Rewind Review: Bachelor in Paradise (1961)

Bob Hope stars as AJ Niles, a world-renowned author of a series of books examining the lifestyle, eating habits, and sex life of the Europeans. His research keeps him busy all across the continent and his books have made him over a million in revenue. However, when he returns to the States after a 14- year absence, he finds his business manager has skedaddled to Mexico and left him with the IRS hounding him for over $600,000 in unpaid income taxes. His publisher suggests he write another book to help pay off this debt, this time about the Americans. Niles reluctantly goes undercover in a typical modern pre-planned housing development in California's San Fernando Valley to examine men, women, and their lifestyle for his latest tell-all book, "How the Americans Live". 

Niles rents one of the last available homes from Rosemary Howard, played by the glamorous Lana Turner, whom he also hires as a secretary to help with his writing. As a bachelor, his presence in the family-oriented community of Paradise Village causes intrigue and arouses excitement in some of the housewives - notably Dolores (Janis Paige), the neglected wife of Paradise's developer Mr. Jynson (Don Porter). Niles decides that what Paradise needs is passion and begins educating the baby-saddled housewives in the language of l'amour. His advice to add spice to their marriages works well in some households but downright terrible in others. Jim Hutton and Paula Prentiss play one of these young married couples in their third on-screen teaming, after the two lanky stars made a splash in Where the Boys Are (1960). 

The housewives are happy to get a little romance back into their lives, but some of the husbands believe that Niles is out to wreck their marriages instead. In truth, he only has eyes for Rosemary, and it's obvious that the world's most famous bachelor won't remain single for long. 

"I came out here to tell you what a despicable person you are" - Rosemary
"You might get an argument, I'm very fond of me" - A.J

Lana Turner was making a number of lush Ross Hunter soap operas (Imitation of Life, By Love Possessed) when she returned to MGM after a five-year absence to make Bachelor in Paradise, released in November 1961. The breezy comedy offered her a welcome change of pace from her turbulent home life. At the time, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, had been acquitted for killing Turner's gangster boyfriend Johnny Stampanato, and had recently been committed to a psychiatric institute. 

Bob Hope enjoyed a change of pace as well.... for a Hope vehicle, Bachelor in Paradise offered him a meatier plot line than his prat-filled comedies of the 1950s. The Facts of Life and Paradise revamped the comedy formula Hope was tied to in the previous decade and created a new style that he would eventually wear out as well. 

"It would be pink" - A.J, looking at the new house

"That's not pink! It's California Coral" - Rosemary

Bachelor in Paraidse is an amusing comedy and, like two other films of the era - Good Neighbor Sam (1964) and Send Me No Flowers (1964) - it offers a nostalgic slice of suburban American life in the early 1960s. Happily, the picture is not confined to indoor sets and we get to follow A.J. Niles as he visits a shopping center (eggs were 42 cents a dozen!), a bowling alley, drive-thru hamburger stand, and the Pig Pit BBQ restaurant, where a tipsy Rosemary displays her hula movements, much to the delight of Niles. Alas, in the final court sequences, the film flounders and not even Agnes Moorehead - appearing as the court judge- can keep the audience from emitting some mouth-stretching yawns at this point. 

The talented Henry Mancini penned a wonderfully light and fluffy score for Bachelor in Paradise and the theme song - with lyrics by Mack David - went on to earn a nomination for Best Song at the 1962 Academy Awards. During the ceremony, Ann-Margaret performed a scintillating rendition of the song and her performance turned her into an overnight sensation and launched her image as a sex kitten. 

For an afternoon's amusement, the chuckles Bachelor in Paradise bring can't be topped and spotting the myriads of familiar faces to be seen in the film (John McGiver, Reta Shaw, Roberts Shore, to name a few) only adds to the entertainment. 

Be sure to check out Robby Cress' great post on Paradise Village and how the area looks like today, over at his blog Dear Old Hollywood. Also, stay tuned for our own look at the floor plan to Rosemary Howard's home in Paradise. 

