Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web
March 1, 1973
Hanna-Barbera
Children's, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
B

Some of what I feel about this movie is mentioned in my review of the E.B. White book-- http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/charlottes-web.html-- but I want to add some things.  It is a very 1970s-televisiony movie, but I don't consider that a bad thing.  The Hanna-Barbera animation is "limited" but there are some lovely images, and I like how they captured Charlotte's personality in a few simple facial details.  The voice cast includes performers from The Partridge Family (Danny Bonaduce, Dave Madden) and Bewitched (Agnes Moorehead, the incomparable Paul Lynde as Templeton), as well as you'll-know-them-when-you-hear-them voices (Herb Vigran, Pamelyn Ferdin).  Debbie Reynolds is perfect as Charlotte-- warm, smart, loyal, but also with an edge.  (You can believe she'd suck blood out of flies, or inflict minor revenge on Templeton.)  The script by Earl Hamner, Jr. is both more slapsticky and more sentimental than White's book, but the focus stays mostly on the cycle of life and the importance of friendship.  There are perhaps too many songs by the Sherman brothers, and some of them sound like previous music of theirs, but there are some stand-outs, slow almost mournful tunes like "Deep in the Dark" and "Mother Earth and Father Time," as well as jaunty songs like "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" and the smorgasbord tune.  What chokes me up is not Charlotte's death, which is subtly led up to, but Wilbur's fear that her children will all abandon him, and that line from the book, "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer."  And it's not often that you find a film adaptation equal to the book.

Of the singers, Jackie Ward sang Linda Evans's songs in Beach Blanket Bingo; and Dick Bolks, Paul DeKorte, Susie McCune, Gene Merlino, Paul Sandberg, and Bob Tebow would all be part of the chorus in Heidi's Song.

How Sweet It Is!

How Sweet It Is!
August 21, 1968
Cherokee Productions
Comedy
VHS
C+

Speaking of big-screen sitcoms....Well, OK, this Jerry-Paris-directed movie is less like a '60s sitcom than Did You Hear the One...? was, and more like a very extended episode of Love American Style (which would premiere the next year).  It's a little surprising to find that the book it's based on, The Girl in the Turquoise Bikini, came out as far back as '61, but that may explain the title change, since by '68 movie titles with the word "bikini" in them sounded a bit dated.  (Even It's a Bikini World was pushing it in '67, and that was made in '65.)  Debbie Reynolds is the title character, and looks quite fetching in the bikini, but she is 36 at this point and playing a woman of her own age, with a 15-year-old son.  Her husband, played by James Garner, thinks she looks indecently exposed, especially when she wears the bikini in a pool with a seductive Frenchman.  Meanwhile, a pretty tour guide is flirting with Garner, although he doesn't fall for her as Moondoggie did in Gidget Goes to Rome.  Also meanwhile, their son (who wears a peace necklace and has hair scandalously down to his chin) has his own love troubles.  This leads to the whole family winding up in the middle of a whorehouse brawl.

The movie is another example of the mainstream trying to cope with changing times, so it isn't particularly sweet.  You might hope for camp, and there is a bit, but the energy is off.  There are lots of jokes that misfire, like one that I think is about a lesbian having a riding crop.  I don't like that we're supposed to admire hot-tempered Garner, who threatens people, including his wife, with violence, and think that his sensitive son, who believes in not only peace but honesty and freedom in relationships, needs to grow up and "become a man."  The main enjoyment I got out of the movie was the music, including the Mamas & Papas-like title song, and the supporting cast, including of course many TV faces.

This was co-written by Garry Marshall, who does a voiceover as a belching young man and then later appears in the brothel in a baseball uniform.  Yes, that's Garry kid sister Penny, then 24 but passing for 16, as one of the girls on the tour.  And, yes, the little girl who answers the pay phone in the park is 7-year-old Erin Moran, the future Joanie Cunningham.

Paul Lynde steals a few scenes as the purse-lipped purser, while Terry-Thomas steals $1000 of Reynolds's savings and then of course disappears from the movie.  This time Vito Scotti plays the cook who kisses Reynolds on the stomach when she flashes her bikini.  Myrna Ross, formerly one of Von Zipper's Mice in the Beach Party movies, shows up as an "Agatzi girl" (working for Gino Conforti, later of Three's Company).  Another hooker, Eve Bruce, was a harem girl in John Goldfarb.  Walter Brooke, who plays Garner's henpecked boss, is better known for advising on plastics in The Graduate.

