical success in the sixties as the Four Seasons, thanks mainly to the popularity of Frankie’s voice and the songwriting talents of Bob Gaudio, before personal hurdles and financial troubles lead to Tommy and bassman Nicky leaving the band. The four of them are reunited 20 years later while being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
John Lloyd Young also played Frankie Valli in the Broadway musical, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Not only a good Actor, he sang the lead vocals on the Grammy Award-winning Jersey Boys cast album, which went platinum. There were a few quite funny bits and one or two sad bits in this movie, but for me, the most enjoyable thing about it was the songs and the quality of the singing.