The Graduate

The Graduate
December 22, 1967
Embassy
Drama, Musical
DVD
B-

Thirty-six-year-old Anne Bancroft seduces 30-year-old Dustin Hoffman, who then pursues 27-year-old Katharine Ross in this generation-gap comedy that's actually a drama.  Confused?  I think this movie has confused a lot of people over the decades.  Is Hoffman's character Benjamin a hero or an antihero?  Neither?  Is he a stalker, and if so, why is Elaine encouraging him somewhat?  Is Mrs. Robinson sexy or deranged, or both?  Neither?

Watching it this time-- and I did buy the DVD specifically for this project, although I had it on VHS-- I was most struck by how joyless the three main characters are.  The only moments of delight are when Benjamin "carries Elaine off" from her wedding, and when Benjamin is amused by the details of Elaine's out-of-wedlock conception in a Ford.  (Honestly, they couldn't come up with a funnier car?)  Is the message that upper-class suburbia is unsatisfying?  If so, why are Ben's parents and most of the other characters generally content?

I review the 1963 book here:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/07/graduate.html.  I just want to add a few things.  One, I do consider the movie superior, although not great.  (I'd probably give it a B if not for the last half hour, when everyone goes off the rails.)  We do see more of the emotions of the characters, including Mr. Robinson's.  The soundtrack isn't as good as I remembered, mostly due to the songs being repeated too often, although they're integrated well, especially the way the beats and scatting of "Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson" are used for humor when Ben tries to find the church and his car runs out of gas.

Aside from its relatively explicit sexual themes for its time, and the way it shows alienated youth, I think the film is most remarkable for its cast.  Even if you're bored (which I don't think you will be), you can at least have fun spotting familiar faces.  Buck Henry cowrote the script and has a nice little cameo as the desk clerk in what's probably the funniest sequence, showing Ben's nervousness about checking into the hotel.  Later, that's director Mike Nichols's comedy partner Elaine May as the girl bringing Elaine's note to Benjamin.  Mike Farrell plays one bellhop, while little person Buddy Douglas plays another.  (Douglas would go on to Pufnstuf, the show and movie.)  Two Bewitched ladies appear in a reception line, Alice Ghostley (Esmeralda) and Marion Lorne (Aunt Clara).

Arthur Tovey was an onlooker at the soap factory in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number, is a hotel guest here, and would be a club patron in The Love God?  Another hotel guest, Frank Baker, was Bearded Gentleman in Bank in Mary Poppins.  Walter Brooke, who plugs plastics as Mr. McGuire, would be Haskell Wax in How Sweet It Is!  Brian Avery, who plays Elaine's WASPy groom Carl Smith, would be a more ethnic Herald Cohen in Sleeper.  Elizabeth Fraser, who plays Second Lady, would do 9 to 5.  Elizabeth Wilson, who plays Ben's mother, would still look young enough (at almost 60) to play Roz in that movie.  William Daniels, most famous for St. Elsewhere, I think doesn't show up in any of my other movies until The Blue Lagoon.  As Norman Fell would point out on It's Garry Shandling's Show a couple decades later, Fell was not only Jack & Janet's landlord but Dustin Hoffman's.  One of his other tenants, the one who suggests calling the cops, is 20-year-old Richard Dreyfuss, who would have a much larger and sillier role in Hello Down There.

Hoffman, Dreyfuss, Fell

Clambake

Clambake
December 4, 1967
United Artists
Musical, Comedy, Romance
VHS
C+

I'd put this on a level with Girl Happy, which was also set in Florida and had Elvis romancing Shelley Fabares.  Here she has very dark hair, which is as odd as Bill Bixby being blond, although he plays his usual playboy.  Both Elvis's and Bill's characters are rich, but Elvis has switched identities with Will Hutchins in order to see if he can get a girl who doesn't care about money.  So he romances Shelley, who's playing a gold-digger.  Well, logic is never a strong point in Elvis movies.  The music, when it's not too silly ("Claaaambake, gonna have a clambake!"), is pretty good, especially Elvis's rendition of the oft covered "You Don't Know Me."  But the movie is most interesting for its cast, including Gary Merrill looking out of place but making the best of things.

