Though I liked Sandra Dee, some of her comedies just don’t hold up. Case in point, the comedy If a Man Answers (1962). Though producer Ross Hunter seriously considered Nancy Kwan for the role, Sandra Dee is perfectly cast as a husband trapping coed in this irritating comedy. Basic premise of the movie is how inexperienced college girl Dee traps herself a man and then learns how to hold and change him with advice from her know-it-all Parisian mother Micheline Presle, an ex-dancer in the Folies Bergere. She professes to be an expert on ensnaring a man based on how she landed Dee’s American papa John Lund.
After the family moves from Boston to New York, Dee’s college aspiration are long forgotten and she now majors in putting the full court press on playboy fashion photographer Bobby Darin. Once she entraps him and they are wed, Dee becomes jealous of all the beautiful models her husband works with including miscast Stefanie Powers shrill as her snooty friend from Boston.
Dee then tries to change randy Darin into the perfect husband following her mama’s arrogant advice via a book on training him like you would a dog! When that backfires thanks to big mouthed drunken Powers, mama advises her daughter to create a fake lover named Robert Swan like she did years ago when feeling neglected. Darin gets his revenge when his father comes to town pretending he is the fictional lover unnerving Dee. All works out for the obligatory happy ending. Dee is perky and charming and looks fabulous in her chic wardrobe, but the movie is unfunny and hopelessly dated with cringe-inducing scenes of Presle giving marital advice none of which is just speaking truthfully to your spouse. Typical romantic comedy from the period aimed at teenage girls preaching to them that they should only strive to trap themselves a husband and then play tricks and games to keep your man in line. For their sakes, hopefully teenage boys from the period hated this piece of dreck and stayed away. Teenage girls obviously didn’t and the movie was a major box office hit.
Trying to shake off her earlier ingénue roles, which she described as “frightened fawns,” Yvette Mimieux co-starred in The Reward (1965) from 20th Century-Fox and directed by Serge Bourguignon who also co-wrote the script. The Frenchman was still riding high from his hit movie Sundays and Cybèle that brought him an Academy Award nomination for writing. The actress was so determined to do this picture that she had to negotiate her way out of her contract with MGM. Obviously enamored of her director, she exclaimed, “He finished the screenplay six months before shooting and never changed a word. It’s his concept from beginning` to end and there’s nobody else to take credit or blamed. That’s the way to come up with a good film.” It will come as no surprise to learn that Mimieux and Bourguignon became romantically involved. Alas that was the best thing that emerged from this ambitious failure notable for one of the few westerns of the time to have its Mexican characters speak Spanish with English subtitles.
In this slow-moving modern western, which the critics just did not take to, Yvette is the companion of businessman Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. on the run for the kidnapping and murder of his partner’s young son whom he claims he did not kill. He is spotted by dust cropper pilot Max Von Sydow whose plane crashes in the small Mexican town where the fugitive stops. He convinces malaria-ridden police captain Gilbert Roland to pursue Zimbalist for the $50,000 reward. They do and are accompanied by Roland’s wild-eyed sergeant and two young deputies (Henry Silva and Nino Castelnuovo) none of whom speak English. Cars are traded for horses to traverse the rocky terrain and once the couple is apprehended things go from bad to worse when the sergeant learns of the bounty and the death toll begins to mount.
Yvette seems bewildered throughout always by Zimbalist’s side. At one point, she slips off her horse and viewers cannot tell if the actress fell asleep from the boredom or the character passed out due to the sun. Unfortunately for Mimieux, her role was nothing more than window dressing though she has a few intense moments vouching for Zimbalist’s innocence and pleading for their freedom. Even so, she is always a fave of mine and I like her here.
The ending fails to provide a satisfying wrap up leaving the survivors still lost in the desert. Needless to say, the film was reviled by the critics and bombed at the box office. Despite Mimieux’s high hopes for the picture, it did nothing for her career. In fact, the critic from the New Yorker called her “the poor man’s Carol Lynley.” Ouch! Even so, Yvette said back then that The Reward was one of her two favorites, the other being the lush soap The Light in the Piazza.
Now through December 10, 2017, 30% off all book from BearManor Media including mine, Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies. Use discount code “twentymore”.
Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies is a collection of profiles, interviews, and tributes about actors and films popular with the drive-in movie crowd during the sixties. Interviewees include Arlene Charles, Nancy Czar, Shelley Fabares, Gail Gerber, Christopher Riordan, and Irene Tsu talking Elvis Presley musicals; Bobbi Shaw and Steven Rogers talking beach party movies; Jan Watson and Diane Bond talking spy spoofs; Nicoletta Machiavelli talking spaghetti westerns; Mimsy Farmer, Maggie Thrett, Lara Lindsay, and Lada Edmund, Jr. talking alienated youth movies; and Valerie Starrett talking biker films. Some of the chapters center on one movie or a genre while others are career profiles with a main focus on one or two drive-in movies.
