How very '60s: The Swinger & Bus Riley

Back to the zany mid-'60s folks with a double bill of THE SWINGER and BUS RILEY'S BANK IN TOWN. Groovy or what ... THE SWINGER in '66 was "an attempt by old-time Hollywood to cash in on the "youth movement" by making a movie that was "hip" and "relevant" and that the "young people" could "dig." Of course It fails miserably on all counts. This movie was dated while it was being made and is now nothing more than a laughable relic by people who had absolutely no idea of what the '60s were about" [to quote an IMDb review] - like those later Elvis films directed by guys in their 60s or older!

Tony Franciosa plays a Hugh Hefner-type magazine publisher who keeps rejecting stories by writer Ann-Margret about the swinging scene, because he doesn't think she knows enough about it so she sets out to become part of the swinging generation to show him up. The movie is nothing but leering, smarmy double-entendres as she gets her vice squad pals to raid the "orgy" scene she and her equally nice pals set up - which consists of them dancing the frug and painting her (bikini-clad) body with paint. Tony of course and boss Robert Coote are watching and think this is the height of debauchery.

What follows is a Doris Day type plot where the good girl pretends to be a bad girl, then he finds out that she is really a good girl so he pretends to seduce her ... etc etc etc. This is as far from the real mid-60s as one could get, as scanty clad girls lounge around Coote's magazine office as he pinches their bottoms in the elevator and chases them around desks. Did they really think this was funny at the time? George Sidney directed some good musicals in his time, shame to see him reduced to this.

We (or I at any rate) ignored movies like THE SWINGER back in 1966 - the real movies that caught the time were films like MODESTY BLAISE or GEORGY GIRL - not studio-manufactured junk like THE SWINGER or those other mid-60s ones like HARLOW or SYLVIA or THE SINGING NUN as studio chiefs thought Ann-Margret or Carroll Baker were where it was at. One felt sorry for Franciosa (who was a serious actor a decade earlier with Anna Magnani in WILD IS THE WIND) and Coote - once a Pickering in the stage MY FAIR LADY - frantically mugging here. At least the next year 1967 swept dross like this away with the arrival of the new Hollywood with BONNIE AND CLYDE, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT etc.

Ann-Margret is like a barbie doll here, just playing a tease whom all the men cannot resist. She began with such promise in the early 60s, around the same time as Jane Fonda and Julie Christie, but found herself in movies like this and KITTEN WITH A WHIP (which I previously discussed here) - it wasn't until CARNAL KNOWLEDGE in 1971 that she was taken seriously. She has been terrific since in lots of things like Ken Russell's TOMMY (being covered in baked beans) that Aids drama OUR SONS with Julie Andrews (and a young Hugh Grant) or that lush 80s tele-drama THE TWO MRS GRENVILLES where she holds her own with the older Claudette Colbert and was great fun to see recently. Then there is BUS RILEY ...

We are in familiar territory as BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN begins in 1965: a greyhound bus pulls in and a marine in white gets out and looks around his old town - its Bus Riley back after 3 years and trying to settle back into small town life and look for a suitable job. It is familiar William Inge territory but this is William Inge-lite without all the heavy drama of PICNIC, ALL FALL DOWN, SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS, THE STRIPPER etc - Bus (Michael Parks) is a good-natured chap who does not think too deeply about things and is soon happy back with lovable mother (Jocelyn Brando), adoring younger sister (Kim Darby), sniping older sister (Mimsy Farmer) and local girl Janet Margolin who has to move in with them and who is so obviously the girl for Bus. There is also a very William Inge spinster teacher who gets the vapours at the sight of Bus in his shorts and comes down with a migraine at the thought of a man in the house, so she soon departs. There is also that mortician acquaintance who can fix Bus up with a job - but, as he places his hand firmly on Bus's knee and thigh, tells Bus how lonely he is and wants Bus to move in with him and his mother (Hitchcock's BIRDS expert and BILLY LIAR's grandmother) Ethel Griffies. Bus sighs wearily and instead settles for being a door to door salesman and is soon a hit with those lonely housewives (cue Alice Pearce as a rather dotty one). Then there is Laurel - Ann-Margret of course top-billed here and the posters are all about her, as Bus's old girlfriend who has married money while he was away and drives around town in her swish car looking for him. He resists her at first but she soon has him in her pool as her husband is away a lot and she wants Bus back big time.

Its a pleasant time waster catching the mid-'60s in transition and a rather nice view of small town American life. Laurel gets her just deserts as Bus realises she would never have married him as he was not rich enough and once he is told what a great car mechanic he was by a satisfied client his destiny beckons. Nicely directed by Harvey Hart it is one of Michael Park's better outings; like Christopher Jones he was tagged with the 'new James Dean' label but the mannerisms are kept in check here - he went on to Huston's BIBLE and 67's THE HAPPENING with a young Faye Dunaway, who was obviously going places ...