sixties

For Singles Only (1968) from Columbia Pictures is one of the many, as I call them, too-square-to-be-hip movies released by the major film studios in the late Sixties trying to capture the Counterculture audience the way American International Pictures were doing. Others I put in this category include C’mon, Let’s Live a Little; The Cool Ones; How Sweet It Is; Hot Rods to Hell; The Maltese Bippy; How to Commit Marriage; and Norwood, among others. Most of these films’ producers/directors/screenwriters were over 45 and had no clue about the younger generation, which is all too evident in the final product. The studios were trying to connect with an audience that wanted more adult entertainment but they could not let go of their Fifties’ morals and sensibilities that were still instilled with the Motion Picture Code. Thus, you got a period of schizophrenic filmmaking with For Singles Only as a prime example.

Sam Katzman, the King of the B’s, produced For Singles Only. He also gave us during the decade Hootenanny Hoot; Get Yourself a College Girl; Kissin’ Cousins (which doomed Elvis Presley to low-budget movies afterwards); and When the Boys Meet the Girls, among others. All were released between 1963 and 1965 and were wholesome pleasant musical comedies. For Singles Only, on the other hand, is a totally out there musical/comedy/drama that features body painting, hippie bands, strip word games, computer dating, and a gang rape. You know the times they were a changin’.

httpv://youtu.be/qq0wxicShDU

Pretty Mary Ann Mobley and Lana Wood star as two friends who move into the Sans Souci Club and Apartments for Singles inSouthern California. Mobley has just returned from a stint in the Peace Corps and Wood is a librarian who wants to shake her staid lifestyle. Milton Berle is the complex’s social director and tenants include hunky John Saxon (who fills a tight pair of chinos oh-so-nicely) as a struggling PhD candidate; Mark Richman as a wealthy older guy with a possessive sexy blonde girlfriend, Chris Noel; Duke Hobbie and Charles Robinson as single dudes out on the make; and Ann Elder as a dippy redhead who thinks every guy in the apartment is after her. Elder introduces the newcomers to the residents, as jazz group the Walter Wanderley Trio with Tayla Ferro plays poolside. This being a Katzman production it is no surprise that an eclectic array of musical talent is presented including the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,  the Lewis and Clark Expedition (in a weird turn clad in pioneer garb and performing the song “Destination Unknown” in an upscale nightclub), and the Cal Tjader Band.

After striking out with Mobley or as she is dubbed “Old Ironsides,” Hobbie and Robinson bet Saxon that he can’t score with her. Wood catches the fancy of Richman to Noel’s chagrin. Elder meanwhile works for a computer dating service and accidentally gets matched with Mort Sahl even though neither meet the other’s criteria in a mate. As expected, Saxon falls for Mobley and purposely loses the bet even though Mobley tries hard to seduce him. Wood learns that Richman is married from a vindictive Noel and deponent winds up in a sleazy beachside pool hall where she is chased to the shore and gang raped. All’s well that ends well, as Wood, looking glamorous and not any worse for the wear, recuperates in the hospital while Mobley and Saxon check out of the complex as newlyweds.

For Singles Only is not an especially good movie as it cannot make up its mind if it is a serious look at the changing sexual mores of the time or a musical comedy poking fun at the new fads. However, it is a pleasant diversion buoyed by an attractive cast that does well in their roles and a catchy title tune performed by The Sunshine Company. The only disappointments are the musical groups which are a comedown from Katzman’s previous movies and Ann Elder who is more annoying than funny. The part needed Suzie Kaye or Gail Gilmore both of whom excelled playing the dippy airhead in previous teenage movies. For Singles Only is a bit daring for its time, but watching it you can’t believe only a few months later Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice were released.

Below are comments from Lana Wood and Chris Noel about making For Singles Only in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema:

Lana Wood: “There’s a funny story pertaining to the rape scene.  I had to have a double to do all the rough stuff.  This casting company sent out a bunch of girls and they were all lined up.  The director asked to them walk up and down. This one girl named Ginger had a very similar build as me and she had my walk down perfectly, but I didn’t realize that I walked like that. I was in stitches because her walk was so funny. I thought, ‘My God, I have a strange walk!’ Chris Noel was just so sweet. I remember being absolutely intimidated by Chris because she was so gorgeous.”

Chris Noel: “I don’t remember too much about this film. It was a very hectic time in my life.  John Saxon was a nice guy. He is very handsome and very bright. I liked Lana Wood.  I never liked her sister Natalie, but Lana was neat. Natalie was stuck-up. I recall one scene where I had body paint all over me. They put flowers on my legs. I had to get up on this stage and do this wild, crazy dance.”

