sixties

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ESCAPE THE COLD AND HAVE A BEACH PARTY INSTEAD!

Those wonderful programmers at Turner Classic Movies are giving us a marathon of beach movies tomorrow Tuesday Dec. 30 beginning at 6:30 AM EST. Click here for the entire schedule.

I am most looking forward to seeing the rarely broadcast It’s a Bikini World (1967) starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Suzie Kaye, Bobby Picket, and Lori Williams. Below is my critique on the movie from my book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave,

It’s a Bikini World features an interesting premise, a great lineup of musical talent, and a spirited cast but the extremely low budget production values hamper the movie. There’s a new beach babe on the shore and when she rebukes the advances of the local Casanova he masquerades as his nerdy brother to get even with her. Meanwhile he competes against her as his real persona in a serious of athletic competitions. It was very novel in 1965 to feature in a film aimed at teenagers a determined independent-thinking heroine. This was years before the Women’s Liberation movement and this Feminist slant shows that Stephanie Rothman was a director and screenwriter ahead of her time.

Deborah Walley who by 1965 matured into a shapely young woman plays the determined Delilah with spunk and vigor while Tommy Kirk makes for a good conceited foe in their battle-of-the-sexes. However, Kirk’s Casanova persona surrounded by bikini-clad beach babes quickly turns laughable every time he takes off his shirt. He is by far one of the skinniest runts on the beach, especially compared with blonde hunk Jim Begg, and should have been mandated to pump some iron at the gym before filming began. Bob Pickett plays the Jody McCrea/Deadhead best friend role with a big grin and a droll touch. Bikini-clad Suzie Kaye now sporting blonde hair delivers some amusing lines with flair.

Stephanie Rothman keeps the pace moving briskly but lets the end competition sequences run on much too long dragging down the movie. Everything from skateboarding to camel racing is thrown in. Though bound by limited budget, she adds some surreal touches to the film. Whereas the expected gaggle of bikini-clad girls are present, Rothman throws in some unexpected titillation such as guy-girl wrestling on the beach and some boys stripping down from racing coveralls to Speedo’s for the swimming competition.

As with most of the later beach movies the musical acts make this worth while viewing. The groups all perform their own hit records. Standing out are Eric Burdon with The Animals in their post-Alan Price lineup doing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” which became an anthem for Vietnam War protestors, and garage rock band The Castaways, looking all of sixteen, singing their lone hit, “Liar, Liar.” The Gentrys, sounding like Paul Revere and the Raiders, sing “Spread It on Thick,” which should have been a big hit but it never cracked the Top 40.

It’s a Bikini World is not recommended for surfing buffs (the water is like glass and there is nary a surfer in sight) but if you are looking for something a bit different in a beach movie, check it out.

For some reason I can’t post images, so click here to see some wonderful stills at the fabulous web site Brian’s Drive-in Theatre.

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IN SEARCH OF A BETTER TRAILER

In 1965, Otto Preminger’s slick mystery Bunny Lake Is Missing was released starring Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, and Keir Dullea. The story of a little girl who may or may not exist gone missing from a nursery school, was expertly acted, beautifully filmed in b/w, and thrillingly scored. Critical reaction was mixed though some reviewers raved but moviegoers stayed away anyway. Watching the dull trailer below I can see why as it captured nothing of the film’s brilliance. Preminger was a talented director but he had no business being a pitchman for any movie even his own.

Hollywood may not make’em like the used to but they sure know how to make much better trailers!

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LITTLE SHOPPE! LITTLE SHOPPE OF MODELS! II

In my haste to write my previous post, I totally forgot that former Playboy Playmate Anne Randall (whom I interviewed for my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood) was also in Jacques Demy’s Model Shop playing a model that aired last night. Below are her comments about the movie:

“This was wonderful and one of my favorite memories! Jacques Demy was a very nice man and easy to work with. I worked with Gary Lockwood and found him to be very professional. By that, I mean, he didn’t ‘hit on’ me. I didn’t get to know him and I really can’t remember any kind of exchange with him.

I remember hanging out on the set with an unknown actress who was visiting Jacques Demy and his wife. I thought she was absolutely stunning and a sweet person. She had a beautiful face and a great body—very tan with smooth skin. She was wearing a flimsy mini sundress and sandals with bare legs and no bra. I thought, ‘She’s going to be a huge sex symbol!’ Her name was Sharon Tate. Sharon was there all day and we got to know each other. She was so nice and so beautiful.”

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LITTLE SHOPPE! LITTLE SHOPPE OF MODELS!

Turner Classic Movies has come through again with another hard-to-find 60s movie. This Thursday Dec. 18th at 11:45pm EST they are airing Model Shop (1969). In Jacques Demy’s beautifully filmed tribute to Los Angeles and its youth culture, Gary Lockwood (post-2001: A Space Odyssey) plays an alienated twenty-six year old architect waiting to be drafted and facing an overdue car payment. During the course of a twenty-four hour period, he has encounters with three women: his grasping starlet girlfriend (Glamour Girls’ Alexandra Hay pictured with Lockwood) who wants to get married; a beautiful French woman (Anouk Aimée) who works as a model, posing semi-nude for amateur photographers; and a hippie chick (Drive-in Dream Girl’s Hilarie Thompson) who he picks up hitchhiking.

Per my book interview with Hilarie, she remarked about Model Shop and playing hippies in general:

“All that I remember about Gary Lockwood is that he took me out on a date and tried to seduce me—unsuccessfully I might add.”

“I hardly remember the picture itself but as I was playing this role I felt more like myself. I usually felt like a cartoon caricature of a hippie in most of the hippie roles that I played. It’s hard to talk seriously about “hippies” these days because it is conceived as a silly, youthful fad. But I was a hippie. Having survived a harrowing, bohemian childhood, to finally be able to be the neurotic, war protesting, free loving and thinking person I was “raised” to be was quite liberating. The late 60’s liberated me from that 50’s and early 60’s bourgeois life style of the normal and functioning which my family was not. One could be open about one’s life experiences and the crazier or more horrendous your life had been or was, the more interesting you were. Show business made “hippies” and “the revolution” a caricature, but to me on a personal level it was not a silly, youthful fad but a time that changed the world as we knew it and saved my life. It opened up the world to many, many things that before that time were unmentionable. People opened up and began to talk and I think it was a great time.”