Watched the entire 18 hour PBS documentary series The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick. It was a time investment but overall really worth it. Great job showing a balanced look at the war from U.S., South Vietnam and North Vietnam perspectives as well as personal stories from military men and civilians from all three countries. Powerful, moving, and informative. However, I was surprised that the celebrities who went to Vietnam to entertain the troops were given such short shrift including Bob Hope. Only Hanoi Jane was really talked about and that was because of her blunder to go to North Vietnam.
So I would like to salute my 60s starlets that gave up their time to go to Vietnam. Most were not part of Bob Hope’s big USO tours that played the major military bases in safe zones and instead went solo as Chris Noel did or with Johnny Grant (the unofficial mayor of Hollywood) to smaller fire bases in-country with enemy fire all around.
Chris Noel (of Girl Happy; Beach Ball, Wild Wild Winter fame) must lead this list. She was a DJ on Armed Forces Radio with her show “My Date with Chris” and journeyed to Vietnam many times.
After she began doing the show, Chris received a letter from the Department of Defense that asked her if she would volunteer to go to Vietnam to help build the morale of the troops. She jumped at the chance without even considering the danger. But unlike Joey Heatherton, Raquel Welch, Jill St. John, and others who were part of Bob Hope’s entourage, Chris traveled on her own to hospitals, fire bases, and remote outposts. Clad in the shortest of mini-skirts (“my fatigues”), Noel would sing, dance, comfort, and bring joy to many servicemen. It is no wonder she became the favorite pin-up of GIs in Vietnam. “It was the most courageous thing I ever did,” remarks Chris. “All I had with me was a tape recorder and a portable record player. I would play all the latest music for the guys and I would dance with them. I also would tape messages from them to their families. I eventually traveled the entire scope of South Vietnam many times and was shot at on more than one occasion. I probably had one of the most unusual experiences of the Vietnam War.” The Vietcong however did not take too kindly to Chris. “They put a bounty on my head,” says Chris laughing. “Bob Hope’s head was worth $25,000. Mine was only worth $10,000.”
While Noel’s personal life was being fulfilled aiding the servicemen in Vietnam, her acting career was suffering. Hollywood in the late sixties was anti-Vietnam and Noel received a backlash from the acting community for doing her radio show and for visiting Vietnam. “My family and friends thought what I was doing was neat,” says Chris. “People I knew casually just started to hate me for going to Vietnam. I never expected the backlash I received. And I’ll tell you it’s bothered me ever since. But at the time I was so absorbed in it that I just threw my hands in the air and said, ‘What will be, will be.’ I believed in supporting my country. Since I was asked to visit Vietnam, I felt it was my duty to go. Reporters would always question me if I were a hawk or a dove. And I would refuse to answer. I wouldn’t discuss the war. I would only speak about my work and the needs of the GIs. I would not take sides. Now however I believe we were all told a lot of lies in the beginning and most of us bought it.”
Today Chris Noel manages Vetsville Cease Fire House, Inc. which she founded in 1993. Her organization consists of halfway houses in three Florida cities that provide shelter, food, clothing, and counseling for homeless Vietnam vets. “I had a desire of doing this about five years before I did it. As a leader in the national Veteran’s community, I’ve always been on top of the needs of the vets. As I traveled around, people would tell me of vets that killed themselves. I had a real feeling for that because my husband [a Vietnam vet] had killed himself. And I started to see that many vets were suffering from PTSD or the effects of Agent Orange. Many were living on the streets because they couldn’t afford to even rent an apartment. So one day I just decided to go out and rent a house for homeless vets. I began this using my own money until we started fundraising.” Though the Vietnam War is long over, Chris Noel’s commitment to the men who served there is unwavering.
Other starlets that I interviewed that went to Vietnam to boost morale and deserve to be saluted:
Though I liked Sandra Dee, some of her comedies just don’t hold up. Case in point, the comedy If a Man Answers (1962). Though producer Ross Hunter seriously considered Nancy Kwan for the role, Sandra Dee is perfectly cast as a husband trapping coed in this irritating comedy. Basic premise of the movie is how inexperienced college girl Dee traps herself a man and then learns how to hold and change him with advice from her know-it-all Parisian mother Micheline Presle, an ex-dancer in the Folies Bergere. She professes to be an expert on ensnaring a man based on how she landed Dee’s American papa John Lund.
