Bye Bye Birdie

So after watching a certain season 3 episode of Mad Men the other night, I got a strong hankering to finally see what the fuss with this musical was all about. The episode in question shows the copywriting team of Sterling Cooper sitting around a table watching the opening scene with Anne Margaret, who "looks 25 and acts 14" dancing about with her shrill voice and apple-cheeked face. I was kind of star struck after watching that scene. Her voice was shrill and it went right through you. I really liked it.

I'm a little iffy on musicals to begin with. There's usually no middle ground for me. I usually sit to one side of the extreme, which is to either be smitted with them or despise everything they stand for. I was smitten with Anne Margaret in the opening scene of Bye Bye Birdie. Her dancing and her voice and her face and her dress and the wonderfully blue technicolor background, it was one of the best opening songs in a movie I've ever seen.

The rest of the movie didn't have the same affect on me, I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and i LOL'ed a few times (mainly at the Paul Lynde one-liners/facial expressions). I also enjoyed a couple of the musical numbers quite enough that I'll probably download the soundtrack at some point in the near future. However, the rest of the movie didn't "speak" to me at all. I didn't care about any of the characters - ugh, Conrad Birdie was so, so, so awful. Actually, both of the young male leads were pretty bad.

Overall, though, it was fun and pretty-looking and never boring, therefore...