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.