NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

JohnHowardReid Additional credits: Sky-diving sequence photographed by sky-diver Doyle Fields, helicopter cameraman Nelson Tyler, and Bob Buquor. Westrex Sound System.Copyright 16 May 1967 by Filmways, Inc. — Reynard Productions. Released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at neighborhood theaters: 20 June 1967. U.K. release: 27 August 1967. Australian release: 4 January 1968. 8,694 feet. 97 minutes. Cut by M-G-M to 85 minutes in the U.K.SYNOPSIS: "A delicious spoof on life and love among the body- building cultists of Southern California." — M-G-M publicity.COMMENT: So this is the film where all the mysterious stills that M- G-M showered on reviewers showing a lot of mud sliding all over Robert Webber, came from. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't deserve any publicity. Whose fault! The original novel in its determinedly screwball narrative and equally maladroit characters? The heavy- handed direction? Or the seriously over-the-top enthusiasm of the actors?Whatever, the picture is swamped by tedious dialogue, seen-too-often characters and typically cornball TV situations. Even Edgar Bergen has a hard time making something of his thin material. A major problem is that all the characters are unsympathetic. Sharon Tate probably comes out of this mess best, though her part proves disappointingly small. Claudia Cardinale, on the other hand, looks as fat as her part. Whether the photography, her costumes, or she herself are to blame, who can tell?Mackendrick's stolidly hammer-and-chisel direction fails to generate audience interest or involvement. Given the jumpily episodic script with its ridiculous plot development, maybe that's no surprise. Go to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and become submerged! Other credits are likewise undistinguished. Production values likewise rate as very average, despite sky-dive and running-car stunt-work. Obvious miniatures and clumsy special effects also do not impress.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of a multitude of sex comedies Tony Curtis starred in around this time in his career; incidentally, I had seen about half of it some years back (also on Italian TV) but had to abort the viewing due to a bad reception! Anyway, if the film is at all remembered today, it is primarily for two reasons: it not only marked the cinematic swan song of a great director, but was also the official Hollywood introduction of the beguiling but ill-fated Sharon Tate. Two more (if lesser) claims to fame should be the undeniably funny Chaplinesque ‘house-teetering-on-the-edge-of-a-cliff’ climax and the fact that leading rock band The Byrds perform the film’s rather charmingly light title tune.Patchy and somewhat hesitant overall, it is nonetheless engaging and occasionally delightful; the satirical barbs aimed at L.A.’s muscle beach mentality (especially David Draper, the amiably moronic blonde hulk who is Tate’s boyfriend), the then-current astrological fad and businessmen indulging in extramarital activities often hit the target – even if with a much blunter edge than in Mackendrick’s previous film with Curtis, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957). Two other lively highlights of the film are the initial ‘meeting cute’ between Curtis and leading lady Claudia Cardinale (in which, as he tells her himself, she inadvertently manages to ruin his whole life in 30 seconds flat!) and the potentially disastrous sky-diving stunt performed by Tate and (unexpectedly) Curtis, which ends with both of them landing in his newly-inaugurated pool.The film does benefit from a workmanlike cast: Curtis is in good form as an opportunistic young man who, while being compulsively pursued by the accident-prone Cardinale, becomes hopelessly infatuated with luscious, free-spirited beach girl Sharon Tate (her effortlessly sensual slow-motion exercises on the beach early in the film are quite disturbing to watch now when one realizes that she would die so horribly in less than two years’ time); Robert Webber is a swimming pool company executive driven to his wits’ end by lover Cardinale and the blackmailing schemes of Curtis, who soon shows his salesmanship skills by selling a pool to Jim “Mr. Magoo” Backus (playing himself) and a celebrity fortune-teller with the unlikely name of Madame Lavinia (played by famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen).While it is undoubtedly Mackendrick’s least (i.e. most inconsequential) film – and could well have been the reason why he left the profession and went into teaching – it’s a tribute to his mostly unsung genius that the film is as enjoyable as it is despite the evident flaws.

sfride67 I like to watch movies as I workout on my exercise bike, and this movie was visually entertaining--all those sights and sounds and styles of Southern California in the late '60s, big fun. Sure, this is a 'light read' but it is a colorful chronicle and a trip back to Muscle Beach, dude. Well, that's all I had planned to say until I was prompted to write more text--I have to write a minimum of ten lines. Whoa, that's like taking an essay test. How am I going to write ten lines about this movie? I'm not a movie reviewer. Well, pass me the popcorn and let me give this a go. It starts with a guy and his Volkswagen and if you watch it, you'll see what happens next. Thanks for reading my movie review. I think it was excellent.

Ephraim Gadsby "Don't Make Waves" -- is it an attempt at an mature beach movie? A spoof of beach movies? A midlife crisis movie? A Tony Curtis-as-middle-aged-hustler movie?Tony Curtis plays a not-so-young man whose life is ruined and all his earthly belongings destroyed by an accident prone mistress (Cardinale) of an obnoxious pool magnate (Webber). Curtis worms his way into the pool company -- apparently not to wreak revenge (or is it) but just to get ahead. On the way he picks up a cute sky-diving obsessed young woman (Tate -- who unfortunately has become a curiosity piece in the few movies she lived to make) who was also being sought out by a good-hearted and dull-witted Muscle Beach type (Drake).The characters wind confusingly through each others lives until they come to a climax that needs better special effects than they had in 1967, and then the movie ends abruptly.The movie shows lots of potential trying to get out. There are many good ideas thrown out. Some lie flaccid after being thrown out, others are merely thrown out and left to die.The cast is full of surprises: Mort Sal as a wry house salesman, Edgar Bergen as a fortune teller, Jim Backus (as wife) as themselves, being hustled by Curtis into buying a pool! And this also proves how the movie went wrong. Edgar Bergen had a charming persona in his act, which (for those of you who don't remember) as a ventriloquist -- on the radio, no less. Instead of playing to his charming persona, they cast him as a waspish old man; and instead of playing on his ventriloquism to make the character wacky, they ignore it completely. They shoehorned a man with special talents into a part that could have been played by any competent actor, and which should have been played as a gift cameo part for someone who would pull out all the comedic stops (say,Paul Lynde?)Pluses include the Vic Mizzy sound, and the fact that, and the obvious fact that none of the actors take the material seriously, except for Robert Webber, whom no one seems to have told was in a comedy. It's a movie that one watches the way one eats sour cream and onion potato chips if one doesn't like sour cream. The taste both repels and attracts. It's movies like this that ensured the decline of Tony Curtis' career.