THE MONKEY'S UNCLE

There's really only one reason to watch The Monkey's Uncle, unless you're a big fan of Annette's, Tommy Kirk's, or Monkeys. Luckily for those not interested in any of the aforementioned, you can catch the real reason to watch The Monkey's Uncle in the first few minutes of the movie. That's when Annette and The Beach Boys duet on the title song....heck you don't even have to watch the movie at all, since that clip is on Youtube. 

The title tune is a catchy little number written by The Sherman Brothers, who wrote many of Annette's songs. The Beach Boys look like they're having fun performing with Annette, and Brian Wilson has said it was a real thrill. Mike Love even gets to do a little bit of dancing with Annette. I'm not sure all of "the boys" thought it was as thrilling as Brian, if you check out the studio photo below. Dennis appears to be wishing he was somewhere else, while Carl studies the floor and Mike appears to be using his time to study the bored Dennis and Carl. Only Brian and Al Jardine appear to be engaged in the process.

The rest of the film is made up of what is basically three different movies. First, we have Tommy Kirk becoming the guardian for Stanley, the monkey, so he can raise him in his home. Kirk uses sleep learning on the monkey, which leads into the second part of the movie, where Kirk uses the same methods on some "not so bright" football players to enable them to pass their exams. After that The Monkey's Uncle moves into its third act, with Kirk trying to win a $10 million dollar endowment for the college, if he can prove a man can fly on his own power.

The movie isn't bad and some of the plot for the film was obviously taken from "the beach party films", which were still pretty popular at the time. Not only does The Monkey's Uncle have the club scene at the first, but the first part of the film also has Annette talking marriage, pouting when Kirk doesn't show her enough attention, and jealousy over the monkey's baby sitter becoming too chummy with Kirk....all of these things could have been part of the plot of any of Annette's "beach party films". About half way into the film, most of this is dropped and you get your basic Disney family movie. So check out the first of the movie for The Beach Boys and Annette's song, and if you've got nothing better to do and you're in the mood for some mindless entertainment, stick around for the rest of the film

DISORDERLIES

 

Anthony Geary (General Hospital's Luke) is deep in gambling debt, but if his uncle (Ralph Bellamy) dies, he can collect his inheritance. To speed his uncle's demise along, he hires three bumbling orderlies (Markie, Buffy & Cool - The Fat Boys). Much to Geary's chagrin, The Fat Boys total ineptness actually works in reverse and they have his uncle feeling better than ever, so Geary has to go to plan B, murder his uncle and blame it on the Disorderlies.

The Fat Boys only perform one number in the movie, "Baby You're A Rich Man". The only other song performance in the film is by Laura Hunter who sings "Work Me Down Down" during a roller rink segment. There are several cameo appearances: Ray Parker, Jr. is a pizza delivery guy; Helen Reddy appears as a socialite; Broadway's Linda Hopkins plays Buffy's mother; Rick Nielsen (wearing a Cheap Trick t-shirt) has his car hijacked by two of The Fat Boys; and The Beach Boys (Brian and Carl Wilson and Mike Love) show up near the end of Disorderlies.

The Fat Boys in Disorderlies are akin to The Three Stooges, but without the sophistication. Maybe in 1987 this movie was funnier, but I doubt it. I don't blame The Fat Boys, they were just stuck in a bad movie and appeared to be giving it their all. The best part of the film was when they performed "Baby, You're A Rich Man".  At least Ralph Bellamy got some practice being in a wheelchair, which came in handy when he played Roosevelt a couple of years later in the TV mini-series War and Remembrance. If only Bellamy as Roosevelt  could have used one of his lines from this movie and told Hitler "Step Off, Homeboy", WWII might have ended sooner.

THE BEACH BOYS STORY: - SUMMER DREAMS - ENDLESS HARMONY

Here are some facts you might like to know up front: I'm not that big of a Beach Boys fan. I think they were a great "singles" band at the first part of their career and I still like those earlier hits. I never bought into the whole "Brian is a genius" statement. All of Brian Wilson's later work just left me scratching my head and wondering what the big deal was.


On October 19, 1968 (remember The Beach Boys had become somewhat passé at this point in their career) I saw The Beach Boys in concert at Greenville Memorial Auditorium. It is one of my two biggest disappointments in concert going (I'll get to the other some day). They only sold a few thousand tickets in the 7500 seat hall and Mike Love acted like an ass and let it be known he was unhappy with the small crowd. I find this quite amusing since Love had just gotten into Transcendental Meditation earlier that year. Guess he hadn't perfected his mantra yet! Anyway, they did a 30 minute set and refused to do an encore.


Now you have an idea of where I'm coming from when I watched two different movies about The Beach Boys. First a biopic: Summer Dreams: The Story of The Beach Boys (SD) based on the Steve Gaines book "Heroes and Villains: the True Story of The Beach Boys" and second the documentary: Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story.


I liked the fact that SD lets the viewer know right up front that the movie added dialogue and created scenes, plus that the music in the film was not sung by The Beach Boys. At least that's giving you some sense of what's in store for you in this film. The first part of Summer Dreams is stronger than the second part and I think a lot of that has to do with facts. Since the first part is concerned with formation of the band and how they achieved success, it's much easier to base this part of SD on noted and known events. Although I'm sure, like any biopic, the facts have been condensed or re-arranged to fit into the short time span of a TV movie. In the second part of SD, we get more into the personal side of the Beach Boys and SD struggles some with showing the downside of success - especially Brian's drug use and mental illness and Dennis' drug use and philandering. Even though, SD may not be completely accurate, it still didn't shy away from some of the truths, even including a brief segment about Dennis getting tangled up with Charles Manson.


The movie starts with the accidental drowning of "down on his luck" Dennis Wilson and flashes back to show us how he got to that point in his life. SD mainly focuses on the relationship between brothers Brian (Greg Kean) and Dennis (Bruce Greenwood) with Carl (Bo Foxworth) playing only a secondary role in the movie, as do Mike Love (Casey Sander) and Al Jardine (Andrew Myler). Murry Wilson (Arlen Dean Snyder), their father, is shown to be a tough S.O.B. and from what I have read this is somewhat of an accurate portrayal of him. Man! it's no wonder the Brothers Wilson had such problems, because it appears Murry's terrible child rearing skills may have been a cause of Brian eventually becoming mentally ill (although drugs probably added some to this), Dennis being a wild child rebelling against his upbringing and although we don't get a full grasp on Carl, it appears he became withdrawn and that food was his friend.


Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story (EH) mainly focuses on the music and only briefly mentions any personal or band problems. It was interesting to see events in EH that correlated with the fictional events shown in SD. The main problem with EH is that is became quite repetitious hearing how great all the Beach Boys music was over and over. I would rather have seen a documentary that was more accurate and combined some true details that were incorporated in the fictional SD instead of just the mostly white washed version that is EH. Of course EH was authorized, so I imagine that The Beach Boys had a good bit of control over the final product. Two things that I definitely did come away with from watching both SD and EH, Mike Love was a much more integral and important part of The Beach Boys than I had imagined, and Mike Love must have the worst sense of fashion, since he appears in one sartorial disaster after another.