From the Archives: The Blue Veil (1951)

Is that Vivian Vance?? It certainly is! And she is standing besides none other than Charles Laughton. Jane Wyman has an expectant look on her face which, if you have seen the film, you probably know why.... personally, I have not watched the film yet, so I don't know what this scene is about but it looks like an interesting movie. 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures 

The Girl Most Likely (1958)

In The Girl Most Likely, Jane Powell stars as Dodie, a young woman who dreams of marrying a millionaire and living "the life." Her current steady Buzz (Tommy Noonan) loves her dearly and vows to give her the high life as soon as he makes it big in real estate so Dodie accepts his proposal of marriage even though kissing him doesn't set her on a "pink cloud" like she thought it would. 

The next day she meets handsome Pete (Cliff Robertson) whom she thinks is yacht-owner and millionaire Neil Patterson Jr. He's not.... he's simply Pete, the mechanic. However, kissing him puts her on the pink cloud so when he proposes to her the next night, she accepts! 

The following day she finds herself in a greater pickle when she actually does meet the Neil Patterson Jr. (Keith Andes) and he takes her on a whirlwind trip to Mexico and proposes to her as well. She caught the millionaire she always wanted! Dodie's got three fiancées now and one big decision to make. 

The Girl Most Likely (1957) is not likely to be a title you've heard of because it is rarely shown on television and is not written up as one of the great 1950s musicals - probably because it isn't. The film starts off pleasantly, slowly climbs up the roller coaster in the middle, and then quickly takes a big dip before it ends with a slight jerk. The story is amusing, Jane Powell and Kaye Ballard (as her friend Marge) are fantastic, as are all the fellas, and the musical numbers are fun too, it is just the script that took a dive 2/3 of the way in. Keith Andes entrance as Neil Patterson Jr. could have been better and his whole segment on the yacht and in Mexico pulled the film down. Keith Andes was a great actor but this was just poor material to work with. 

Does that mean the film isn't worth watching? Certainly not! It's great fun to watch and the music, beginning with the Hi-Lo's fantastic opening song "The Girl Most Likely," compliments each scene nicely. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane penned most of the songs while Gower Champion created some clever choreography (that it seems inspired Onna White's dances for Bye Bye Birdie in 1963). 

Jane Powell elevates the picture immensely. She brought a touch of the MGM class to the RKO studios. Also in the cast is Una Merkel and Frank Cady as Dodie's parents, Judy Nugent (from Disney's Annette serial) as Dodie's sister, and Kelly Brown, who should have become another Russ Tamblyn. 

The Girl Most Likely was filmed on location in Balboa Island, California, and at RKO's Hollywood studio at 780 Gower Street, where it was the last picture made before the studio was demolished. Filming completed in 1957, but the picture was not released until 1958 (by Universal-International) where it failed to make a dent in the box-office. Jane Powell once quipped (in a 1987 "Films in Review" profile) that Universal-International didn't release the film, they simply allowed it to "escape". Ouch! 

Film Albums: Rene Touzet Goes to the Movies (1962)

This is a fun album! It not only boasts that great album cover with the director's clapboard and all the titles listed, but the sound is fantastic - Rene Touzet mixes the musical style of Les Baxter with Peter Nero to get a uniquely Touzet sound. 

Rene Touzet was a Cuban bandleader and pianist so these covers of popular movie themes of the early 1960s definitely have a Latin rhythm to them. Can you imagine "Small World" in the style of Perez Prado's "Patricia"? That's what it does sound like. "Maria" is delightfully Spanish-sounding, "Exodus" becomes danceable, and "Moon River" was turned into a bossa nova - neato! Best of all - "Till There Was You" was transformed into a cha-cha!

Ready to listen to Touzet? Click here to hear the entire album on Youtube. 

