Dear Brigitte

Dear Brigitte
January 8, 1965
Fox
Comedy
VHS
C+

Although this has the same director, screenwriter, and studio as Take Her, She's Mine, I think it's a weaker film.  I don't know how much of this can be blamed on the book it's based on, Erasmus with Freckles (1963), but the movie feels as if it was both immediately dated and too early.  Billy Mumy (now 10 but still passing for 8) plays Erasmus, who's a mathematical genius with a huge crush on Brigitte Bardot.  She shows up late in the film (not at all worried about stalkers, although they were a real life problem for her), and is as lovely as ever, but I always got the impression she was more of a '50s star, and of rather racy movies at that, and it seems odd that a boy as young as Erasmus would have a crush on her, as opposed to, say, Sandra Dee.

Speaking of Gidget, Cindy Carol again follows in Dee's footsteps, this time as Jimmy Stewart's teenage daughter.  Carol is just as whiny, and as poor an actress, as she was in Gidget Goes to Rome, and there's an odd moment when she calls her father a "square" because he's not obsessed with money like she is.  Part of the weirdness of this movie is that Stewart is playing a proto-hippie-- a poetry professor who lives on a houseboat, hates math and science, and is worried about the nuclear generator on campus, as well as about what "this campus will be like in five years"-- and it's not only strange casting, but it seems like it would have worked better in a '70s or '80s movie.

Oh, and there's also a gambling subplot, with the usually upright John Williams as the unscrupulous Peregrine Upjohn.  Glynis Johns, as Stewart's wife, is given a bit more depth than she got in Mary Poppins, while Ed Wynn again supplies whimsy, this time talking to the camera, "like in that movie Tom Jones."  (In case you were wondering why Frankie Avalon keeps doing it in the Beach Party movies.)  Fabian plays Cindy Carol's boyfriend, but, no, he doesn't sing.  (The idea of him crooning "Dear Brigitte" as a title song, a la all those James Darren "Gidget" songs, is not without appeal.)

The always versatilely accented Jack Kruschen plays the Austrian (I think) psychiatrist Dr. Volker.  Louise Lane, who plays the saleslady, was "Jazzy Dame" in Auntie Mame.  Harry Carter, who was "Man Departing Plane" in Take Her is a reporter here; James Brolin again plays a college student; Pitt Herbert, who was a police sergeant there, is the bank manager here; Gene O'Donnell, Frank there, is Police Lt. Rink here; and Charles Robinson, who was Stanley, is now George.  As in Pajama Party, Jesse White plays a crook, this time bookie Cliff Argyle.

Paula Lane and Jane Wald would shortly be in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!  Lyn Edgington would soon do Girl Happy.  Richard Lane, who's the racetrack announcer here, would be the roller rink announcer in The Shaggy D.A.  (As far as I know, none of these Lanes are related.)

"Technology is a great threat!  Oo, nifty instant photo!"

Take Her, She's Mine

Take Her, She's Mine
November 13, 1963
Fox
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B-

Inspired by the play by the Ephrons, who in turn were inspired by daughter Nora's letters home from college, this provides an early look at what would in a few years be known as the generation gap.  Yes, earlier movies showed parents dealing with their high-school and college-age children (including not only Dee's Gidget but Stewart's It's a Wonderful Life).  But this one shows some very '60s-specific issues, particularly in Mollie's (Dee's) freshman year, when she embraces protest and folk music.

But her father, Frank Michaelson, played by Stewart, is more worried about the college men she may be embracing.  Although there are some borderline tasteless moments, overall the film offers a sweet if very dated look at a man dealing with "the awakening of sex in his daughter."  Her dad not only wants Mollie to stay a virgin, but he believes that a woman's ultimate happiness is through marriage.  Mollie, despite her social consciousness and her interest in modern art, ends up marrying a rich, handsome, young Frenchman, and that presumably is enough for her happy ending.  (At 19!  But the average age for women marrying for the first time in '63 was 21.)  How this differs from a '50s film-- other than of course Wilder's Sabrina-- is that it's not clear that Mollie keeps her V-card until the wedding night, and ultimately it doesn't really matter.  And if she has had sex with her French boyfriend, at least she doesn't seem to be pressured into it, after being ogled, hit on, and even harassed by various men, including her high school art teacher!  The variations on this theme of the protective dad's "dish" daughter would play out as the '60s moved on and American cinema tried to cope, particularly in Bob Hope "sex comedies."

We get a bit of Mollie's perspective, although the movie is mostly told in Mr. Michaelson's flashbacks.  I'm using the "musical" tag because Dee shows she can sing and dance in a few different numbers, although she's not showcased in the way she'll be in Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!  (That's the movie where I most often reinterpret the Grease lyrics, "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity," because she is lousy at dealing with her screen "virtue," particularly in that film.)  Here she sings not only folk but a French song, as well as dancing the can-can.  She's accompanied on the guitar very briefly by everybody's favorite TV beatnik Bob Denver, not yet transitioned to goofy Gilligan.  Equally scene-stealing is the ever quotable Robert Morley.  (While everyone else keeps mistaking Mr. Michaelson for Jimmy Stewart, ha ha, Morley's Mr. Pope-Jones is convinced Frank looks like Henry Fonda.)

Eugene Borden also played a Frenchman in All About Eve, as did Marcel Hillaire in Sabrina (as the professor at the cooking school).  Jack Chefe was in Please Don't Eat the Daisies.  Harry Carter, Pitt Herbert, Gene O'Donnell, and Charles Robinson would be in Dear Brigitte with Stewart.  (Henry Koster would again direct, but Nunnally Johnson would be uncredited for his work on that script.)  Irene Tsu (Miss Wu here) and Jane Wald would do John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!  James Brolin, who's one of the boys greeting Mollie at the airport when she first goes off to college (he was then 23), would be in both movies.  Cynthia Pepper would be in Miss Congeniality 2.