There are certain films, remakes especially, where I have watched them and asked myself “Was it really necessary for this film to be made? Really?”
That’s the exact feeling I had when the lights came up on this film, staring Frankie Avalon (who up until yesterday I had only known as Teen Angel from Grease) and Annette Funicello. The production value is bad. The script is bad. The acting is bad. It’s a bad movie and I don’t understand why it was made at all, let alone how it spawned 5 sequels.
Not only is it awful by standards today (and I daresay standards of any time period ever) but does not stand up to the test of time. It is so ridiculously dated that I had a very hard time relating to any of it. The early 60s were a really weird time of transition it seems, between the demonization of female sexuality and the embrace of it. The movie comes down on neither side of the issue, just saying that kids will be kids and that’s just about the end of it.
And on a mostly unrelated note: man there were some weird dances back in the 60s.
