Showing posts with label Gary Crosby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Crosby. Show all posts
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| Cadets? -- Dick Sargent, Tommy Sands, and Pat Boone |
A bunch of twenty-something cadets raffle off a date with new French-Hollywood movie star Michelle Marton (Christine Carere). Everyone is dismayed when the winning ticket goes to the most studious and disinterested among them, Paul (Pat Boone). In New Orleans Paul actually spends a very pleasant day with Michelle, who has switched places with her studio helpmate Eadie (Sheree North); he has no idea the young lady is the movie star he is supposed to be squiring. This leads to mostly unamusing complications. Mardi Gras is the most undistinguished of musicals; it has one decent song, "I'll Remember Tonight," and the rest are atrocious. Boone [Journey to the Center of the Earth] isn't bad; Carere is, well, pretty and little else; Gary Crosby essentially plays the same character he plays in every movie he did; Tommy Sands over-sings everything; and Dick Sargent is another over-aged cadet. Sheree North and Fred Clark add little to the tedious proceedings, although there are a couple of funny lines, as well as forgettable cameos by Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter. This movie in no way captures the excitement of Mardi Gras even though there is some grainy stock footage of it. Hard to believe this treacle was directed by Edmund Goulding.
Verdict: Watch Goulding's The Old Maid instead. *1/2.
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| Jeri Lynn Frazer and Joey Dee |
"I'll take two containers of Troy Donahue and a six pack of Rock Hudson." -- Aggie
Joey (Joey Dee, playing himself) is engaged to Piper (Jeri Lynn Frazer) but the wedding has to be postponed because he gets a gig on a cruise ship sailing for Paris. Piper's mother insist they take a chaperon along, her Aunt Aggie (Kay Medford). But things get complicated when a French dancer named Coco (Lisa James), makes a play for Joey to make her philandering boyfriend, Tony (Richard Dickens), jealous. Jeri decides to get even by coming on to singer Gary (Gary Crosby, not playing himself), who sings "Lady Want to Do That Twist." Medford is terrible as she croaks out "Instant Men," although Frazer makes a better impression delivering "Teenage Vamp" and "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home." Thick-lipped and somewhat odd-looking, Dee is okay and wiggles a couple of numbers. Frazer, a cute little monkey-face, grows on you. Medford [Butterfield 8] has the same rather off-putting personality as ever and the ever-irritating Charles Nelson Reilly embarrasses himself playing a "flaming" wedding planner. Dee appeared in only one other movie. Frazer was introduced in this picture but had faded out by 1968 with only a few credits -- she would have been perfect for a sitcom.
Verdict: Strange picture with strange leads. **.