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.

Girl Happy

Girl Happy
April 14, 1965
MGM
Musical, Comedy
VHS
C+

Almost a decade into his film career, Elvis was cranking these out at a rate of about three per year, although this is the oldest one I own.  (I used to have Kissing Cousins, 1964.)  Some are forgettable, some are moderately entertaining, and some are screamingly hilarious.  This is one of the moderately entertaining ones.  The songs are pretty good, although they do have some of the oddest titles, notably "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce."  (Confusingly, "Do the Clam" is in this rather than Clambake.)  Despite the movie's title, Elvis romances only two girls, Mary Ann Mobley (looking rather sexy for a Miss America of the time) and Shelley Fabares.  The latter is playing a 21-year-old and was 21 in real life as well but already an acting veteran (The Donna Reed Show in particular).  She would team up with Elvis again.  My favorite "girl," however, is 34-year-old Nita Talbot, who plays the stripper Sunny Daze.  Her professional costume looks like newspapers, but she later wears a dress that she loans to Elvis so he can break out of jail, after breaking in.  (Don't ask.)  I would've given the movie a B- if she were in it more, or if any of the rest of the supporting cast could've come close to her contributions.

Elvis plays a singer in this one and he's got a trio of comic-relief actors who lip-sync to the Jordanaires somewhat convincingly.  Jimmy Hawkins, who's Doc (the naive one), was Tommy Bailey at age 5 in It's a Wonderful Life, and he would be Larry in Spinout.  Joby Baker, Wilbur here, is probably best known as Stinky/Judge in the Gidget movies.  (Gary Crosby, Bing's son, is the third of "the three blind mice.")

Peter Brooks, who plays nerdy Brentwood Von Durgenfeld, was forgettable Clay (with the umbrella) in Gidget Goes to Rome.  Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty was muscleman Biff in Muscle Beach Party and he's Charlie here.  (His next role would be in Easy Rider, which I've never seen.)  Norman Grabowski plays a jock college student here, as he does in the Merlin Jones movies.  Lyn Edgington was in Dear Brigitte.  Jackie Coogan (playing Sgt. Benson here), Jim Dawson, Milton Frome, Kent McCord, and Olan Soule were all recently in John Goldfarb.

Red West was in John Goldfarb and would be in Spinout the next year.  (He was a close friend of Elvis's.)  Gail Gilmore and Chris Noel would do Beach Ball.  Nancy Czar, "Blonde on Beach," would be Gloria "Jonesy" Jones in Winter A-Go-Go, while Beverly Adams, here "Girl #2," would be Jo Ann Wallace in WaGG, but more importantly be sort of the title character in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.   Tommy Farrell, Louis here, would be a reporter in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!  Hank Jones would be in The One and Only...Family Band.

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life
January 7, 1947
RKO
Drama, Comedy
VHS
B

This may be the darkest of all "holiday movies," involving as it does suicide, bankruptcy, and unpunished corruption.*  The hero, George, yells at his uncle, wife, and kids, as well as picks fights with strangers.  He wants to escape his little hometown, but he always does "the right thing."  If we smile and/or cry at the ending, it's partly with relief that, despite all George's problems, it's a good thing he was born.  Jimmy Stewart is just right as this complex yet ordinary man, with all his line readings (stuttered or not) natural and believable.  Lionel Barrymore puts enough sarcasm into his dialogue that he never becomes a simple cartoon villain.  The supporting cast, with a lot of familiar faces (some of them mentioned below), is good, especially glowing Donna Reed as George's loyal wife Mary.  (However, I always laugh out loud that we're supposed to be horrified that alternative-universe-Mary has become, gasp, a spinster librarian!)  This time, I was particularly impressed with the children, the younger versions of George, Mary, and Violet matching up with their adult counterparts, and the Bailey kids not only looking like each other, but acting believably for their ages, with no precocity or wisecracks.  (Compare, for instance, Andrew on Family Ties, with his unbelievable dialogue even as a kindergartner.)

As with Citizen Kane and Casablanca, this is a "great" movie that I still find good after many viewings.  I'd rather hang out with the gang in Morgan's Creek, since the visits to Bedford Falls are draining, but it is interesting to see one man's life in a couple hours.  (There are some glitches in chronology, mostly surrounding younger brother Harry's age.  In the alternative world, he dies at 9 in 1919, although born in 1911.  And he seems to be four years younger than George, who's 12 in 1919, but Harry graduates high school in 1928.)

This is yet another credit for Frank O'Connor, this time as a military officer.  Edward Keane and Art Howard were in A Night at the Opera.  Brooks Benedict was in Follow the Fleet.  Lillian Randolph (Annie the maid) was in At the Circus.  Tom Coleman, Mike Lally, and Suzanne Ridgeway were in Citizen Kane.  George Noisom was in The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane.  Jimmy the Crow has a larger role here than he did in The Wizard of Oz.  Adriana Caselotti, who sings at Martini's here, was "Juliet's" voice in The Wizard of Oz (as well as Snow White's in the Disney cartoon).  Al Bridge, who was the lawyer Johnson in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, has a much smaller role here as the sheriff.

Joseph E. Bernard would shortly appear in The Egg and I.  Brick Sullivan would be in Singin' in the Rain, Hershell Graham in The Band Wagon, and Jack Gordon in Some Like It Hot.  Frank Faylen, who plays Ernie was in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, and would go on to The Monkey's Uncle.  H.B. Warner, who plays Mr. Gower, was then in his 70s and had credits going back to before World War I; he would play himself in Sunset Boulevard.  Charles Lane, who describes himself as a "bright young man," was then 41 and still had decades ahead of him as an actor.


*Well, unpunished except on Saturday Night Live:  http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81249131/