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DVD Where the Boys Are
The movie that put the Break into Spring, Where the Boys Are inspired thousands of college kids to seek sun, surf, and even s-e-x on the beaches of Florida. A bevy of co-eds (including foxy Yvette Mimieux and delightful Paula Prentiss, in her film debut) make for Fort Lauderdale, finding fun but also quite a bit of heavy-breathing drama. It's a little like a dressier, glossed-up version of the Problems with Today's Youth movies that were filling up the drive-ins of the era. The movie's actually pretty frank for 1960, although these days the lightweight stuff with Prentiss and Jim Hutton holds up best. There's also Connie Francis, who plays one of the college girls and croons the great title tune (which belongs on anybody's mix tape of classic teen-beach music). The film was remade, with vague Orwellian overtones, as Where the Boys Are 84, a truly dismal effort. --Robert Horton
The plot is based on the then-accepted notion that girls in college are only marking time waiting for husbands to come along, but the journey to that goal depends on the girl. The four in question are Merritt, a smart blonde who is not living up to her academic potential as she questions the moral code around premarital sex; Melanie, so deeply insecure she mistakes sex for love with a less-than-honorable Ivy Leaguer; Tuggle, a tall brunette who zeroes in on an even taller, eccentric hitchhiker; and Angie, the supposedly plain one who gets used to being ignored by men.
Directed in a perfunctory fashion by Henry Levin, this is not the type of movie where you are terribly impressed with the performances, but I have to say the acting is certainly miles above subsequent beach-party movies. Elvis' former leading lady Dolores Hart plays Merritt credibly even as she is being seduced by a youthful George Hamilton wanly playing Ryder, a well-to-do Ivy Leaguer with a conveniently located yacht. As the most troubled of the girls, Yvette Mimieux (always loved her name) accurately captures the constantly forlorn, little-girl-lost state of Melanie, a teenaged Blanche du Bois in the making.
So pert and charming as Angie, Connie Francis actually seems miscast as a plain-Jane, especially when she sings "Turn on the Sunshine" with a stage polish completely out of character. The standout is Paula Prentiss who portrays Tuggle with her unique personality in full bloom and partnered the first of several times with Jim Hutton as the comically obnoxious TV. She is an underappreciated comedienne with a loopy charm and vibrantly twangy voice all her own - it's a shame her career never really took off the way it deserved to.
I think the film does make a valid, sometimes even perceptive attempt to address the confusion that Eisenhower-era girls had over sex and love. Girls were expected to function under a double-standard where the only way to attract boys was to have something to offer but at the price of their reputations. This point is hammered home when the tone shifts in the last portion to melodrama. At the same time, the film is filled with predictable comic scenes, including a contrived melee in an underwater tank with the zaftig and nasal Barbara Nichols as Esther Williams-wannabe Lola Fandango.
Prentiss offers her services and remembrances to the alternate audio commentary track on the DVD, which also comes with a looking-back featurette which includes interviews with Prentiss and Francis. Who knew this film would launch a hundred imitations? The minute you hear Francis sing the title tune, it is hard for a baby boomer not to get nostalgic. If you have an interest in understanding the mid-century moral code enforced upon the youth of America, especially girls, I can think of worse films to see.
Where The Boys Are (1960)
Sister #2: I was about eight years old when the entire family went to see Where the Boys Are. It was so much fun watching the adventures of college girls and thinking one day, when I grew and became a teenager, these things might happen to me.
Dolores Hart was so lovely and earthy as Merritt. Paula Prentiss was so funny as Tuggle. Yvette Mimieux was so gracefully fawn-like and, because of her meltdown scene in the film, amongst my sisters and I, her character, Melanie, was always thereafter referred to as "the girl who walked out in the street." Of course, Connie Francis' belting and heart-felt rendition of the title song was the icing on the cake for his dessert of a film.
Win A Date With George Hamilton
"Where the Boys Are" is an interesting exploration of the mores of the college set circa 1960. The film has the task of juggling it's intention of entertaining but also making a statement about the mating rituals of young adults and I think it succeeds on both fronts. What I also found interesting was how the film approached the topic of date rape without trivializing it. All seriousness aside, though, this is a fun and engaging film that holds up remarkably well. This is made possible by an able young cast(Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux, Connie Francis, George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, Frank Gorshin) who inject the film with vibrancy. Prentiss and Hutton probably come off best with their comic rapport but Hart anchors the film well as it's moral center. Mimieux is moving as the most vulnerable of the group. Francis comes off equally well as a songstress and comedienne. This may sound trivial but the film should interest fans of the "Batman" TV series because it features two villains in it's cast, Gorshin(the Riddler) and Barbara Nichols(Maid Marilyn).
I had forgotten how cute this movie really was. I enjoyed it very much. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Henry Levin DVD Release Date: Released the 03 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Just remember, she might be pint-sized, but she's quite a woman." The original surfer girl gets her own three-film DVD collection, dippy fun from a more innocent time. 1959's Gidget made real surfers nauseated, but it's a kicky movie with some great lounge-era lingo. Sandra Dee, perkiness personified, plays the curious teen who breaks the gender line in surfing. She's also got the attention of surf-happy Moondoggie (James Darren) and the big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), the latter the prototype of the surf bum who roams the globe in search of the endless summer. The film actually kicked off the great boom in surfing popularity (the Beach Boys and the Beach Party movies followed), much to the chagrin of purists. It was based on a novel by Frederick Kohner, who was inspired by... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Paul Wendkos DVD Release Date: Released the 03 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Where is a DVD copy of that one? In "I'd Rather Be Rich," Sandra Dee's mischievous "dying" father (Maurice Chevalier) wants to meet her fiance (Andy Williams.) The fiance being unavailable, she presents to her dad some guy she picks up at random (Robert Goulet.) Then Dad doesn't die. So a kind of catty duel begins. Cute. Very cute. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Richard Thorpe DVD Release Date: Released the 03 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Hanging out at an Italian villa with Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida sounds like a painless way to kill a vacation--and Come September is a pretty painless movie, too. Rock is a millionaire who spends a month at his home on the Riviera every year, except this year he's come early and surprised his staff, who've been running the place as a paying hotel. This is one of those comedies of sexual frustration--Rock can't get alone with Gina, because the "hotel" is overrun with American teenagers (chief among them Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, who married after meeting on the shoot). The plot is labored, and director Robert Mulligan shows little feel for farce (he would shortly hit his stride with To Kill a Mockingbird). At least the location shooting has a nice summer breeze to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rock Hudson - Gina Lollobrigida Director(s): Robert Mulligan DVD Release Date: Released the 06 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After her long and wholesome run as America's Sweetheart, Doris Day quit movies with this well-scrubbed picture. With Six You Get Eggroll--oof, what a title--caught the wave of blended-family comedies, coming just after Yours, Mine and Ours and just before TV's The Brady Bunch. Doris has three sons, and new beau Brian Keith has an 18-year-old daughter (the still-baby-faced Barbara Hershey). It's family-friendly sitcom stuff, with both Day and Keith doing their comfortable, patented thing; when the two of them are onscreen together it's like watching a couple of old sweaters mate. This one is straight formula for fans only, although connoisseurs of camp will enjoy the whiff of Aquarius in the otherwise square proceedings (it was 1968, after all) when Doris goes to a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Doris Day - Brian Keith Director(s): Howard Morris DVD Release Date: Released the 03 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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