Mame

Mame
March 27, 1974
Warner Bros.
Musical, Comedy, Historical
VHS
B-

Yes, Lucy and the little boy can't sing.  Yes, she's miscast in other ways (age, appearance, demeanor, etc.), but I enjoy this film about as much as the 1958 non-musical Rosalind Russell version, and not just as cheese.  For one thing, it has the better Vera Charles, the wonderful Bea Arthur, who gets a good duet with Lucy and knows how to deliver a zinger, as she was then proving on Maude and would later prove on The Golden Girls.  (The duet does have a reference to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, but on the surface the two of them are presented as straight.)  I also like seeing Don Porter as Mr. Upson, since even as a bigot he's fun to watch.  Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised that Ito, while still sterotyped, seemed to have more dignity and didn't giggle.

That said, I don't know why they cast John McGiver as Mr. Babcock and gave him less to do than Fred Clark did.  I don't know why Pegeen has been changed from an interior decorator to a maid and interacts even less with Patrick.  Or why Agnes Gooch has been blended with Norah Muldoon, and the father of her child made a complete mystery.  By 1974, unwed pregnancy was a lot less controversial or shocking than it was in the '50s, so this time Mame can open a home for "single mothers."

But, yes, it is campy.  Though it tugs at the emotions with what must be at least fifty hugs (there's even a hug montage towards the end), it's even less plausible than the Russell version, to say nothing of the Patrick Dennis novel, reviewed here http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/auntie-mame-irreverent-escapade.html.  I mean, there's a scene where Mame and her nephew are sitting on a spoke of the Statue of Liberty's tiara!  And what about the HUGE production number about how Mame has given the South back its pride by capturing a fox, with her charm!  The movie was considered, with reason, to be dated upon its release, but watching it now it seems more like a warm-up for the overdone musicals of the later '70s, such as Sextette and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Burt Mustin had a small role in a Merlin Jones movie and was 90 when he appeared here as Uncle Jeff.  Barbara Bosson, who plays Emily, had a minor role in The Love God?  Ruth McDevitt was in Change of Habit and plays Cousin Fan here.  Leonard Stone, who plays the stage manager, was Mr. Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.  Jerry Trent was a dancer in The One and Only...Family Band as well, while Kenneth Grant, Sr. would dance in Sgt. Pepper.

Live a Little, Love a Little

Live a Little, Love a Little
October 23, 1968
MGM
Comedy, Romance, Musical
VHS
B-

Although directed by Taurog, this is not a typical Elvis movie.  It's based on the book Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips, which I've read but no longer own.  (And, yes, that would've been a more typical late '60s movie title than LaL, LaL, but it wouldn't sound like an Elvis movie.)  From what I recall, the wackiness of the book is actually toned down for the movie, but you still have Michele Carey, who was Michele in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, as Bernice/Betty/Susie/Alice Baby, the ex-wife of Dick Sargent, chasing after Elvis-- to the point of making him lose his job and apartment and then renting him a house, and that's just for starters!-- which of course makes Elvis fall in love with her.  (It was the age of the "adorable kooky girl," so I don't think she's meant to be as annoying or felonious as she comes across now.)  Meanwhile, Elvis finds not one but two full-time jobs as a photographer, one at an ad agency, the other at a girlie magazine.  Mrs. Baby has a great dane played by Elvis's dog Brutus, except in the dream sequence where there's a man in a dog costume.  Oh, and Elvis sings "A Little Less Conversation," which became a huge hit about 35 years later, remixed by Junkie XL.

Thirty-five years earlier, International House featured two of the performers in this movie, Sterling Holloway and Rudy Vallee, who in Live a Little play a milkman and one of Elvis's bosses respectively.  And, yes, that's Gidget's most famous dad, Don Porter, as Elvis's other boss, the one at Classic Cat magazine.  Not surprisingly, two of the models, Veronica Ericson and Heidi Winston, were in girlie-magazine-centered The Swinger.  Another model, Brooke Mills, would be Mrs. Gibbons in Freaky Friday.

That's Joan Shawlee, best known as Some Like It Hot's Sweet Sue, as the new tenant in Elvis's apartment.  Larry Billman was a dancer in Beach Ball as well as here.  Thordis Brandt was in Spinout, Hal Riddle in Speedway.  Phyllis Davis, who plays the 2nd secretary, was in Spinout and The Swinger.

This time Elvis's buddy Red West plays a newspaper vendor, while his friend Joe Esposito plays one of the workmen at the newspaper that Elvis gets fired from.  And this time Myrna Ross, formerly one of Von Zipper's Mice, plays a "female companion" (I don't know whose).  Paul Sorensen would do some '70s Disney movies.

The Edge of Reality

Gidget Goes to Rome

Gidget Goes to Rome
August 7, 1963
Columbia
Comedy
VHS
C-

Released the same day as Beach Party, this is far inferior to not only the AIP series-starter, but to the previous Gidget movies.  The best thing about the movie is Don Porter in the first reel.  (He would also play Gidget's father, now a widower, in the Sally Field TV series a couple years later.)  Also, I do appreciate that they did extensive location shooting, and Rome does look good.  Unfortunately, there are these teens and post-teens cluttering the screen, too.

In the '90s comic Greg Proops would say of Luke 90210 Perry that he was "older than James Darren in the Gidget movies."  Darren was 27 by this point, and his character still has a year to go in college.  Gidget is now 18 and about to start college.  She remarks late in the movie that after visiting Rome she's "not the same person."  That's for sure!  Cindy Carol is the latest Gidget and, thanks to a script that Flippen unfortunately cowrote (rather than her soloing on Goes Hawaiian), and disappointing direction by Wendkos, C.C. plays the girl-midget as a sulky, sometimes crazy know-it-all who keeps getting into fixes that end up at the American Embassy.  (JFK's picture is on the wall, and the New York airport is still called Idlewild, a few months before the assassination.)  The two "steadies" have some moments together as a couple early on, but Jeff wants her to stop calling him Moondoggie.  (As if it wasn't a nickname from his surfer friends, rather than her!)  Soon though, he's flirting with their "Italian" (half-French) guide and dumping Gidget two years [sic] after pinning her.  He only goes back to her when the guide rejects his marriage proposal.  Meanwhile, Gidget "falls in love" with an older man, Paolo Cellini, not realizing that he's an old friend her dad asked to look after her.

The other characters aren't given much to do, although they seem to be trying really hard, especially the guests at the "international set" party.  If you feel the need to see this movie out of a sense of completeness, well, it's not too painful.

Peter Brooks, who plays Clay (the forgettable guy with the umbrella), would be in Girl Happy, as would Joby "Judge" Baker.  Cesare Danova, who's Paolo, would be Pepe Pepponi in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!  Eddra Gale, who is "Fat Party Guest," would be in The Graduate.

"Yeah, and she hears voices and has delusions, too."