Yes, that's Hal "mmmyes" Peary as the doorman, but I think this is the only one of his movies I have.  Christopher Riordan plays "a beach boy," as he did at AIP.  Lee Krieger, who's the bartender, was in Beach Ball.  Suzie Kaye, as Sally, isn't given much to do compared to her role as Deborah Walley's friend in It's a Bikini World.  This time, Elvis's friend Red West plays the Ice Cream Vendor.  Elvis's other friend Joe Esposito has a bit part.  Teri Garr supposedly is in this, but I couldn't spot her.  (I also failed to recognize Corbin Bernsen as one of the kids at the playground.)

Charlie Hodge, who plays Mr. Hayward's barber, would be a guitarist in Speedway.  Arlene Charles, who had a bit role in Spinout and plays Olive here, would also show up in Speedway.  Dal McKennon, who plays the Bearded Gas Station Attendant, would be the Old Soldier in Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?  Angelique Pettyjohn, who plays Gloria, was in The Cool Ones and would be in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? Robert P. Lieb, Mr. Barasch here, would be Rayfield in The Love God?*  The LG? would also have New-York-born James Gregory (probably best known for his appearances on Barney Miller), who's never quite convincing here as Elvis's Texan daddy.


*If you're noticing an increasing tendency towards titles that are long and/or questions as the '60s go on, you're correct, but I'll talk about that when we get to '68.

The Wacky World of Mother Goose

The Wacky World of Mother Goose
December 2, 1967
Rankin & Bass
Musical, Children's, Fantasy
VHS
C-

While I grew up watching this as well as Mad Monster Party? on TV, it has aged even worse, perhaps because it uses flat animation rather than Cinemagic.  The look of the film was designed by one of my least favorite MAD Magazine artists, Paul Coker, Jr.  None of the characters, with the possible exception of M. Goose herself (designed to look a bit like Rutherford), have individuality or charm.  A particular failure is the "beautiful" Princess Harmony.  Even as a child, I found her noseless face and disproportionately huge hips strange.  It also bugged me (then and now) how often the default facial expression is a smile, even in totally inappropriate situations.  The only thing I sort of like in the animation is the landscape.

That said, I think this has a potentially stronger story than MMP, with the way the nursery rhymes are used to build a story.  (MMP's plot, such as it is, is that Baron von Frankenstein throws a party to announce his successor, and the monsters scheme against each other.)  Unfortunately, the whole thing of Mother Goose being away (beyond the moon, visiting her sister, who's got one of those porch-on-a-planet set-ups like the Blue Fairy and her mom in Pinocchio in Outer Space), and then having to come back as Goosus ex Machina wears thin.  I also didn't like the gratuitous sexism of the Jack & Mary "friendship," and how he's heroic and she does nothing but acquire her loyal lamb, who later leads Jack to the rescue.  It's as if Dorothy did nothing brave in Wizard of Oz, and Toto did only one brave thing.  Why can't they all be heroic?

The music is OK, and the title tune may stay with you, but then it is repeated a couple times.  Overall, you're better off watching MMP with low expectations than watching this at all.

The Perils of Pauline

The Perils of Pauline
August 2, 1967
Universal
Comedy
VHS
C

A modern (but not mod) take on the 1914 serial, this starts out somewhat authentic to that earlier time, in terms of cars and clothes, but then seven years pass and suddenly we're in the world of the Peace Corps, the Berlin Wall, cosmonauts, and cryogenics.  We're not meant to take any of this seriously, so the ethnic/national stereotypes are less offensive than they could be, but mostly the movie is too bland to generate any strong emotion.

If you're going to watch this movie, it'll probably be for the cast.  No, not "Dodge Rebellion Girl" Pamela Austin as Pauline, or 33-year-old Pat Boone trying to be convincing as ages 13 to 25.  I mean the supporting cast, none of whom give stellar performances, but it's just interesting to see them show up.  Edward Everett Horton, 81 and passing as 99 1/2, plays the 2nd richest man in the world.  Bullwinkle fans will also be pleased at June Foray dubbing some of the kid voices, from Pauline as a baby to a spoiled Arab prince.  My favorite cameo was the one of William "Father Mulcahy" Christopher as a doctor, practically rolling his eyes at the corniness.  The most embarrassing appearances are possibly those of Billy Barty, as the king of the "white pygmies," and Terry-Thomas, as a "great white hunter" who falls for Pauline.  On the other hand, it's not like other roles of theirs have had much more dignity.

