sixties

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LOVE IS IN THE AIR

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Warner Bros has released a boxed DVD set called The Romance Classics Collection featuring Parrish (1961, Susan Slade (1961), Palm Springs Weekend (1963), and Rome Adventure (1963). All your favorite Warner Bros. Sixties contract players are on hand including Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Suzanne Pleshette, Ty Hardin, Diane McBain, and Robert Conrad.

Of course I just love these cheesy flicks. They were a staple of ABC’s 4:30 Movie that aired in New York during the Seventies. Though they were broadcast in truncated versions with commercials galore, for 90 minutes I was engrossed as dreamy Troy Donahue who starred in all four films romanced some of the prettiest girls in Hollywood. My favorites are Rome Adventure as tourist Suzanne Pleshette vies for the affections of the blonde pretty boy with worldly Angie Dickinson in the Eternal City while a lush musical score accompanies their travelogue romance and Parrish where slutty Connie Stevens, rich bitch Diane McBain, and good girl Sharon Hugueny all go gaga over Claudette Colbert’s tobacco farmer son Troy. Guess who wins his heart at the end?

Recalling Parrish in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema, Diane McBain says:

“I like Parrish. It was fun to do. I played my first movie bad girl in this film and it typed me almost forever. Troy Donahue was a star at that time and that’s what they wanted. Troy and I got along very well. He’s a good guy. Perhaps Connie Stevens and I should have been rivals but we were friendly. We had known each other from when I was working at the Glenville Center Theatre when I was doing a play. She was dating one of the actors I was working with. She was pretty feisty and let the studio know when she was unhappy about things. I was one of those folks who liked to go along. I didn’t like to fight. I just wanted to work.”

“This was Claudette Colbert’s swan song in the film business. I’m sure she wanted to make a good impression. I was a novice actress. Even though I had done some things in television, I still was quite green. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before the first day of shooting. When it came time for me to say my lines I just froze. I couldn’t remember any of the lines I learned. In all honesty, I ruined the scene. It was pure terror for me. Colbert and the director got very upset with me. I think she looked upon me with some sort of disdain. I was very aware that she was not happy and she had every right to be unhappy. I swore that I would never let that happen again. And I haven’t. It was the only time.”

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IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…

After lots of drama between Gail Gerber, the Terry Southern Trust and McFarland, below is the final approved cover for Gail’s upcoming memoir.

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HOLD ON!

Drag legend Hedda Lettuce hosts a tribute screening to the granddaddy of all disaster movies The Poseidon Adventure (1972) this upcoming Saturday night, 10 P.M. at Clearview Chelsea Theatres on 23rd Street and 8th Avenue. Forget the atrocious remakes, this is the one to see!

As everyone knows by now it is New Year’s Eve on the SS Poseidon when just after the stroke of midnight a huge tidal wave cause the ship to go topsy turvy and a small band of survivors must climb, crawl, swim their way to the bottom now the top of the ship. Hip preacher Gene Hackman leads to safety a ragtag band of stereotypes including tough talking cop Ernest Borgnine and his foul-mouthed ex-prostitute panties-wearing only wife Stella Stevens; an old Jewish couple Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson; helpless hippie singer Carol Lynley; lonely bachelor Red Buttons; injured steward Roddy McDowall; and two kids Pamela Sue Martin and Eric Shea. The fun of course is that most don’t make it.

I saw this movie at the Westbury Drive-in on Long Island for my 12th birthday on May 11, 1973. The movie was such a hit that it was still playing theatres 5 months after it opened in December 1972. I was totally mesmerized by this movie. What stayed with me for days that turned to weeks that turned to years was the scene of the ship turning upside down and the lovely Carol Lynley bedecked in hot pants and go-go boots as Nonnie. For some reason I identified with her most because of all the survivors she couldn’t swim (I am a weak swimmer myself) and showed the most fear as I imagined I would in such a situation.

I interviewed Carol Lynley about the movie and it seems her on screen fear was not all acting:

“The only way to describe working on The Poseidon Adventure is hellish. I spent close to four months dripping wet wearing the same dirty clothes. To make matters even worse, I have a tremendous fear of heights. I had it all my life. I usually get very dizzy and throw up. Not attractive. I even went to Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio to try to conquer it. Usually a stunt double is used but in The Poseidon Adventure I had to do all my stunts myself. We would shoot the scenes high up on the catwalks or ladders and when the director would yell ‘cut’ all the other actors would climb down except me. Gene Hackman’s brother was working on the film as a stunt coordinator and he would have to climb up and help me down!”

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ROLLING WITH THE STONES

Below is another excerpt from 60s starlet Gail Gerber’s memoir Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember to be released in June:

After we had met Brian Jones at Robert Fraser’s place the first time we were in London, Terry stayed friendly with him. I on the other hand had nothing in common with Brian though I respected his talent. We rarely spoke and only exchanged pleasantries. That fall when The Rolling Stones were in New York we met them at the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue one warm November night. They had two entire floors, which were sealed off from the rest of the hotel. Due to throngs of teenage fans camped outside the hotel, security was tight and one had to go up the service elevator to get to their suites populated by burly bodyguards outside patrolling the hall ways. We soon found our way to Brain’s room and a convoy was organized to go to Terry’s favorite restaurant, Elaine’s on the Upper East Side.

Taking the elevator to the basement parking garage, Terry, Brian, and I got into the back seat of a black sedan with a driver. We shot out of the garage like a bullet into a mass of screaming girls in front of the hotel. It seems the trick was to accelerate and speed out of the building into the traffic of Sixth Avenue with a deft left turn. The driver hit the gas to get through the mini-skirted mob but one chubby girl managed to stick to the trunk to my horror. Oblivious to the danger, she kept hollering, “Brian, I love you!” The driver panicked and hit the gas as he maneuvered into the flow of traffic. Everything was moving by us quickly in the dark. I was terrified. Still exclaiming her undying love for Brian, the screaming girl was holding on and looking through the back windshield at her idol, unaware that she was about to slide off and possibly fall under the wheels of a speeding taxi or worse a bus. Brian had experienced this before and told the driver to slow down. He did and the girl slipped safely off the trunk of the car and onto the sidewalk.