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Below is an Amazon review that I just received from a book reviewer in Australia:

DUELING HARLOWS is the engrossing tale of what happened in 1965 when two Hollywood producers decided to race into production their competing screen versions of the Jean Harlow story. Jean Harlow had been the trailblazing “platinum blonde” screen sex goddess of the 1930’s, paving the way for the likes of Marilyn Monroe. Her private life was as eventful as any of her films, including the bizarre suicide death of Paul Bern, one of her husbands (MGM publicity agents weren’t newcomers when it involved keeping their top stars out of potentially career-destroying scandals). Harlow lived hard and fast, dying of uremic poisoning at the age of 26.

Jean Harlow’s story was later recounted in Irving Shulman’s 1964 book “Jean Harlow: An Intimate Biography”, written with the assistance of Harlow’s agent Arthur Landau. The bile-filled novel enraged Harlow’s closest friends who were convinced that it was nothing short of a character assassination. Shulman asserted that Harlow had been viciously beaten with a cane on her wedding night to Paul Bern and that her death was triggered by damage caused to her kidneys during this fight. Shulman also recounted remarkably clear “first person” conversations to events that he would never have been privy to. Despite all the new scandals and litigations swirling around the libellous book, Hollywood producer Joseph E. Levene secured the film rights for the Jean Harlow story, to be shot at Paramount. Levene had previously helmed the ripe trash-fests “Where Love Has Gone” and “The Carpetbaggers”.

Not to be outdone, maverick producer Bill Sargent announced his own “Harlow” property, but it wouldn’t be based on the Shulman book. It would however be filmed in Sargent’s specially patented process entitled “Electronovision”. This process involving using multiple cameras which fed into a single editing suite, speeding up the film editing process considerably. The downside was that because the system involved upconverting Kinescope-grade tape into 35mm, the visual quality of the final image was noticeably diminished. Sargent had only ever used the process with stage productions (including Richard Burton in “Hamlet” and “The T.A.M.I. Show”). HARLOW would be the first real movie in the “Electronovision” process.

Then came the actresses who’d play Jean Harlow herself… For the Paramount/Levene version, Carroll Baker (who’d previously starred in “The Carpetbaggers”) was announced. Meanwhile petite blonde Carol Lynley was signed for Sargent’s HARLOW. So now it wasn’t only a battle of the HARLOW’s, but also a battle of the Carol’s! The press couldn’t have been handed a better gift.

Author Tom Lisanti has been able to access the extensive press coverage of the fracas, which documented the running verbal war of words between Levene and Sargent, and also reconstructs the hellish production shoots for each of the HARLOW’s. Thanks to the quick editing facilities of the “Electronovision” process (believe it or not, the whole thing was shot in the span of a few days), Sargent’s HARLOW was–by a several weeks–the first to arrive on the screen, but neither picture earned the critical raves the producers had hoped for, or really captured the true essence of Jean Harlow. Sargent’s HARLOW (a collector’s grail especially for Carol Lynley fans) has never seen the light of day on DVD, but Levene’s HARLOW came to DVD a couple of years ago in all it’s trashy glory.

Lovers of classic movies will be the ones who’ll most appreciate this effortlessly read-able tome, which I happily devoured in a single sitting. Recommended.

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Click here to access yet another survey, this one from Entertainment Weekly, of the Best & Worst Bond Girls in the history of the series. Again it galls me how Jill St. John as Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) is considered one of the best and Luciana Paluzzi as Fatima Blush in Thunderball (1965) is always ignored. And I also do not think Karin Dor in You Only Live Twice is one of the Worst, but I digress.

Back to Jill St. John. It is most likely without a doubt that the reason shewas offered the role of Tiffany Case was because of her fine work in two previous spy films, The Liquidator and The The Spy Killer. In this alternately appreciated and hated entry in the series, Diamonds Are Forever featured the last ‘official’ appearance by Sean Connery as the British secret agent 007 who is sent to Las Vegas, Nevada to investigate the disappearance of a cache of diamonds.  Along the way, he discovers that his old arch nemesis Ernst Stavros Blofeld (Charles Gray) is once again involved. Blofeld and his criminal empire are planning to use the diamonds to affect an orbiting satellite system.

There were many problems with Diamonds Are Forever.  It reveals the beginning of a distinct, formulaic structure of a comedic, sometimes campy tone in the series that carried on to and throughout all of the Roger Moore Bond entries.  Much of the film looks cheap, garish and ugly and Connery, appearing world weary, delivers a disappointing performance.  As for St. John, she undoubtedly was one of the most most voluptuous actresses cast in a Bond Film however she is attired in a tight, form-fitting, sometimes not entirely flattering bikini. Bathingsuit aside, acting-wise she is a disaster delivering a shrill, often one-note performance (especially contrasted with the delightful Lana Wood as perky, busty Plenty O’Toole). She brings no class to the part and plays it like one of her sexy dumb broad roles from her many Sixties sex comedies. But here she is so annoying you could care less if she lives or dies. In my opinion, she ranks as one of the worst of the Bond girls of all time. Where was Raquel Welch or Stella Stevens or Tina Louise when Bond needed her?

httpv://youtu.be/-va1qL-UaqY

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