Keith Taylor, who was Plympton in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, is Henry here.  James Milhollin, who plays Everett's male secretary Stafford, was a hotel manager in The Cool Ones.  Vito Scotti (instantly recognizable to Gilligan's Island viewers) is the "way-out" Italian director Frandisi and would be a cook in How Sweet It Is!  Angelo Rossito, who has credits going back to the '20s (he was in Freaks), is Barty's assistant here and would be Seymour Spider and Clang on the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf, as well as the movie.  Bruce Rhodewalt, who plays Clarke, would be Wilbanks in The Barefoot Executive.  Hamilton Camp, aged up with gray hair from his 32 years, plays Boone's male secretary Thorpe, but he would have a very different role as Col. Hershey in Meatballs Part II.

Vic Mizzy did the title song that Boone sings repeatedly, but it has none of the wacky pizzazz of his usual work (on The Addams Family, Green Acres, and some other movies, including at least one coming up).

Easy Come, Easy Go

Easy Come, Easy Go
June 14, 1967
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
VHS
C

While this isn't like the Elvis movies that I couldn't get through even once (Roustabout springs to mind), it's hard to get excited about a movie that has indifference built right into the title.  That title is played on, with Pat Harrington's club, the Easy Go-Go, but mostly it applies to the way that all the major characters react to a treasure turning out to be relatively worthless.  Also, there are characters who appear in a scene or two and then disappear with no notice, including unfortunately Elsa Lanchester, who does get to sing a song about Yoga with Elvis.  Even with "beatniks" (here on the edge of the Summer of Love), including that dancer guy from The Swinger and The Cool Ones (still wearing his usual dark vest), Schneider, Marilyn Munster (Pat Priest), and Dodie Marshall (sort of playing Elvis's love interest, although romance is minor here), the movie had trouble holding my interest this time.  Oh, and it's got Tom Hatten, who in 1988 shared memories on Family Film Festival of making the film.  (The LA TV host has a very small role, but it's early on and you'll recognize him if you're an X-Generation Southern Californian.)

Besides Vest Dancer Guy, this movie shares a couple things with The Swinger.  Diki Lerner, who plays the crazy car-artist Zoltan here, was Svengali there.  Also, Dodie Marshall lives in an artists' commune where they have "happenings," including using women as paintbrushes.  Robert Isenberg, who plays an artist here, would have a small role in Elvis's Live a Little, Love a Little.

Perfect for a caption contest

Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!

Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!
May 10, 1967
MGM
Comedy, Romance, Musical
VHS
B+

Surprisingly funny (mostly intentionally) and surprisingly sweet story of how a "nice girl" winds up pregnant and unwed, despite not one but four suitors!  Meanwhile, her mother wants her to have a singing career.  Sandra Dee plays the girl, Celeste Holm is well cast as her mother, and George Hamilton, Bill Bixby (as "Dick Bender"), Dwayne Hickman, and the comparatively obscure Dick Kallman play the suitors.  Mort Sahl, then 40 and past his peak, but still hilarious, plays the soft-hearted but cynical and rock-hating club owner.  (I may be wrong, but I think he's the only surviving cast member.)

Besides the way the pregnancy is handled-- more obviously than in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek almost a quarter century earlier but still not too bluntly-- the film shows its era in a few ways.  Yes, the music-- with The Wild Affair as Dee's back-up band!-- and fashions, but also such touches as the coffeehouse Hickman likes to take Dee to (a bit more hippie and less beatnik than the one in Dee's Take Her, She's Mine four years earlier.)  Also, this is probably the first of my movies to have a few Negroes (as they would've been known at the time) in speaking roles, most memorably none other than Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols as Dee's fellow secretary.

I think one reason that this movie seems more intelligent than you'd expect is that it's based on the book of the same name.  It was adapted by Philip Shuken, who would go on to write Speedway, which also stars Bill Bixby.  Christopher Riordan, who's done several of my other teen and post-teen flicks (or as Sahl would say, "post-college, pre-life"), plays a nightclub patron.  Allison McKay, who plays the cigarette girl that Bixby makes out with, would be in the Pufnstuf movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it3Ju9wX3F8

It's pretty clear who done it, what with the fireworks and all.

