It's A Bikini World was filmed in 1965, but not released until 1967, this may account for the fact that I had never seen this movie, since by 1967 I had lost interest (with most of the rest of America) in "Beach Party Movies". Tommy Kirk is the beach playboy and when he can't add Deborah Walley to his list of accomplishments, he disguises (well he wears a pair of glasses and dresses like a nerd) himself and pretends to be his own twin brother in order to win her over.
There was a pretty good line-up of music acts in It's A Bikini World: The Animals perform "We Gotta Get out of This Place," The Castaways sing their hit "Liar, Liar." The Toys perform "Attack," The Gentrys sing "Spread It On Thick" and Pat & Lolly Vegas (who would later morph into Redbone) perform "Walk On (Right Out of My Life)." Bobby "Boris" Pickett doesn't sing in the movie, but he has a supporting role as Tommy Kirk's best friend.
Tommy Kirk's acting really surprised me in this movie. People will
probably think I'm crazy, but Kirk reminded me of a young Cary Grant. He
would have been perfect in some light romantic comedies, but soon after
this film (except for some sporadic appearances) he left the world of
acting and for 20 years operated a carpet cleaning business. Even though the plot was light and silly (just as expected in a "Beach Party Film"), I thought It's A Bikini World held its own against the Frankie and Annette films of the same ilk. If, like me, you didn't catch this one the first time around, check it out now; I don't think you'll be disappointed.
When I first saw Monterey Pop, I'm sure I thought it was cool and far out and maybe even groovy. Re-watching it these many years later, for the most part, I have a completely different attitude about the movie.
First up were The Mamas and The Papas doing "California Dreaming" and as much as I enjoy their harmonies on the record, in this performance they just didn't have it together. Canned Heat was up next with some white boy blues doing "Rollin and Tumblin" and this song still held up after all of these years. Third in the movie were Simon and Garfunkel singing "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)". I've never been a big fan of this duo, either together or solo, but I have to admit their harmonies were as good live as on the record. Next came jazz with Hugh Masekela performing "Bajabula Bonke (Healing Song)", since I 'm really not a fan of jazz, I was very thankful when this song was over. I know I used to like Jefferson Airplane, at least their first few albums, but their first song "High Flyin' Bird" was terrible and their second song, "Today", on which Grace Slick, sang lead wasn't much better....but at least it was better.
Finally a stand-out performance when Janis Joplin backed by Big Brother and The Holding Company perform "Ball & Chain". It was a thrill to see someone so young with so much soul but sad to think of her life being so short. One thing to watch for is when Janis finishes her song and runs offstage, you can see how happy she was with her own performance. Even though Eric Burdon & The Animals diddled around a little too much before getting into the main part of "Paint It Black"....I understand it was 1967 and some diddling was expected, if you wanted to be taken seriously....once they got things rolling it was a great performance. Unfortunately after seeing a couple of good performances, The Who were up next, with "My Generation". I never got that stutter thing in the song and especially always thought the fake trashing of instruments was goofy. They were still worth watching for one reason - Keith Moon pounding the hell out of his drums. To make matters worse, The Who were followed by probably the worst performance in the movie with Country Joe and The Fish doing "Section 43", a terrible waste of film and my time.
Getting the movie back on track was Otis Redding, backed by Booker T and The MG's, showing everyone how it's done with "Shake" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long". Otis is followed by another stand-out performance with The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing "Wild Thing", although the guitar burning elicits the same response in me as when The Who trashed their instruments. The Mamas and The Papas redeem themselves with their second song performance "Got a Feelin" and then the movie closes out with a l-o-n-g Ravi Shankar performance "Raga Bhimpalasi", this finally bored me enough that I had to use the FF button to get to the end of the movie.
This movie was on a TCM Underground double feature with College Confidential. While College Confidential wasn't a great movie (see my review below: click here) it wasn't all that bad. However, I looked forward more to seeing this second feature, since I'm pretty sure I had seen it when I was younger. We didn't have music videos back in those dark days and unless you got to see rock acts live or on Ed Sullivan, you pretty much relied on teen movies that featured music to actually see the acts you heard on the radio.
