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.

Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?

Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
June 19, 1968
MGM
Comedy
VHS
B-

Yes, this is another of those '60s movies with long, unwieldy titles that are nonetheless sung, in this case by the Lettermen.  That, the occasional funny line, and good performances by the four leads make this movie, which Day considered her worst, entertaining to me, despite an admittedly tasteless premise.  The title refers to the New York blackout of '65, although the movie is partially based on an older French play.  There's a hippie character who gives Doris a lift on his motorcycle and, with his peace symbol necklace and some of his slang, he feels more '68 than '65, but I suppose the makers of this film didn't think we'd mind.

It's the French-farce side of the movie that's tasteless, not the blackout.  Day is a Broadway actress starring in The Constant Virgin, but she wants to quit show biz and start a family.  Day's husband Patrick O'Neal almost cheats on her, but she comes home early because of the blackout.  She flees to their Connecticut house, where a sleeping tonic knocks out not only her but a visiting embezzler played by Robert Morse, apparently having found other ways to succeed in business without really trying.  They literally sleep together, and O'Neal thinks they, you know, slept together.  Her supposedly Hungarian producer Terry-Thomas manipulates the situation so Day will leave her husband rather than show biz.  In the end, someone else runs off with the $2 million, and O'Neal finds out that Day is faithful, although he doesn't tell her, even when she gives birth "nine months to the day" of the blackout.  And, yes, this is all playing off of Day's usual onscreen image, the constant virgin.

We can see how much and how little things have changed over the course of the '60s, comparing this to Please Don't Eat the Daisies.  (Which now that I think of it is sort of a sentence-long title.)  There, Day's husband didn't get any closer to adultery than a few drinks and dinners with a brassy blonde.  But of course, Day herself has to stay pure.  Terry-Thomas has a great line about admiring chastity, as he kisses her on the neck!  But my favorite line of his is where he asks his psychologist if hating both men and women makes him bisexual.  My favorite Robert Morse moment is when he points out that he and T-T both have gap teeth.

Besides the main characters, there are some other folks to keep an eye out for.  This time Jim Backus is a car salesman.  Earl Wilson as always plays himself.  Pat Paulsen, Steve Allen, and Lola Albright also have supporting roles.  (Morgan Freeman, then about 30, apparently shows up as a commuter.)

Larry J. Blake was in Sunset Blvd. and The Swinger.  Ben Frommer was in Plan Nine from Outer Space.  Harry Hickox was the cook in Speedway and is a detective captain here.  Angelique Pettyjohn was in Clambake and would be in The Love God?  Robert Emhardt, who plays Otis J. Hendershot, Sr., would be the banker in Change of Habit.  

The Perils of Pauline

The Perils of Pauline
August 2, 1967
Universal
Comedy
VHS
C

A modern (but not mod) take on the 1914 serial, this starts out somewhat authentic to that earlier time, in terms of cars and clothes, but then seven years pass and suddenly we're in the world of the Peace Corps, the Berlin Wall, cosmonauts, and cryogenics.  We're not meant to take any of this seriously, so the ethnic/national stereotypes are less offensive than they could be, but mostly the movie is too bland to generate any strong emotion.

If you're going to watch this movie, it'll probably be for the cast.  No, not "Dodge Rebellion Girl" Pamela Austin as Pauline, or 33-year-old Pat Boone trying to be convincing as ages 13 to 25.  I mean the supporting cast, none of whom give stellar performances, but it's just interesting to see them show up.  Edward Everett Horton, 81 and passing as 99 1/2, plays the 2nd richest man in the world.  Bullwinkle fans will also be pleased at June Foray dubbing some of the kid voices, from Pauline as a baby to a spoiled Arab prince.  My favorite cameo was the one of William "Father Mulcahy" Christopher as a doctor, practically rolling his eyes at the corniness.  The most embarrassing appearances are possibly those of Billy Barty, as the king of the "white pygmies," and Terry-Thomas, as a "great white hunter" who falls for Pauline.  On the other hand, it's not like other roles of theirs have had much more dignity.

Keith Taylor, who was Plympton in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, is Henry here.  James Milhollin, who plays Everett's male secretary Stafford, was a hotel manager in The Cool Ones.  Vito Scotti (instantly recognizable to Gilligan's Island viewers) is the "way-out" Italian director Frandisi and would be a cook in How Sweet It Is!  Angelo Rossito, who has credits going back to the '20s (he was in Freaks), is Barty's assistant here and would be Seymour Spider and Clang on the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf, as well as the movie.  Bruce Rhodewalt, who plays Clarke, would be Wilbanks in The Barefoot Executive.  Hamilton Camp, aged up with gray hair from his 32 years, plays Boone's male secretary Thorpe, but he would have a very different role as Col. Hershey in Meatballs Part II.

Vic Mizzy did the title song that Boone sings repeatedly, but it has none of the wacky pizzazz of his usual work (on The Addams Family, Green Acres, and some other movies, including at least one coming up).