It's a Bikini World

It's a Bikini World
April 14, 1967
Trans American
Comedy, Musical, Romance
VHS
B-

Although this was made a year and a half before it was released, it doesn't feel as dated as The Cool Ones.  I attribute this to some degree to writer/director Stephanie Rothman.  She must be at least partially responsible for the more feminist than usual take on the "battle of the sexes," with Deborah Walley allowed to not only combine her usually alternating tomboy and glamorous personae but also holding her own in the athletic contests against the partially cast against type Tommy Kirk as a conceited jock.  They're named Delilah Dawes and Mike Samson respectively.  Get it, Delilah and Samson?  She doesn't emasculate him, or cut his hair.  Instead, he tricks her into thinking he's his nerdy brother Herbert.  (It's a geekier character than Kirk's Merlin Jones, although still within his usual range.  One of his outfits clearly looks like it inspired Peewee Herman's gray suit.)

Another notable thing about the movie is its cartoony style, visual and otherwise.  Not only are there moments that become cartoons-- either changed to drawings and/or featuring speech bubbles-- but there are times when the action is sped up.  When a glass pane is run through without shattering and then rematerializes and breaks, it could be an AIP moment, but Rothman does it with a different feel.  And, while I said I don't like racing movies, I meant stock-car racing.  I enjoy the wackiness of the "cross-country race" that includes not just skateboarding, speed-boating, and swimming (22 miles!), but camel-riding, hitchhiking, and of course dresser-pushing.

There are also some offbeat lines, most notably those of Sid Haig as promoter Daddy.  (Another take on Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.)  My favorites are "Greetings, surfers, hodads, gremmies, and independents," "Fuschia #1, Fuschia #2, or Fuschia #3?  Also known as Groovy Grape," and, after Delilah is unimpressed to have won decals, "And of course the admiration of us all."  Jack Bernardi, who plays the publisher Harvey Pulp (ha ha) was also in Beach Ball.  I don't think I've seen William O'Connell in anything else, but I like how he plays McSnigg the photographer likes he's Dick York's less inhibited brother.  Suzie Kaye, who's Pebbles here, would be Sally in Clambake.  And, yes, that's Bobby "Monster Mash" Pickett as Woody.  Jim Begg again doesn't have much to do, but he does wear his "Crayola hat" from Catalina Caper.  (I'll get to that when I do MST3K on my TV blog someday.)  Russell Johnson appears briefly in an Attack of the Crab Monsters clip.

And, finally, there are the musical acts, ranging from the Animals doing "We Gotta Get out of This Place" to another band singing such juvenile lines as "Liar, liar, pants on fire, your nose is longer than a telephone wire," while yet another band manages the "Yummy Yummy Yummy, I've got love in my tummy" trick of bringing out suggestiveness in a song that compares love to peanut butter and jam.

I have a soft spot for this movie, but I must admit it's not as much sheer fun as The Cool Ones.  (With this one, you can catch your breath between the WTF moments.)  Still, I'd put it on a level with Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo.  Some say that this was the last gasp for the '60s beach movies, but I say that in some ways it remained a bikini world.

The Cool Ones

The Cool Ones
April 12, 1967
Warner Bros
Comedy, Musical, Romance
VHS
B

Oh so mod movie that was probably dated a minute after it was released (or maybe a year before), this not only offers a mainstream look at mid-'60s teen and post-teen culture (with Warner Bros updating things slightly from their four-years-earlier vision of Palm Springs Weekend, although again much of the scene is set in that desert town), it also has a delightfully absurd script and mostly very watchable "stars."  Debbie Watson plays Hallie, a cute and charming but scheming and ambitious would-be singer, who hits clinkers right in the first minute of the film but no one notices.  She teams up with Cliff, a has-been singer played by wooden yet grouchy Gil Petersen.  They meet at a club run by Robert Coote, who was pushing 60 but not only uses slang like "groovy" and "don't blow your cool," but is supposed to be the brother of Roddy McDowall, who's "practically a teenager himself."  (The age difference is never explained, even though they were "kids" together, "unless one of us was suckled by a very kind stranger.")  McDowall was pushing 40, but he's playing the young and crazy genius music producer Tony Krum.  His "shadows" are played by Nita Talbot and Jim Begg.  There are some others in the cast (including Teri Garr), but it is the way these main six interact that is the core of the movie.  Every one has their own agenda, even the weakest link, Jim Begg, who since he's not given much to do will have moments like falling asleep and snoring in the limo.  Talbot is amazing, her very New-York accent adding to the fun of her lines, like "I like Frisco.  I spent a whole marriage there."  McDowall's character is unsympathetic, but he's so out there-- with his obsessions with purple, Napoleon, and his pregnant analyst, not necessarily in that order-- that I could watch him in this role for hours.  (Luckily, he'd have a similar role in Hello Down There a couple years later.)

