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Where the Boys Are (1960)
For a movie that is over 60 years old, the teen comedy based on a hit Connie Francis song, Where's the Boys Are, holds up pretty well, providing a lot more entertainment than expected.
The movie is about four college girls in the frozen wastelands of the Midwest looking forward to their Easter break trip to Fort Lauderdale. Merritt (Dolores Hart) is a student who has expressed liberated ideas about sex in school but is not so sure when she meets handsome playboy Ryder Smith (George Hamilton); Tuggle (Paula Prentiss) has marriage on the brain but the aimless goofball named TV (Jim Hutton) not so much; Melanie (Yvette Mimeux) is a painfully shy girl looking forward to exploring her sexual freedom and Angie (Connie Francis) just wants a boy, any boy, to notice her and is thrilled when she attracts the attention of a nearsighted jazz musician (Frank Gorshin).
The screenplay by George Wells, who won an Oscar for the screenplay to Designing Woman and Glendon Swarthout, author of Bless the Beasts and Children is surprisingly efficient in the way it sets up backstory, brings the girls to Florida, and provides well-balanced screen time for all four girls. I had to chuckle that Merritt and Melanie are first observed taking a course called Love and Courtship, where Merritt first offers her "shocking" views about sex before marriage. Loved Chill Wills' monologue as chief of police to his officers about what is going to happen in the next two weeks. The word "sex" comes up more than once during the course of this film but because it's teenagers in Florida we're not going to see anything onscreen, though the story does eventually hint at one of the girls being sexually assaulted.
Director Henry Levin, whose credits include the third and fourth Matt Helm movies, provides a nice blend of breeziness, sensitivity, and slapstick to the proceedings. Loved the scene in the restaurant with the underground water tank. This would be Dolores Hart's final screen appearance before leaving Hollywood for good to become a nun, but she does try to create some chemistry with a rather wooden Hamilton. The real acting honors here go to Hutton, Mimeux, and especially Prentiss as the wisecracking Tuggle. Mention should also be made of fabulous cameos by Barbara Nichols and Vitto Scotti. This film spawned several rip-offs and imitations, and probably inspired the Frankie and Annette Beach Party movies as well. Remade in 1984.
For a movie that is over 60 years old, the teen comedy based on a hit Connie Francis song, Where's the Boys Are, holds up pretty well, providing a lot more entertainment than expected.
The movie is about four college girls in the frozen wastelands of the Midwest looking forward to their Easter break trip to Fort Lauderdale. Merritt (Dolores Hart) is a student who has expressed liberated ideas about sex in school but is not so sure when she meets handsome playboy Ryder Smith (George Hamilton); Tuggle (Paula Prentiss) has marriage on the brain but the aimless goofball named TV (Jim Hutton) not so much; Melanie (Yvette Mimeux) is a painfully shy girl looking forward to exploring her sexual freedom and Angie (Connie Francis) just wants a boy, any boy, to notice her and is thrilled when she attracts the attention of a nearsighted jazz musician (Frank Gorshin).
The screenplay by George Wells, who won an Oscar for the screenplay to Designing Woman and Glendon Swarthout, author of Bless the Beasts and Children is surprisingly efficient in the way it sets up backstory, brings the girls to Florida, and provides well-balanced screen time for all four girls. I had to chuckle that Merritt and Melanie are first observed taking a course called Love and Courtship, where Merritt first offers her "shocking" views about sex before marriage. Loved Chill Wills' monologue as chief of police to his officers about what is going to happen in the next two weeks. The word "sex" comes up more than once during the course of this film but because it's teenagers in Florida we're not going to see anything onscreen, though the story does eventually hint at one of the girls being sexually assaulted.
Director Henry Levin, whose credits include the third and fourth Matt Helm movies, provides a nice blend of breeziness, sensitivity, and slapstick to the proceedings. Loved the scene in the restaurant with the underground water tank. This would be Dolores Hart's final screen appearance before leaving Hollywood for good to become a nun, but she does try to create some chemistry with a rather wooden Hamilton. The real acting honors here go to Hutton, Mimeux, and especially Prentiss as the wisecracking Tuggle. Mention should also be made of fabulous cameos by Barbara Nichols and Vitto Scotti. This film spawned several rip-offs and imitations, and probably inspired the Frankie and Annette Beach Party movies as well. Remade in 1984.