YOUR CHEATIN' HEART

If you're looking for a movie that's an accurate portrayal of  Hank Williams life, be forewarned, Your Cheatin' Heart is NOT the movie for you. This film takes some of the basic facts of Hank's life, adds in some events of its own, and then dramatizes a story around those facts and events.  Hank's wife Audrey was the technical adviser for the film, which of course, makes the film somewhat slanted to present her in a good light.

The Hank Williams songs in the movie are done by Hank Williams, Jr. (who was only 15 at the time) and George Hamilton lip synches them. Hamilton does a good enough job with the lip synching that it doesn't distract from the film. 

Just like when Richard Thomas played Hank Jr. in Living Proof,  George Hamilton seemed an odd choice to portray Hank Williams, but Hamilton really does a credible job in making you believe he's Hank Sr. A few years later, he would also do another great acting job in portraying the title character in another biopic, Evel Knievel. As stated above, Your Cheatin' Heart is more of a dramatic film with a few true facts about Hank Williams' life mixed into the storyline. It's still a pretty good movie, and as long as you view it with that fact in mind, you should enjoy this film, I know I did.

LIVING PROOF - The HANK WILLIAMS JR. STORY

Living Proof presents the story of Hank Williams, Jr. starting with his early years, where his career was guided by his mother as she molded him into basically a Hank Sr. impersonator. The movie continues with Hank, Jr. leaving his mother and searching for his own sound. This era of Hank Jr.'s life is also dominated by a lot of partying and drug use. Just after Hank Jr. records his watershed album, Hank Williams Jr. and Friends, he has a tragic accident falling off the side of a mountain and breaking every bone in his skull. With the help of friends and family he is able to make a comeback from the accident with his own sound, and no longer be considered to be riding on the coattails of his famous father.

Richard Thomas portrays Hank Jr. and sings Sr.'s songs in the first half of the movie and lip synch's Jr.'s songs in the latter half of Living Proof. There were two other country musicians of note in this film: Naomi Judd of The Judds has a small part as as a groupie who, according to the film, was Hank Jr.'s first sexual encounter. The other musician is Merle Kilgore (writer of Wolverton Mountain and co-writer of Ring of Fire amongst other songs) who plays himself, a close friend of Hank Jr. in the movie and in real-life, and he does a fine job in his role. Also, Mickey Jones (drummer for Bob Dylan, First Edition, Johnny Rivers, and Trini Lopez) appears in many scenes.

I had seen Living Proof when it first aired on TV in 1983. Richard Thomas had just finished his run on The Waltons a few years prior and it seemed odd for him to play Hank Jr. In 1983, Hank Jr. was in full country outlaw mode having already recorded the classics “Family Tradition” and “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound,” and here he was being played by clean cut John Boy Walton, it almost seemed like a joke. Looking back now, Hank Jr. was a pretty clean cut looking guy, as can be seen in his only starring movie, A Time To Sing. Since time has passed, and I no longer strictly think of Richard Thomas as John Boy, I  can see see what a good actor he was and what a great job he did in portraying Hank Jr. While I can't vouch for the accuracy of the movie (however it was based on Hank Jr.'s book of the same name), I can without hesitation recommend this film for any Hank, Jr. fan.

A TIME TO SING

A Time To Sing is Hank Williams, Jr.'s only starring film role. In this movie he plays the nephew of Ed Begley, who owns a small tobacco farm. Although Hank is a talented singer/songwriter, his uncle is dead set against Hank having anything to do with the music business. The reason why is revealed later in the movie. Through a series of convoluted plot twists, most involving Shelley Fabares, Hank winds up becoming a big star.

As far as music in the movie goes, Hank Jr. sings a handful of songs (1/2 of which he wrote), one with Clara Ward and the rest solo, plus Shelley Fabares sings one number. In several scenes,  Hank Jr. is backed up by his real-life band, The Cheatin' Hearts. Hank Jr.'s country songs in A Time To Sing fare much better than the pop/folk style songs he sings. Those songs just didn't fit with Hank Jr.'s voice/personality.

A Time To Sing is a very poorly made movie with a badly written plot and lots of weak acting. And the weak acting doesn't just come from Hank Jr., I mean he's a singer and his acting reflects that fact, but there's no excuse for his co-stars. Only Donald Woods as Shelley's father, Clara Ward as herself, and Charles Robinson in the hilarious role of "hipster" agent Shifty Barker (think Maynard G. Krebs with a work ethic) show any talent in the acting department and that includes veteran actor, Ed Begley. I can only recommend this film for BIG fans of Hank Jr. (casual fans, don't waste your time).