OK, there are others to watch in this movie besides those six, notably Phil Harris as the producer of Whiz Bam! (think Hullaboo and Shindig) and Mrs. Miller, the offkey warbler of "Downtown," as Mrs. Miller the wardrobe lady with singing ambitions of her own.  The way McDowell and Talbot try to hide their giggles when she performs looks authentic.  The most ridiculous song & dance number is played straight, the tram-and-mountaintop-set "High."  No, it has nothing to do with drugs, although the Leaves' "In the House of Dr. Stone" probably does, like a less subtly titled answer to the Beatles' "Dr. Robert."  Another notable number is the one Tony, his brother, and his assistants sing, "Where Did I Go Wrong," which manages such rhymes as "Nappy did/happy, kid" and "ego/amigo/we go."  And of course, there's the dance sensation "The Tantrum," which we first see when Hallie leaves her go-go cage and interrupts Glen Campbell.  I'd love to know what Susan J. Douglas, author of Where the Girls Are, would make of this film, with its themes of love, hate, anger, rebellion, and containment.

Robert Kaufman surprisingly wrote the very sexist Ski Party, while this movie at least considers feminism, even if Hallie decides she'd rather be "Mrs. Cliff Donner" than a singing sensation.  The script was cowritten by Joyce Geller, so that may be a partial explanation.  Hallie is not only professionally ambitious but sexually curious, as when she exclaims, "Oo, naked men!" and when she tries to be sophisticated in her reactions to the Krum brothers.  The movie ends with the Krums and the shadows trying to convince Hallie to change her mind, Tony claiming that you can combine marriage and a career, offering Madame Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, and Lassie as examples.  (Roosevelt's bisexuality may not have been known back in '67, but Woolf's certainly was.  And Lassie has always been played by unmarried male dogs.)  This is what I mean about the craziness of the script.  It's hard to tell how much was intentional.  And I'm finding it hard to not quote more of it.  But it's better that you see it for yourself and be surprised.

Christopher Riordan, who'd done later AIP Beach Party movies and some other teen flicks, plays a student here.  James Milhollin, who gives a slightly Franklin Pangborn touch to his small role as the hotel manager, would be more Pangborny as the hotel manager on Mike and Carol Brady's honeymoon, but before then he'd play Stafford in Perils of Pauline.  Angelique Pettyjohn, who's one of the secretaries, would be a model in The Love God?  Phil Arnold, who plays the stage manager, would be the Mayor's Husband in Skidoo.  Annette Ferra would do one of the voices in Santa and the Three Bears.

Teri Garr on the far left, that guy who was Ann-Margret's "Swinger" roomie to Teri's right.

More of the fabulous choreography of "High," although stills can't do it justice.

Thunder Alley

Thunder Alley
March 22, 1967
AIP
Drama
DVD
C-

This is more of a drama than Fireball 500, although Annette does get a nice solo.  (Fabian again doesn't sing.)  Much of it is boring, but I was surprised by the relative depth to Annette's character and Diane McBain's, with the two rivals bonding despite their competition over Fabian.  McBain and Fabian have a racy (no pun intended) scene in a motel, racier than Frankie's with Julie Parrish.  They're both topless in bed, although she's got that movie-only thing of the sheet pulled up to her armpits.  There's also a wilder-than-a-beach-party party where one girl dances in her bra and miniskirt while another strips to nothing.  (We see her clothes flying but no actual nudity.)

Fabian is as bland as ever, but Warren Berlinger gets to be a "nice guy" turned wrong, and Jan Murray is pretty good as Annette's money-grubbing but good-hearted father.  However, the guys just aren't as interesting as Annette, who's out of character but still likable, even as she does amateur psychoanalysis, stunt driving, drunk driving, and man-stealing.

Surviving Beach Party crowd members are Ronnie Dayton, Guy Hemric, Luree Nicholson Holmes, Mary Hughes, Salli Sachse, and Rosemary Williams (the English girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini).  As in F500, they're not given much to do.