Track Listing

Side One:

Theme from The Wonderful World of Brothers Grimm

Tender is the Night

Small World

Maria (West Side Story)

Baby Elephant Walk (Hatari)

Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffanys)

Follow Me (Mutiny on the Bounty)


Side Two: 

El Cid

My Romance (Jumbo)

Never on Sunday

Till There was You (The Music Man)

Tonight (West Side Story)

Invitation

Exodus

Top Picks: Brothers Grimm Theme, Small World, My Romance, Till There Was You, Exodus

The Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie Game

This man talked so fast, it was hard to get a non-blurry image of him - but here he is! Doesn't he look familiar? Possibly....possibly not, depending on if you saw this movie...

As always, if you are not familiar with the rules to the Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie game or the prize, click here.

Rewind Review: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

"Dive! Dive!"

Film producer/director Irwin Allen let audiences dive deep into the waters of adventure with Voyage of the Bottom of the Sea, his second of three feature films that he made at 20th Century Fox studios in the early 1960s. Prior to gaining a reputation as "The Master of Disaster" because of his disaster-themed films of the 1970s, Allen tried his hand at writing, producing and directing adventure pictures. His first production for Fox - Lost World (1960) - was co-written by Charles Bennett and its success at the box-office led to the two men collaborating on another Jules Vernes-like story. They took some inspiration from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and created a clever story about a modern era atomic submarine 

Walter Pidgeon stars as the cigar-chomping Admiral Nelson, inventor and commander of the newly built atomic sub Seaview. The Seaview is on diving trials in the Arctic Ocean when they discover boulder-size pieces of ice crashing into the sea around them. They surface and find that temperatures are over 100 degrees and the sky is aflame. A meteor shower had pierced the Van Allen radiation belt and caused it to catch on fire. Admiral Nelson and his right-hand man, Commodore Emery (Peter Lorre) believe that the Earth can be saved from burn-up if a missile were to be shot into the Van Allen belt to create an explosion. According to their calculations, this missile can only be launched from the Mariana Islands, and so the Seaview races to the south to reach the islands before the entire world burns. 

Along for the ride is Dr. Susan Hiller (Joan Fontaine), a psychologist who is studying crews for their reaction to stress, Vice-Admiral B.J. Crawford (John Litel), and Congressman Parker (Howard McNear). The voyage progresses smoothly until doubts begin to arise in the mind of Captain Lee Crane (Robert Sterling) as to whether the admiral is making a sound and safe decision. Lt. Connors (Barbara Eden) has complete faith in the admiral but cannot explain the unusual happenings onboard the Seaview... acts of sabotage that appear to be of Admiral Nelson's doing. 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a fun adventure flick packed with action. The race-against-time element makes the story exciting enough, but Allen threw in a touch of mystery with the added story of the saboteur. There are also two octopus attacks and a great mine-field sequence. 

The Van Allen radiation belts had only recently been discovered when Irwin Allen began writing Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and so much about them was still unknown. The idea of the Van Allen belt catching on fire was later proven to be impossible, but at the time, it probably sent shivers down audiences thinking about it being an actual possibility. 

Even though most of the film takes place within the confines of the Seaview, the film never feels stagebound. The sets, created by Herman Blumenthal, were very imaginative (they were later reused for the television series). The Seaview itself is an especially good design. 

Irwin Allen plunged $1.5 million dollars into the making of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and it paid off handsomely. Critics gave the picture mixed reviews but audiences loved it and the movie raked in over $8 million dollars. 

Teen singing-sensation Frankie Avalon helped to lure in the young female audience. His part was not very dramatic and, surprisingly, he didn't sing in the film but you can hear his voice crooning the opening credits. 

Also in the cast was Michael Ansara (who fell in love with and married Eden after making the movie), Regis Toomey, Henry Daniell, Skip Ward and Mark Slade. 

From the Archives: Three Guys Named Mike (1951)

Watch that coffee, stewardess!! Evidently, Jane Wyman didn't watch Fate is the Hunter otherwise she would have known not to bring coffee into the cockpit! Oh wait, that movie wasn't released until thirteen years after this film, I guess she is excused.  Three Guys Named Mike is exactly what you would expect from such a title - one woman debating about the three men in her life all named Mike. One of them is played by the always dependable Howard Keel (right). 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures