Shag

Contrary to British bawdy-speak, the Shag is a dance that is a smooth cross between the Jitterbug and the 50's Bop. One can Shag only to the beat of "old school" rhythm and blues music, referred to in the Carolinas, Virginia and parts of Georgia as "Beach Music". It is not an easy dance to master, although like riding a bicycle once you learn how, you never forget.

I was a regular visitor to Myrtle Beach during the 70s and 80s when Beach Music had progressed from a hometown tradition to a potential new fad with marketing potential. "New" Beach Music bands and songs were becoming popular (with acts like The Band of Oz and the Fantastic Shakers making popular tunes like "Ocean Boulevard", "Myrtle Beach Days" and "Shaggin"; even the old-school Embers wrote a new song, "I Love Beach Music"). I spent much of the summer at Myrtle Beach when this movie, Shag, was being filmed at Atlantic Beach. I even saw Phoebe Cates and Bridgette Fonda at the After Deck (nightclub) one night.

I recently bought the DVD of Shag and found it was better than I remembered. It is full of fun and silliness and in general the story is pretty true to life if not a little more sedate than my years at the beach. The movie does a good job of demonstrating the appeal of the beach. It was always about getting out of our small southern home-towns and meeting some new faces, having some fun and hopefully finding true love, at least for a few days. The music and the dancing became integral to the process. Today that music is still loved my many southerners who came of age at the Carolina beach towns from the 50s through the 80s.

I recently toured Myrtle Beach for the first time in about 12 years. It has changed more in that time than it ever did from my first memories of it from the late 50s until I was last there in the early 90s. Shag gives an accurate snapshot of what it was like there in its glory days in the 60s. The music, the dancing, the fun and friendships new and old were what it was all about. Those were days that brought songs like Billy Stewart's definitive version of "Summertime", or the Catalina's "Summertime's Calling Me" into reality. While those tunes aren't on the soundtrack of the movie, "Shag" does of good job of preserving the essence of that lifestyle.

IF you're not from the southeastern US, you can get a fairly accurate picture of what growing up was like for many Baby Boomers from that area. If you are a southerner and love Beach Music, the movie is about the best we have available at picturing that happy time.

`This was our last weekend together, and we didn't feel like going to Ft. Sumter and touring goddamn colonial homes! We wanted to go to the beach! And meet boys! And go to wild parties! And dance!' One of the most overlooked but greatest girl-movies all time, *Shag* is a meticulously crafted period piece that takes a look back at the summer of '63 - a hallowed summer cinematically, supposedly representing an innocent America untouched by the coming traumas of the Sixties. It is the story of four girls who have just graduated from high school who hightail it to Myrtle Beach - the forbidden zone of boys and booze. As they whoop it up, each of them has their eyes opened to a reality that is not part of the world their parents laid out for them. `Y'all, I'm *wild*,' Cates' character tells her friends towards the end of the movie, `I guess I always have been - I just didn't know it,' and Cates' youthful beauty and innocence make it completely believable. Hannah seems to not take herself as seriously as her more famous sister does - and her hilarious portrayal of the tight-assed Luanne morphs from rigid propriety to semi-unbridled lust. Pudge finally meets a boy who loves her for everything she is, and Gish has a field day with the character. But it is Fonda's portrayal of the bad-girl preacher's daughter who steals the show. Described by one reviewer as `*Dirty Dancing* meets *Mystic Pizza* meets *American Graffiti*,' as a coming-of-age film, *Shag* is nothing less than enchanting.

I watched this movie only to get a look at Tyrone Power, Jr., and ended up enjoying it immensely. Set in 1963 before the assassination of JFK, four young southern women go to Myrtle Beach for a last hurrah before college and, in one way or another, their lives change. Phoebe Cates is a virginal brunette engaged to uptight Tyrone Power, Jr., but winds up falling for Robert Rusler; Bridget Fonda is a comely blond looking to win Miss Sun Queen; Annabeth Gish is everybody's pal who wants to be somebody's girlfriend; and Page Hannah is the plain daughter of a senator hoping to keep her daddy's liquor cabinet locked and his house clean so nobody knows she and her friends were there. The movie culminates with a shagging (some kind of dancing) contest.

I suspect that some of us old-timers might like this movie even more than the teens and twenty-somethings - it sure brings you back to a time when kids talked about getting to second base, going all the way, and asked questions like, Have you ever put your tongue in anyone's ear? Shag captures the atmosphere of fun and hilarity one only gets at an early age and away from one's parents. The sound track is fabulous. Highly recommended if you want to feel young again.

This movie isn't going to win best picture anytime soon, but short of "Dirty Dancing" this might be the best fun summer romance there is. It's one of those stories that lets you spend time with several female archetypes: The Bad Girl, The "Fat" Girl ready to come into her own, The Goody-Two-Shoes/Nerd and The Dutiful Pretty Girl. While this may seem cheesy, it's a structure that's been working since Jane Austen gave us Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia Bennett. Women enjoy trying on various identities vicariously, and (to move back into the future) we all have a little bit of Carrie and Samantha in us. Of the actresses in this movie only two have much name recognition - Bridget Fonda's delicious bad girl and Phoebe Cates' debutante about to marry the wrong man. But all the actors suit the tone and contents of the movie, and it ends up feeling realistic, if only because this particular formula - the summer fling on vacation - is something that often happens in real life. This movie is a joy to watch for its Myrtle Beach period location, its sexy but not explicit romance, and, of course, the titular dancing of the shag. Download it with your girlfriends and have a fantastic slumber party.

Although it has taken myself thirty two (32) long years to catch this film on the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel I really enjoyed the simplicity of the story line and the brilliant films' color that the film producers, Palace Pictures utilized. The soundtrack was a classic and rather than the typical storyline that evolves around young men, this particular jocular Romedy focuses on four (4) young ladies who take an adventurous trip by a convertible car to sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to have some fun before one of the young ladies named Carson (Phoebe Cates) gets married although she has recently felt some second thoughts about her upcoming nuptials.

The other three (3) ladies fool Carson about where they are really going until their convertible drive is well underway and Carson realizes that her friends are taking her on a quasi bachelorette party. Each lady has her heart swept away by a man that they initially object to, but the young men are persistent and each of the four (4) ladies finds their destiny in a relationship they were not expecting.

The acting is exceptional and before you know it you will think that you are at. Myrtle Beach enjoying the sun, fun and music alongside this very wide range of youthful vigor dancing to the Shag.

If any of the original producers read my review I hope you are listening and are open to the idea of a sequel possibly set in the year of 2000 which would be thirty seven (37) years forward from when the original film was set in 1963. We could see if the eight characters are still together with their significant partner(s) and/or they have divorced and moved on with their lives and what does their future in the new millennium of 2000.look like?

I give Shag a highly effective 7 out of 10 IMDB rating for this Romedy film.