Bye Bye Birdie

A real treat from 1963 is the film of BYE BYE BIRDIE, which I had not seen before. It is fun, zippy, full of bright candy colours, capturing that innocent early '60s era before that fateful day in Dallas and the arrival of Beatlemania

The plot, telling of a rock'n'roll star's invasion of a small town (Sweet Apple, Ohio) contains several funny moments (mainly Maureen Stapleton's turn as Dick Van Dyke's over-possessive mother) and the well-known songs like "Put On A Happy Face" (which practically everybody must have sung) and "Got A Lot of Living To Do" which showcases the young cast in a delirious dance number, particularly Ann-Margret in those hot pink capri pants and matching top! Stapleton and Paul Lynde (as Ann's very camp father) also go town on "Whats the matter with kids today?". It seems the movie is different from the original show - but then what movie musical isn't (CABARET and FUNNY GIRL come to mind). It is zippily directed by George Sidney (KISS ME KATE etc) and is just enormous fun, poking fun at the rockstar going into the army (just like Elvis) and Leigh and Van Dyke's plan to get him to sing their song on the Ed Sullivan show as Conrad Birdie bestows his farewell kiss on the girl selected, who is of course Ann-Margret. No wonder she was cast opposite Elvis himself a year or so later!



Nice too to see Janet in one of her few post-PSYCHO starring roles, but why the black wig? Is she meant to look like Chita Rivera who played the part initially, or Rita Moreno - is Rosie (Janet) meant to be Latino? For those who like the ersatz world of GREASE this is the real thing!, capturing that world of Sandra Dee, Troy Donahue (more on him soon) and Fabian. Bobby Rydell here is the bland love interest of sizzling Ann-M ! It did though perhaps need someone younger and more charismatic as the idol Conrad Birdie to capture that Elvis mania

Below: the kids doing the Telephone Song

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 ...

A mixed bag ...

KITTEN WITH A WHIP - A delicious 1964 farrago with the then rising Ann-Margret who is the sole reason to see this one. She is the wild teen running away from reform school who takes up residence in nice but dull guy John Forsythe's suburban home while his wife is out of town. Instead of calling the police the very wooden Forsythe tries to help her! Life with Ann is a rollercoaster as her mood swings drive Forsyth (a long way before DYNASTY) around the bend as he tries to get rid of her before family and neighbours find out. Ann then invites her teen hood friends to the party, including Skip Ward (the bus driver from NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) and then they all go slumming to Tijuana over the Mexican border... as they all cheat and double-cross each other to a fitting finale. Its certainly one to laugh at, now has anyone got a copy of Ann's THE SWINGER or BUS RILEY IS BACK IN TOWN?

TROOPER HOOK - I really liked this 1957 western when I saw it as a kid so nice to see it again 50 years later. I like Barbara Stanwyck's other '50s westerns too (CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, THE MAVERICK QUEEN, THE FURIES, 40 GUNS), this is a nice black and white one made the year after THE SEARCHERS and is also about a woman being rescued from living with the indians - here though its a mature woman with her son by the Apache chief Nanchez (Rudolfo Acosta). Joel McCrea is the Trooper Hook of the title who has the task of taking Cora and her son back to her husband as they travel though Indian territory on a stagecoach which also has Senorita Susan Kohner, cowboy Earl Hollimann, and the splendidly venal Edward Andrews on board). Stanwyck is very compelling as Cora and plays it mainly silent as she re-adjusts to civilisation. Nanchez is also in pursuit as he wants his son. John Dehner is the husband who wants his wife back but not her half-breed child ... its tense and nicely resolved and its one of Stanwyck's better '50s films, all wrapped up in 80 minutes and there is even a Tex Ritter theme song!

RAW WIND IN EDEN - Another delicious farrago from 1957 this sudser has playgirl Esther Williams (though she seems rather mature...) and Carlos Thompson crashing their plane in a remote Italian island where mystery man Jeff Chandler lives with the locals including Helen of Troy herself Rosanna Podesta. Esther and Carlos move into their shack and its a mystery how Esther has a never ending supply of clean clothes and makeup. She and Jeff eventually get together and it all gets rather steamy. Esther's career was practically over by this time (she made one more little regarded melodrama) but Jeff had a good run in the '50s squiring those ladies like Loretta Young (BECAUSE OF YOU), Lana Turner (THE LADY TAKES A FLYER), June Allyson (STRANGER IN MY ARMS), Kim Novak (JEANNE EAGELS) and Susan Hayward (THUNDER IN THE SUN) as well as adventures like SIGN OF THE PAGAN, MAN IN THE SHADOW, 10 SECONDS TO HELL and YANKEE PASHA. He died in 1961 after complications following an operation... Esther later wrote in her autobiography that Jeff was a cross-dresser with a penchant for polka-dot dresses, but it seems it was not true.

THE SPANISH GARDENER - 50+ years later this is still a compelling drama, from a A J Cronin bestseller, and is a nice look at the Costa Brava in the '50s as stuffy minor diplomat Michael Hordern and his neglected son Jon Whiteley (the little boy in MOONFLEET) arrive, following the father's divorce. Dirk Bogarde is the gardener hired by the father who soon forms a bond with the lonely boy who has no friends as he and the father move around a lot. The father though soon grows jealous of the friendship between gardener and boy - is he jealous of his son or of the gardener? Hordern excels as the buttoned-up repressed man unable to express his feelings. Things take a melodramatic turn as the father forbids his son to continue associating with Jose, the gardener, and the servant (Cyril Cusack) engineers a theft for which Jose is blamed. Soon Jose is on the run with Nicholas (Whiteley) seeking him out and the father now humbled and sorry for his actions in pursuit as it is all nicely resolved. Director Philip Leacock made some interesting movies before moving into television.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY - Jack Smight's 1968 black comedy was a treat back then and is still so now, as serial killer Rod Steiger dons different disguises to con his way into the homes of lonely middle aged women ... it of course boils down to his mother complex! Rod runs a theate so has access to lots of disguises as we see him in turn as an Irish priest, a Polish plumber, in drag as a woman scared to go leave a bar, and hilariously as a camp hairdresser! George Segal is Mo Brummell, the harrassed Jewish detective on the case - plagued by his very Jewish mother Eileen Heckart who is great fun here. Lee Remick is the girl who may provide a clue and she is charming here making something special of the standard girl role. Just one quibble: wouldn't the mother fixated killer go after Segal's mother rather than his girlfriend? It's got a nice late '60s feel .... below, right: Steiger in drag with another victim...



PARANOIA, or A QUIET PLACE TO KILL - a friend into those Italian giallo thrillers lent me this Umberto Lenzi thriller from 1970 and its a whole lot of fun as the melodramatic plot twists and turns as racing driver Carroll Baker crashes her car on the circuit and ends up slightly wounded in hospital. During her period of recovery, she accepts to stay at her ex-husband (Jean Sorel) and his new wife's mansion. Two attractive women and one handsome guy in one house can only result in extended sequences of sexual intrigue, double-crossing and conspiracies to murder, particularly when the precocious daughter of the second wife arrives with a plot of her own. Baker and Sorel excelled as this kind of thing and Carroll frequently disrobes to add to the sexual tensions. It all rises to a crescendo and a final twist that leaves one dazed !