Los Angeles in its decadent period.

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This script about two high-school kids -- one a genius (Roddy MacDowell) and the other a nubile blond airhead (Tuesday Weld). MacDowell, close to 40 at the time of shooting, looks about as much like a high schooler as I do. Weld, on the other hand, reminds me a lot of Irene Revok, this succulent, shy blond who sat immediately in front of me in chemistry class. She was enchanting, had a splendid figure, and a fascinating nape. Oh, how I wanted to bite it. Anyway, the movie has some extremely witty scenes and dialog.

Every dumbed-down trend is punctured. The students attend a new consolidated school in which botany masquerades as "Plant Styles For Life." There is a drive-in church in which people sit in their convertibles, sleeping or getting a tan, and listen to the sermon from the speakers. The congregation is assured that "prayers ARE answered because whatever happens -- THAT'S THE ANSWER." There is also a lecture on "Christian attitudes towards the automobile."

A college boy necking with his girl feels guilty because he lied to his mother and told her that they were going to see "The Ten Commandments." And suppose she asks about it? What can he tell her? He's never seen the movie. The girl scoffs and says she read the book and, though she can't remember the story, she knows that the central idea is "Thou Shallt Not." The Bible as entertainment.

The writer, George Axelrod, has taken an early poke at just about everything that Southern California was on the verge of becoming. Blatant materialism, rabid ambition with no focus whatever, social snobbery, funeral practices, consumerism, anomi, fake marriage counselors. ("Q: Every morning when my husband leaves for work he kisses me on the forehead. How can I get him to kiss me on the lips?" "A: Wear high heels.")

Granted these all seem like pretty easy targets right now, but LA was just entering its phase of cultural discontinuity in the early 1960s. It would be well captured by other films too, such as "The Loved one." And Marin County came in for a few quick jabs in the 1970s with "Serial."

McDowell adopts some silly name and promises to give Weld anything she wants. Well -- first she wants a dozen cashmere sweaters. And MacDowell arranges it so that her divorced father (Max Showalter in a hilarious pop-eyed mode) buys her a pile of such sweaters. McDowell laughs insanely while she models them for him and gurgles out the colors -- papaya surprise, put-me-down peach, glans mauve, or whatever. The two of them swoon and wrap themselves in sweaters, drooling and moaning in a counterfeit climax. It's the best scene in the movie.

It all somehow doesn't quite hang together though. The lovesick McDowell sees to it that Weld has what she wants -- first the sweaters, then a holiday at the beach, then courtship by and marriage to a gloriously dumb boyfriend -- but when it comes to the divorce, "We don't divorce men in our family. We bury them." Half a dozen attempts to off Weld's new hubby fail, so MacDowell goes mad and uses a back hoe with huge teeth to slaughter the guy, along with the principal staff of the high school. There's also the dramatic suicide of Weld's mother, of the type that Emil Durkheim called egoistic, as if it weren't enough for a satirical film to be merely funny.

The message underneath the chuckles is serious enough without the suicide. Tuesday Weld can have anything she wants -- but she doesn't know what she wants. That's tragedy. Some day, after the dreams dissolve, she'll find herself headed in the same direction as her mother because there really is nothing much underneath the froth.

score 7/10

rmax304823 25 July 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1918178/