WINTER A-GO-GO

 

Winter A-Go-Go has a plot.....it just doesn't have much of one. James Stacy inherits a ski lodge and for some reason he's able to attract a very lovely bunch of ladies to accompany him to the lodge and work for free. Of course, there has to be a bad guy and this time it's a mortgage broker who wants the lodge for himself, so he sends a couple of goons to try to wreck Stacy's success. In between the scant plot is a lot of skiing, riding on ski lifts, dancing, lame comedy and, of course, some musical acts.

Winter A-Go-Go has a very weak stable of music stars: The Nooney Rickett Four, an obscure Southern California band, serve as the house band and perform "Ski City" and "Do The Ski (With Me)". On the second song they are accompanied by Joni Lyman (another minor singing personality). Ms. Lyman also has a solo song "King of The Mountain". None of these tunes are anything you would ever want to hear more than once. I had hope that The Reflections ("Just Like Romeo and Juliet"), in their only big screen performance, would be the stand-out musical group of the film, but the best thing I can say about their tune "I'm Sweet On You" is, I was glad when it was over. The best tune in the movie is "Hip Square Dance" sung by James Stacy. It was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who also wrote the aforementioned song "Do The Ski (With Me)"

Winter A-Go-Go isn't a terrible movie, it's just not very good. It's certainly nowhere near as bad as How To Stuff A Wild Bikini. I think the main problem the film had was it was so disjointed. Sometimes it seemed it wanted to feature skiing, sometimes it seemed it wanted to to feature budding romance between the teens (well between the 30ish), and sometimes it seemed it wanted to be a broad comedy. While none of these elements would be out of place in a beach party type movie, the director, Richard Benedict, just couldn't get them to jell into one cohesive unit. A final note: the mores about drinking (the ski lodge serves only Coke) and sex (one kiss in the film leads immediately to a wedding) in the movie seem awfully quaint today; even I don't remember things being that sweet and innocent back in 1965, but then again, my memory isn't all that it used to be.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is referred to as a jukebox musical. I would refer to it as a rock opera, which is narrated by George Burns and stars Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees. The Beatles' albums Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road provide the majority of the songs for the plot. It seems the original Sgt. Pepper's Band instruments are stolen by some bad guys and they must be returned to Heartland or the town's magic will disappear.

Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) perform the majority of the songs in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the movie also features performances by Aerosmith, Billy Preston, Alice Cooper, and Earth, Wind & Fire. The end finale, which sort of recreates the album cover, has a host of musical stars along with TV and movie personalities. There are way too many artists in that final scene to list, but if you're interested, you can find a list at this wikipedia page under Special Guests.

I had heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a disaster of a film. I really couldn't figure out why it had gotten such bad reviews (other than people seemed to hate The Bee Gees essentially playing The Beatles). The movie seemed like a pretty innocuous musical based on the songs of The Beatles. At about the half-way point of the movie (somewhere near the disaster of Steve Martin singing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"), I finally understood why the film doesn't get much love from people or critics....it became BORING, there just wasn't a strong enough storyline to propel the movie forward to the end. The only two saving graces in the second half of the film were Billy Preston's performance and the finale as discussed above. I guess the movie is worth checking out (something few did on its initial release), but I would recommend watching it in parts instead of trying to sit through the whole film at one time.

HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI

As I started to watch How To Stuff A Wild Bikini, all I could think was: Is it possible to get physically sick watching a "Beach Party Movie"? I don't know if it was the sight of John Ashley carrying an electric guitar around the beach, which he obviously wasn't playing, OR if it was when the whole cast jumped in and sang along with him (a trend which continued for the whole film). All I know is, my stomach was saying "I can't take too much of this".

What a shame since there was a great opening claymation title sequence by Art Clokely (creator of Gumby) which made it looked like this was going to be another light romp with the Beach Party Gang.  After I accepted that this was not going to a fun hour and a half, my nausea abated and just turned into a dull headache. All the songs in the film, with just a couple of exceptions, are incorporated like a standard musical into the storyline....and I should mention listening to these songs sucked the life right out of me. The only reason, and I mean THE ONLY REASON, to watch this movie is to see The Kingsmen perform "Give Her Lovin", since this is their only big screen appearance. Annette also sings two songs in the film "The Perfect Boy" and "Better Be Ready".

One major thing (amongst many, many, many minor things) wrong with How To Stuff A Wild Bikini was casting Frankie Avalon in a bit part. My understanding is he asked for more money and was cut to only a supporting role as punishment. Trying to replace Frankie with Dwayne Hickman (a nice enough guy) was a good try, but it just makes you realize how great Annette and Frankie were when paired together. There just wasn't the same chemistry between Annette and Dwayne. 

One final note: There has been some confusion about Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys being in this film. While there is a Brian Wilson in the movie, he is NOT Beach Boy Brian Wilson, but rather an heir of the Wilson Leather Company. 

IT'S A BIKINI WORLD

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.