Announcer Sandy Reed was in F500 and would be in Speedway.  Baynes Barron also did F500 and would be in C.H.O.M.P.S.  Maureen Arthur, who plays Babe, would have similar blonde bimbo roles with a humorous side in How to Commit Marriage and The Love God?  I don't think I have any other Michael Bell movies, but he did make two memorable appearances as sleazeballs on Three's Company.

"So I said, if I sing in a movie, how can I be taken seriously as an actor?"

Mad Monster Party?

Mad Monster Party?
March 8, 1967
Rankin & Bass
Comedy, Musical, Horror, Children's
DVD
C+

This was a Halloween perennial on '70s TV, so there's a certain nostalgia for me, although I don't think the movie has aged too well.  The weakest aspect is the script, cowritten by former MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman, whose writing I've never cared for.  No, the "Mad" in the title doesn't refer to the magazine, although the character design is by Jack Davis.  The look and sound of the movie are generally solid.  Boris Karloff, as the voice of Baron von Frankenstein, has much more to do than he did in Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, and he gives a fine performance.  Gale Garnett, who has a proto-Kathleen-Turner breathiness, gives the character of Francesca intelligence, wit, and even occasionally warmth.  Phyllis Diller is basically doing her usual schtick-- as the Monster's Mate, she calls hubby "Fang"-- and the design of her character is definitely based more on her than on Elsa Lanchester.  Allen Swift voices everybody else, doing some of them as celebrities: Felix as Jimmy Stewart, Yetch as Peter Lorre, and the Invisible Man as Sydney Greenstreet.  (Like Stewart's It's a Wonderful Life character in childhood, the adult Felix works in a pharmacy.)

The other aspect of the sound (other than the sound effects, which appear cartoon-style onscreen as they occur) is the music, which I'd argue is the best thing about the movie.  My favorite tune is "The Mummy" song, performed by skeletons in red Beatle wigs, but with a garage-band sound.  The background music is catchy and there aren't really any weak songs.

As for the horror genre, the movie isn't particularly frightening, nor meant to be I think.  It is a children's movie, although it has some surprising content, from Francesca falling for Felix because he slaps her (it comes across as more parodic than offensive) to the ka-boom nuclear explosion that wipes out Frankenstein's island at the end.  Well, not the very end, as that references the ending of Some Like It Hot.  (I wonder, why all the SLIH references in '65 to '67 movies?  Had it started appearing on TV around then?  Or had it taken the culture that long to catch up with its outrageousness?)  Oh, and there's a cat fight in their underwear for Francesca and the Monster's Mate.  The movie is like MAD Magazine in that it seems to be aimed at children, teens, and adults, different levels all at once.  (And there are veeblefetzers.)  I just wish it was funnier and better paced.

Spinout

Spinout
December 14, 1966
Comedy, Musical
MGM
VHS
B-

The Medveds selected this as one of their 50 Worst Movies of All Time, when it's not even the worst Elvis movie.  (But then, they also picked Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, which isn't even the worst Bob Hope sex comedy.)  It is the most entertaining of my '66 movies, an admittedly dubious achievement.  It has some things in common with Girl Happy, notably a romance with Shelley Fabares, and Elvis leading a music combo that features Jimmy Hawkins.  In that movie, the music cues told us that Elvis's pals were three blind mice, while here they are stooges named Larry, Curly, and...Les?  Les is a tomboy drummer, played by Deborah Walley, so already we can see that the formula's being mixed up a bit.  (Since she's a redhead, it's like she's the grandmother of the Kim character in Scott Pilgrim.)   Les has an unrequited crush on Elvis, and there's a Helen-Gurley-Brownish writer pursuing Elvis, too.  In the end he "marries all of them," to other men.  (I think he means he gives them away, although this may be a very early case of people getting married by Elvis.)  Along the way, there are some songs that range from romantic to silly, Elvis lines that include the word "kosher" and a Don Adams imitation, and Carl Betz, Shelley's TV dad, playing her attractive big-screen dad.  Oh, and some racing, but it isn't as boring as in most movies, because it focuses on the competition between various characters, rather than the racing per se.

