Hootenanny Hoot

For just plain old laughs, this is great. This film my wife and I laughed at for most of the picture. I love it when a movie is SO cornie that it becomes laughable. What makes watching it more enjoyable is knowing that many of the actors probably saw this as their "big break" into the movies! Did people really dance like that? The music was good on the serious side, and it does serve as a period piece of film, though exaggerated.

I recommend this film for anyone who wants to have a light laugh. It isn't the best for a plot, and it really just tries to showcase the artists. If you like folk/country from the early 60s, this has some really good music.

An attempt by Hollywood to cash in on the early folk music craze of the sixties, "Hootenanny's" cheap budget makes it look much like a television episode.

Let's talk about the good things of this movie first:

1. A young Johnny Cash does his version of "Frankie and Johnny". It's great to see The Man In Black looking so good.

2. Pamela Austin (who went on to become "The Dodge Girl"). She is in the prime of her beauty at this time and she reveals a smoking body in her many dances.

3. Ruta Lee is also quite attractive to look at. Still, a movie career that went from "Witness for the Prosecution" to "Hootenanny Hoot" is not going well. Lots of TV game shows were to be in Ms. Lee's future.

4. Appearances by Vickie (baby got back) Dougan and an uncredited Maureen Reagan (daughter of Pres. Ronald Reagan). Ms. Dougan was a pretty gal who made a name for herself by wearing dresses in the fifties that revealed anal cleavage. Ms. Reagan shows up for a brief moment to call Joby Baker "a square".

Um, that's about it.

The folk music is innocuous for the most part. Although by the end of the movie, I found myself really disliking Sheb Wooley, who gets to do three songs, including the title theme. Would have been nice to see Johnny Cash showcased more. The Gateway Trio made me nauseous jumping on a trampoline in the chorus of one of their amusing (?) songs. For token's sake, they throw in two black guys, Joe and Eddie (no, not Flo and Eddie) doing a rousing hand-clapping version of "There's A Meeting Here Tonight". Hopefully, it's not a KKK meeting.

Pretty silly film in the end. I can only recommend it for a look at a young Johnny Cash, the marvelous legs of Ms. Austin and Ms. Ruta Lee showing some attractive décolletage and gams.

This was a great movie! The guys wear suits/ties, and, when everyone was at the beach in their swimming suits, along comes this guy in full dress with his sweater on! The camera work was great too, lots of weird low-angle and high-angle face shots like Hitchcock would do. The music and "dancing" was really great. A real slice of the time we were in limbo, after too much Presley and before the Fab Four. Check this one out and yell a lot at it, it's fun! And don't take these other reviews too seriously, they just like reading what they wrote. That's All Folks

I watched this bit of harmless nonsense on TCM. I remember the "hootenanny fad" and oddly did not recall this movie at all. Seeing a young Johhny Cash was a treat, although I'd hardly classify his music as part of the hootenanny craze. Likewise for Sheb Wooley, what no "Purple People Eater", and George Hamilton IV or whatever number he was. The Brothers 4 I recall, but other performers I do not remember at all. The format reminded me of the rock and roll movies with Alan Freed and a few others. Extremely corny, but a record of some of the music of the times !

Hootenanny Hoot (1963)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Slight but entertaining musical from MGM has a television director (Peter Breck) and a producer (Ruta Lee) whose marriage is breaking apart. He leaves town a soon finds himself in a small town in Missouri where he's introduced to a local "hootenanny". After seeing some of the musical acts he tries to get it produced and on television but guess who he'll after meet again? The actual "story" here isn't much as its poorly written and probably done so on purpose. There's no doubt that the main goal of this film was to show off some of the musical performers and as long as you like the music you should have an okay time going through the film. The film follows the same structure as stuff like ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK and TWIST AROUND THE CLOCK and that's to introduce new music to a wider range of people for acceptance. The music here just happens to be country and folk, which the film tries to say is one in the same. I'm sure many people would debate that but either way we get some very good numbers here with the highlight being an appearance by Johnny Cash doing Frankie's Man Johnny. Other numbers include Joe and Eddy's There's a Meeting Here Tonight, The Brothers Four doing Frogg and Little Cory and a strong Abilene by George Hamilton IV. There are a lot of banjos and old-fashion dances going around but I guess that's what a hootenanny is all about. If you hate country music and folk then there's really do reason to check this out as the story isn't strong enough to carry the thing. If you can put up with the music it's worth checking out, although I'm sure many will be hitting the fast-forward button to get to the music.