link : A Swingin' Summer Swings No More
A Swingin' Summer Swings No More
I suspect that many of you have experienced the disappoint-ment of re-watching a once-cherished movie that has been tarnished by time. I wouldn't classify A Swinging' Summer as a "cherished" movie, but there was a time in my youth when I found it to be a pleasing entertainment. Thus, when I recently discovered it on Amazon Prime, I was enthused about seeing it again. Oh, woe!The plot is not the problem since many Beach Party knock-offs of the 1960s were held together with string, sealing wax, and other fancy stuff. Rick, his girlfriend Cindy, and his pal Mickey plan to work at a Lake Arrowhead dance pavilion during their college summer break. They don't even reach their destination before they hear on the radio that the pavilion will not open. Undeterred, Rick proposes that the trio take charge and run it themselves. After all, Rick happens to have a friend who is a talent agent. Surely, they have enough money between them to stage the first dance.
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| William Wellman Jr. & Quinn O'Hara. |
Frankly, the music is pretty good, but we'll get to that in a minute. The problem is that the viewer has to suffer through 50 minutes of the picture's 80-minute running time before the rock'n'roll shifts into high gear. As the film's star, William Wellman, Jr., the famed director's son, makes Frankie Avalon look like Ronald Colman. He has no screen charisma and it's hard to fathom why Cindy doesn't dump her crappy boyfriend and just stay with the lifeguard. (Yes, I admit that I sometimes wondered why Annette didn't drop Frankie, but he had some charm...and could sing!) Wellman, Jr. even looks pathetic in the big fight scene with the lifeguard, which is horribly staged and goes on for far too long.
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| Quinn O'Hara. |
Despite its amateurish build-up, A Swingin' Summer ends on a high note with musical performances by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, The Rip Chords, Raquel Welch, and The Righteous Brothers. I had forgotten how successful Gary Lewis's band was--it charted twelve Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That's actually the same number as The Righteous Brothers, who are better remembered today. The duo sing "Justine" in A Swingin' Summer, which was not a hit. However, its follow-up on the chart was the iconic "Unchained Melody."
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| A studious Raquel Welch. |
Source: 70s Movie
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