Una Merkel, of The Bank Dick and The Road to Zanzibar, has one of her last roles, as Mrs. Radley.  Dave Barry (not that Dave Barry) was much more memorable as Beinstock in Some Like It Hot than he is as Harry here.  Christopher Riordan, who was a latecomer to the AIP Beach Party series, appears in a small role.  Victoria Carroll was the shoeshine girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and she plays Award Girl here.  (She's probably best known as Mel's girlfriend Marie on Alice.)  Nancy Czar was in Girl Happy and Winter A-Go-Go.  Arlene Charles was also in Winter AGG.  Phyllis Davis and Deanna Lund were models in The Swinger.

Warren Berlinger, who plays fainter Philip, and Diane McBain, who's writer Diana St. Clair, would be in another racing movie, Thunder Alley.  Dodie Marshall, who plays Susan, the girl who takes the drumming spot, would do Elvis's Easy Come, Easy Go, Will Hutchins ("Officer Tracy," the friendly gourmet cop) Clambake, Sheryl Ullman Speedway, and Thordis Brandt Live a Little, Love a Little.  James McHale plays Shorty and would do The Love God? Two of Elvis's real-life friends, Red West, who was in Girl Happy, and Joe Esposito, who'd be in Clambake, play members of Shorty's pit crew.

The Swinger

The Swinger
November 14, 1966
Paramount
Comedy
VHS
C+

Ann-Margret wants to be taken seriously as a writer, but her writing is too wholesome for Girl Lure editor Tony Franciosa, so she plagiarizes a bunch of pulp novels and submits the new piece as her autobiography.  So then, with his aunt egging them both on, he tries to reform her while she tries to keep up her wild image.  He finds out the truth so he makes her "relive" her experiences for a series of photos and then pretends he's going to rape her in a motel.  He gets arrested for abduction and she and her parents (Gidget's mom Mary LaRoche [as well as AM's mom in Bye Bye Birdie] and Milton Frome, the police captain in Girl Happy) see his arrest on live TV, so she hops on her motorcycle to go down to the police station.  Meanwhile, Tony steals a police car.  They crash into each other and die, except the film reverses like it did for Soupy Sales when he was going to crash into a bridge in Birds Do It.  Cue the happy ending hug.  Oh, and there's a lecherous British publisher who regularly harasses his secretary but turns out to never "score."

Even in the pre-feminist '60s, this wouldn't have exactly been a lighthearted night at the movies, and watching it now, I'm not sure the campiness can make up for the wretched sexual politics.  But it is campy, especially the scenes set at AM's home, which seems to be some sort of proto-hippie commune, shared with, among others, a vice cop, a protestor, and this guy whose name I can't find on IMDB but he's also in The Cool Ones and is a dancer with a few lines in both movies.  Her housemates help her throw an "orgy," which involves her being used as a human paintbrush, more messy than sexy.  There are also random Batman sound effects, e.g. "Pooooooooow!"  And opening narration that makes LA sound like a cesspool.  So I guess, watch it if you must.  You won't be bored anyway.

Nydia Westman, who plays Aunt Cora, was Mamie the maid in Little Women, back when she was about 30.  Peter Gowland was in Citizen Kane.  Steven Geray, the man with the fish, appeared in All About Eve and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, while Craig Hill, was in All About Eve.  Horace McMahon, who is Sgt. Hooker of the vice squad (ho ho), was on the other side of the law, as Mugsy, in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.  Larry J. Blake, Honest Hal the Used Car Dealer here, was a finance man in Sunset Blvd.  Dick Whittinghill, who was a TV interviewer in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, plays a TV crewman here.  Phil Arnold, who plays a derelict here, was the hotel guest watching TV in I'll Take Sweden.  Romo Vincent, here playing Jack Happy, was the tuba player in Sgt. Deadhead.  Norman Leavitt, who appears as Herbie the Ice Cream Vendor, was recently Titus Zeale, gas station proprietor, in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!  And Myrna Ross is cast against type, playing Sally, Franciosa's sensible secretary, after being Boots in the AIP Beach Party movies.

Diki Lerner, who was a tango dancer in Singin' in the Rain, plays "Svengali" here, and would be Zoltan in Easy Come, Easy Go.  Phyllis Davis, Veronica Ericson, and Heidi Winston would all be in Live a Little, Love a Little.  Marjorie Bennett was Miss Lark in Mary Poppins, is Philbert's wife here, and would be Miss Pickering in The Love God?  Robert Coote, who plays the lecherous publisher, would have a more sympathetic role, as Stanley Krum, in The Cool Ones.