A Swingin' Summer

When two young men named "Rick" (William Wellman Jr.) and "Mickey" (James Stacey) find out that their plans for working at Lake Arrowhead during the summer have been canceled they decide to organize festivities there themselves. But to do that they need money and when they can't come up with it Rick's girlfriend, "Cindy" (Quinn O'Hara) decides to secretly bankroll them through her father. Yet even with the money there is a lot of work which keeps Rick and Cindy apart and leads to serious trouble between them. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this wasn't one of the better beach movies made during this time-period. There wasn't much comedy and the characters lacked development. Even so Raquel Welch (as "Jeri"), Mary Mitchell ("Shirley") and the aforementioned Quinn O'Hara were definitely nice on the eyes and I suppose that should count for something. Accordingly, I rate this movie as just slightly below average.

This would be a really fun movie for anyone who grew up in the 60s. Many of the 60s dances are seen, such as The Swim, The Watusi, The Pony and, of course, The Twist. A valuable record of a fun slice of American pop culture. Watching the Righteous Brothers sing "Justine" was just fantastic (despite sound issues). In her first featured film role, 24-year-old Raquel Welch also makes her singing debut with a sizzling song and dance solo. Sure, the movie is a bit campy, but sometimes girls (and guys) just want to have fun. Right, Cyndi?

The only problem is that I could not find an original 2.35:1 aspect ratio to watch. All the streaming services had letterbox for the opening credits, but then unfortunately switched to one of the most awful 4:3 TV crops I've ever seen. It ruined most of the dances. Instead of picking somebody, anybody, upon whom to focus, you get half a body on the left and half of another body on the right. They might as well have coined a new dance, "The One-Cheek Sneak."

The person who gave this movie a 10 was having some fun. Hey, fair enough! But really, it would be considered bad by 1964 standards and the Frankie Avalon, Fabian surf/beach movies of the day. Now its 45 years later and it does have Raquel's 1st credited role (even gets the "introducing" credit!!) so why not have some fun with it.

James Stacey is top billed and he had a long, but tragic-event type career. Nobody else of the cast will register, but there was Raquel. The old horn rim glasses, hair in a bun trick, til she decided to give a stunned James Stacy an eyeful on stage (like her bikini scenes didn't get his attention --- right!?!?!). She's hot, the movie is bad, but finishes with the Righteous Brothers doing there only real rock song, "Lucille" (they were good even before they got righteous!).

The funniest bit in the movie is that Gary Lewis, geekest rock star ever, and his Playboys, don't get to sing. They managed 4 or 5 pretty big hits, but at this stage only got to do backup playing and instrumentals (which include an accordion - I'm serious!!).

Don't you have to watch this after that build up? You might catch it on AMC, I think I found it on VOD. Hey, it's about an 1 and 15 minutes, and if you can fast forward thru some fight and robbery scenes (don't ask!), you'll be done in under an hour. Go for it!

The threadbare plot of A Swinging Summer is just an excuse to have some of the rock and roll performers of 1965 come up and strut their stuff and use the film to sell some records. It's also quite the promotional film for the resorts at Lake Arrowhead which I'm guessing was losing a bit of its crowd to the California beaches.

William Wellman, Jr., James Stacy, and Quinn O'Hara after having some summer jobs shut down on them have this idea to promote their own rock and roll shows and make money for college tuition. After being told by Allan Jones that they have to come up with a big bond type guarantee Quinn O'Hara goes behind Wellman's back and says her rich dad will cough up the dough, but don't tell Wellman as he's quite the alpha male. Upon this lay all the romantic complications for Wellman and O'Hara and the rest of the film.

Which is just an excuse to see The Righteous Brothers, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Donnie Brooks and a few others long forgotten. At least this film is a record of sorts for them.

Who knows what enticed Allan Jones to do two brief scenes at the beginning of the film. But I wish they could have worked a song in for him as he's far more my taste.

But early Sixties music fans should love A Swinging Summer.

Those user votes gotta be kiddin'! It was a few years back on an idle summer Saturday night that I caught this film on the USA Network cable channel. More happens in the tag line -- "Spread Out the Beach Towels...Grab Your Gals...it's gonna be A SWINGIN' SUMMER!" -- than in the entire film! The most strenuous thing the characters do is lay out those beach towels, and then its just unimaginative bickering along with coupling and uncoupling and recoupling serving as the plot. The only thing worse than the dialogue are the gawky jerky movements exhibited by the actors during the various musical numbers -- that's dancing?!? Anyway, yeah, the Righteous Brothers drop in, but by far the kickiest part of the movie is when Raquel Welch jumps on stage shakin', twistin', turnin' -- it's practically a revelation! In any case, it's more than this dreadful film deserves.