Alexandra Hay, who plays the "Are you sure you're 16?"-year-old Gloria would have a more prominent role as Darlene Banks, the hippie daughter of Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing, in Skidoo.  Johnny Silver, who plays "zipper man," would be Dr. Blinky and Ludicrous Lion in both the Pufnstuf show and film.

It is a turquoise bikini in the movie.  And, no, I don't know why they changed Garner's reaction.

Beach Blanket Bingo

Beach Blanket Bingo
April 14, 1965
AIP
Comedy, Musical, Fantasy
DVD
B-

This is a lot of people's favorite Beach Party movie and it's easy to see why.   The script is again by director William Asher and Leo Townsend, so the formula was fully worked out but not yet stale.  The guest stars are recognizable, especially in retrospect Linda Evans as Sugar Kane.  (Yes, the same spelling as Marilyn's character in Some Like It Hot.)  Frankie & Dee Dee get another nice duet, this one more uptempo and in a round.  (Annette's hair by the way finally looks its natural black, no visible red highlights.)  The title song is the catchiest in the series, and the first half of the movie is pretty solid.  The Bonehead (McCrea, no longer Deadhead, but close enough) & mermaid (Marta Kristen) romance is actually sweet and funny.  And, yes, my fave Mike Nader, now named Butch, gets a bunch of lines (including saying the word "groovy" at least three times, as in "Let's dig this groovy chick"), some stuntwork, and a bit of a romance himself.  (With either Patti Chandler as Patti or newbie Donna Michelle as the latest Animal, I think the latter.  Patti Chandler seems to be one of the end-credits dancers.)  Don Rickles, now Big Drop, gets a seemingly improvised scene where he insults Frankie and friends like he's in Vegas, while Paul Lynde goes through the entire movie powered by deserved snark.  (His sidekick is Earl Wilson as himself, not having aged much in the eighteen years since Copacabana.)

All that said, I find the movie in the middle range of the series, about equivalent to the first entry.  Part of the problem is that Donna Loren gets only one song, while Linda Evans gets two.  (And Linda's are dubbed!)  More seriously, the movie has two plot threads that just don't work.  One is the kidnapping of Sugar by Von Zipper and his Rat Pack, which leads to her rekidnapping by South Dakota Slim, again played by Timothy Carey.  The other is the Bonnie & Steve jealousy subplot.  The two skydiving instructors who work for Big Drop are played by then spouses Deborah Walley and John Ashley.  Now, I don't have a problem with Ashley playing someone outside the Beach Party crowd (especially since it means an expanded role for Mike Nader), and I find Walley a welcome addition to the AIP family.  They have good chemistry together, as do she and Frankie.  But this is my least favorite of her AIP roles because Bonnie not only tries to make Steve jealous with Frankie, she rips her blouse and tries to convince everyone that Frankie attacked her!  The only good thing to come out of this plotline is Annette's line "Don't you 'I love you' me!"

Returning members of the Beach Party crowd are Frank Alesia, Duane Ament, Ray Atkinson, Linda Benson,  Linda Opie Bent, Pam Colbert, Ronnie Dayton, Mickey Dora, Johnny Fain, Ed Garner, Guy Hemric, Luree Holmes, Mary Hughes, Darlene Lucht, Laura Nicholson, Salli Sachse, and Ned Wynn.  There's also newcomer Stephanie Nader, but I don't know if she's related to Mike.

Dark-haired, frowning Myrna Ross replaces auburn-haired, smiling Linda Rogers in the Rat Pack, and Von Zipper refers to her and Alberta as Puss 'n' Boots.  (Alberta is Puss, I guess because she has seniority.)  Jerry Brutsche (still Jeromey, and continuing the Duck Soup sidecar rip-off), Allen Fife, Bob Harvey, John Macchia, and of course Andy "J.D." Romano (still reading the newspaper to Von Zipper) are all back.  Buster Keaton is now playing "Buster" and dressing like he did in the silent days, while Bobbi Shaw, as "Bobbi," is still Swedish and spends the entire movie in the gold & mink bikini she bought at Aunt Wendy's dress shop.

The Hondells would do some other teen flicks I own, but they're not very memorable here or elsewhere.  Jackie Ward, who dubs Sugar's singing voice, would also sing in Charlotte's Web.  Paul Lynde would rock the house in that movie, as Templeton the rat, and in the meantime he would get a TV gig as Uncle Arthur on Asher's Bewitched.

"Into groups of two"?  Math isn't their strong point.