Get Yourself A College Girl turned out to be a disaster of a movie. It had a plot similar to what you might have seen in later years on "Love American Style", but this movie wasn't up to the level of that TV series. Check out the trailer at the end of this post, as you can see they are much more interested in showing you what music acts will appear in the movie rather than very much about the plot.
The plot: It seems that Terry (Mary Ann Mobley) is secretly a successful pop songwriter, but she has kept this fact quiet at the exclusive girl's school she attends. When her publisher Gary Underwood (Chad Everett) unwittingly exposes her, the college is SHOCKED! This is where the movie started going downhill for me. It was 1964 and I find it hard to believe there would have been any such uproar. They acted like it was 1914 and good girls didn't write songs (especially songs that might have the word sex in them). A word about the song that she supposedly wrote (Get Yourself A College Girl), there's no way it was a pop or rock song, when it's later played in the movie as an instrumental it sounds like something from "Fiddler on The Roof".
Back to the plot, the girls are going on Christmas vacation at a ski lodge. Terry and her friend Sue Ann Mobley (Chris Noel - photo on left) plus their dance teacher, Marge Endicott (Joan O'Brien) all promise to stay away from men during the vacation, so they won't bring further disgrace on the school. (I guess I don't have to tell you how that works out.) Lynne (Nancy Sinatra) is also along for the trip to meet her husband, who she only sees a few times a year. A hard thing to keep straight with this group is that Joan O'Brien as the teacher doesn't look any older than the other actresses playing the students.
The grandson of the founder of the college Senator Hubert Morrison (Willard Waterman, best known as "The Great Gildersleeve") and his obviously gay assistant Gordon (James Millhollin) decide to check out the students on vacation. The Senator winds up "digging" the kids and dancing the Watusi (when he had seen the students dancing earlier, he had imagined them as African Natives dancing). His pants come loose, he gets photographed and is going to lose the election unless the kids rally around him. (If you can't guess the outcome, find out where you left your brain.)
While all of this is going on, Terry who hates Gary has a skiing accident and is stuck in the snow. Gary forces his kisses on her and they immediately fall in love. There's also another subplot about Sue Ann falling for a French painter. The only subplot that is fairly amusing is that Lynne (Nancy Sinatra) stays shacked up in her room with her husband. Every time they go by to check on her she is in a daze and has on a different nightie, it appears that she has been "screwed silly". That's the only explanation I can come up with for her dazed look, since I don't think they were in their room smoking weed.
The first couple of musical performances by The Dave Clark Five (“Whenever You're Around") and The Animals ("Blue Feeling") are pretty tepid; however, they both get to come back near the end of the movie with a couple of pretty good songs. The Standells (pre "Dirty Water") get to do a couple of songs (“Bony Maronie” and “The Swim) near the middle of the movie.
The best musical performances are both by jazz groups - Stan Getz with Astrud Gilberto doing "Girl From Ipanema" and The Jimmy Smith Trio doing "Johnny Come On Home". The movie also includes two oddball performances - The Rhythm Masters doing a hot Dixieland number ("Beat Street Rag") and then following their song performance with tap dancing (yes, tap dancing) and a Vegas Lounge Act - Freddie Bell and the Bellboys with Roberta Linn (“Talkin' About Love").
The Dave Clark Five come back near the end of the movie and have a much better performance with “Thinking of You". They're followed by The Animals also having their better performance with "Round and Round". I guess it goes without saying that all of these performances are lip sync. The strangest part of these performances was that both groups had to carry their equipment on stage before starting their songs.
Even though character actors Willard Waterman and James Millhollin both brought a little bit of zing to this otherwise dull movie and I was glad to catch most of the musical performances (the Freddie Bell and The Rhythm Masters were both so out of place they just made me laugh), I was still relieved to see "The End" on the screen and know that I would never have to see Get Yourself A College Girl Again.
