"It isn't boogie, it isn't jive and it isn't swing - it's kind of all of 'em," says a puzzled big-city talent manager after stumbling upon a Bill Haley & the Comets dance party in the sticks in "Rock Around the Clock."

Answers a particularly "fast"-looking bobby-soxer, hanging upside-down over her dance partner's shoulder: "It's rock and roll, brother - and we're rockin' tonight!"

Released to theaters in March of 1956 (eight months before Elvis made his movie debut in the pointedly pre-rock post-Civil War period piece, "Love Me Tender"), "Rock Around the Clock" and its December, 1956 followup, "Don't Knock the Rock," are filled with memorable sound bites and samples-in-waiting.