When The Boys Meet The Girls was originally a stage play and made into a movie in 1932, but has more in common with the 1943 remake starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. This 1965 version stars Harve Presnell (Fargo) as a rich playboy who has to change schools to avoid marrying one of his many girlfriends, who insists he proposed to her. When he arrives at his new school he is smitten by the local postmaster (Connie Francis) and helps save her ranch from being sold to pay for her father's gambling debts.
A good chunk of the songs in the film are the original songs written for the play by George and Ira Gershwin, with Peter Noone singing one of them "Bidin' My Time" and Louis Armstrong reprising "I Got Rhythm" at the end of the movie. There are a few other songs written especially for the movie that are sung by Connie Francis and Harve Presnell, and they also handle most of the other Gershwin numbers. The special musical stars all have their own songs. Herman's Hermits sing "Listen People", Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs perform "Monkey See Monkey Do", and Louis Armstrong sings "Throw It Out Of Your Mind", Liberace does one of his own compositions "Aruba Liberace". In an uncredited performance, The Standells can be seen in the background of one scene playing "It's All In Your Mind".
All the musical guests are good and it's worth watching the movie just for them. Peter Noone even has a small part as a college student. I especially enjoyed Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs, although what a shame that their performance was interrupted at times with part of the storyline.
When I first ran across When The Boys Meet The Girls and
saw the line-up of the special musical stars: Herman's Hermits,
Liberace, Louis Armstrong, and Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs, I knew I
had to get a copy and thought this would be a blast. To my chagrin, it
turned out to be more of an old school musical (there's one scene that
could be right out of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers) than it did any type of "beach party" or "teen" film. While I'll never watch When The Boys Meet The Girls again, it's still worth checking out if you haven't seen it, especially if you're a fan of Connie Francis or any of the other musicians in the film.
The Munsters, season 1, episode 26: Far Out Munsters, original air date March 18, 1965.
Eddie (Bruce Patrick) brings home a new record and the whole family wants to hear it. They all think it's really bad, so bad that smoke comes out of Grandpa's (Al Lewis) ears. Eddie tells them it's The Standells and they're coming to town for a concert and he wishes he could see them live.
As a side note: Bruce Patrick in 1983 formed a band called Eddie and The Monsters and their single "Whatever Happened To Eddie" (third video at end of this post) became a hit on The Dr. Demento Show. He also worked with MTV on creating the show "The Basement Tapes".
Cut to an office and The Standells are telling their agent they're glad they're getting $8,000 for a one night gig, but not to book them into a hotel. They want to rent a mansion, but their agent tells them they trashed the last two they stayed in and it's hard getting anyone to rent to them. They ask him to get them something on the outskirts of town and he tells them he working on a place, it's at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
The Munster family is resistant to the idea of renting their place out, but since they need the money ($1,500) and they are promised a hotel room, they agree. We see the family loading up in The Munster Koach (aka The Munstermobile) and arriving at the hotel. Once in the room, they're not happy with it (Lily remarks the room's not even dusty) and decide to go back home.
In the meantime, The Standells have arrived at Mockingbird Lane and decide to throw a party. They arrived at Mockingbird Lane in their street clothes, but when the guests (mostly Beatnik types) arrive, The Standells have dressed in their stage outfits (mod suits, reminiscent of The Beatles) and are the entertainment at the party. They do two songs: an original "Come On and Ringo" (aka Do The Ringo) and a cover of The Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand".
The Munster family return home and they see The Standells performing. The family decides that they actually do like The Standells. After one of the beatnik guests recites a poem, Herman (Fred Gwynne) recites one also. Unfortunately, the next part of the episode is bad and long, Lilly (Yvonne De Carlo) sings the old folk song "He's Gone Away" and this really drags the episode down. When the party is over, The Standells and their guests leave and the house has been trashed, which of course, makes The Munsters really happy.
I always liked both The Munsters and The Addams Family, they both had a different style of comedy and could be enjoyed on different levels. Humor in The Addams family always seemed to be a little more witty and on the macabre side. The Munsters humor tended to be broader and Far Out Munsters is no exception to that rule. Also, look for a young Zalman King (Red Shoe Diaries) who is credited as "The Man with the beard". That's him in the photo above this paragraph.
Not only do The Standells get to sing the two songs noted above, but they also get to do a bit of acting throughout the episode. The Standells had already appeared on TV previously this same year on another sitcom, "The Bing Crosby Show" performing several songs, including "Come On And Ringo". After appearing on The Munsters, the following year The Standells were in a nightclub scene doing an instrumental on "Ben Casey". However, The Standells were still a couple of years away from their classic breakout garage hit "Dirty Water". Below are youtube videos of both performances - these were both taken from a Mexican broadcast of the episode.
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.
