Come Fly With Me ( 1963 )

"A Romantic Round the World Manhunt!" 

Three airline hostesses jet-set across Europe searching for handsome rich men to marry in the engaging 1963 MGM romantic comedy Come Fly With Me. Like How to Marry a Millionaire, all three women find themselves attached to men who are very much different than what they had in mind but they nevertheless have fun hunting and the audience has fun watching them on the prowl. 

Dolores Hart stars as pretty Donna Stuart, a cynical girl who has her heart set on wearing sable. She meets the dashing Baron Franz von Elzingen ( Karl Boehm ) and believes she found her Prince Charming....until she realizes that he is using her to smuggle stolen diamonds between Paris and Vienna. 

Carol Brewster ( Pamela Tiffin ) is more sensible and sets her eyes on the pilot ( Hugh O'Brian ). She thinks he is her knight in shining armor until she discovers he is having an affair with a married woman ( Dawn Addams ). 

It's the lovely Hilda Bergstrom ( Lois Nettleton ) who ends up with the cream of the crop: Texas millionaire Walter Lucas ( Karl Malden ). She's a thrifty girl who wants her man to be saving his pennies as well, little does she know that he has $40 million dollars to spare. Like most good comedies of the 1960s, the film ends with each of the girls happy with their romantic choices. 

Come Fly With Me is light-hearted entertainment that will take you back to an era when jet travel was oh-so-glamorous ( and when airlines gave you room to stretch your legs ). The script seems like it was penned directly for the film but it was actually based on a chick-lit novel called "Girl on a Wing" by Bernard Glemser. The working title was The Friendliest Girls in the World but was later changed to Come Fly With Me to capitalize on the popularity of the Frank Sinatra hit. In the opening of the film, the song is swingingly rendered by Frankie Avalon.

Director Henry Levin keeps the pace of the film moving swiftly and the location scenery throughout Paris and Vienna is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Oswald Morris ( Moby Dick, Scrooge ). Interiors were shot at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Boreham Wood, England. 

The movie is notable for being Dolores Hart's final picture before she retired from acting and entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis. She looks particularly beautiful in this film and gives a wonderful farewell performance. Lois Nettleton also gives a good performance as the level-headed "Bergie" and Karl Malden is excellent as usual. Richard Wattis, James Dobson and Lois Maxwell, who was filming Dr. No in England that same year, are also in the cast. 

State Fair ( 1962 )

Often when a film becomes a smashing box office success, the production studio that made it believes they can replicate its ticket sales with the next generation, and so, every 15-20 years the same titles crop up with new casts and slightly modified scripts.

State Fair is one such film. The 1932 novel by Phil Strong was brought to the screen in 1933 as a Janet Gaynor/Lew Ayres hit for Fox Studios. It told the story of the Frake family and their adventures at the Iowa State Fair, focusing on the romantic entanglements that the two teenage children, Margy and Wayne, get themselves into. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II then set this story to music for the 1945 Technicolor musical adaptation starring Dana Andrews, Jeanne Craine, Vivian Blaine, and Dick Haymes. This was a most entertaining production and it set the bar high for future remakes, one of which was State Fair ( 1962 ).  

For this picture, Fox took the opportunity to cash in on the popularity of two of the top singing stars of the era - Pat Boone and Bobby Darin - and paired them up with two pretty gals, Ann-Margret and Pamela Tiffin, to make what they considered prime bait for the younger generation. To lure in the older crowd, one of Fox's biggest stars of the 1940s, Alice Faye, was cast as Melissa "Ma" Frake and Tom Ewell, a popular stage and screen actor of the 1950s, was cast as Papa Frake. Richard Rodgers also added a few extra tunes to spice up the picture. And so, with an ideal cast, a dependable and well-used story, and lush Cinemascope, the brass at Fox thought this remake would be a box-office hit. They thought wrong. The film lost nearly a million dollars. 

In life, imitation is often the sincerest form of flattery but in Hollywood it is a sign of unimaginative filmmaking. The 1962 version of State Fair tries so hard to have the bucolic charm of its predecessors that it fails to stamp its own impression, which is unfortunate since it really only disappointments when it attempts to duplicate the 1945 version. It is during these scenes that the acting seems bland and uninspired. The cast is uncomfortable in their roles and the entire production comes off as an apology to the audience for having such a "hokey" old-fashioned plot to work with. They should have taken a cue from Bye, Bye, Birdie ( 1962 ) a musical which oozes with small-town naivety and yet is perfectly at home in its own generation. There certainly is nothing hokey about a fair....unless you make it out to be. 

Screenwriter Richard L. Breen adapted Sonya Levien and Paul Green's original screenplay in an attempt to inject some new verve into the story and moved the Iowa setting to Dallas, Texas which, not surprisingly ( since Texans do everything big ) features "the largest state fair in America". It was filmed on location at the modern Dallas fairground which boasts nearly 100 acres of exhibition halls, dance and dining venues, and a stock car track.  Pat Boone gets to try his racing skills on the track and Ann-Margaret performs a show-stopping rendition of "Isn't it Kinda Fun" at a Hollywood Bowl style outdoor theater on the fairgrounds. The giant 52' tall Big Tex who booms his welcome speech to the fairgoers, continues to greet visitors today. 

Pat Boone, who could croon as well as Dick Haymes, and Ann-Margret were the only redeeming actors in the film. They added a genuine warmth and sincerity to their parts, which the rest of the cast should have mirrored. Pamela Tiffin, sweet as she looked, was no comparison to Jeanne Crain. Her airy interpretation of Margy lacked a depth of character, and one had to wonder what she saw in Jerry Dundee ( Bobby Darin ) who seemed bent on simply making her one of his conquests. Tom Ewell did an adequate job in the role that Will Rogers originally performed in the 1933 version, but Alice Faye was wasted - and wooden in the few scenes she had. She had signed for the part believing that she would be reunited with her screen partner, Don Ameche, and be directed by Henry King ( who filmed the original '33 version ). Instead, Jose Ferrer took the reins....and found himself riding a dead horse. Or was he the man to blame for killing it?