The Swinger

"The Swinger" was an attempt by old-line Hollywood to cash in on the "youth movement" by making a movie that was "hip" and "relevant" and that the "young people" could "dig." It fails miserably on all counts. This movie was dated five minutes after it was released, and is now nothing more than a laughable relic of what people who had absolutely no idea of what the '60s were about thought the '60s were about.

Tony Franciosa plays a Hugh Hefner-type magazine publisher who rejects a story given to him by writer Ann-Margret about the "swinging" scene, because he doesn't think she knows enough about the subject to have written about it (while he, of course, knows EVERYTHING about it). So she sets out to become part of the swinging generation to show him up. The movie is nothing but leering, smarmy double-entendres, and the whole attitude is "ooh, aren't we being naughty?", which they aren't (as in the laughable "orgy" scene, where Ann-Margret gets her body painted).

Ann-Margaret has always seemed to me to be the Pamela Anderson of the '60s--a totally manufactured personality trading on her looks and what passes for sex appeal. Her image was the good girl who would stop just this side of sluttiness, because she was, after all, a good girl--which made her, basically, a tease, and that was what her entire career was built on. This movie is a perfect example of that. She's basically nothing more than a somewhat animated Barbie doll, which is pretty much all that she's ever been required to be.

If you want to get a feel for what the '60s was about, this movie isn't it, by any stretch of the imagination. It's fun in a goofball kind of way, but it's basically what a bunch of wealthy, middle-aged men (the people who made this movie) thought "the kids" would want to see. They didn't.

The Quick Pitch: In order to get her story published in a girly magazine, good girl Kelly Olsson (Ann-Margret) decides to turn herself into the swingingest swinger who ever swung.

As a movie, The Swinger disappoints at just about every turn. It's not funny, it's outdated (a term I usually hate to use but it's definitely appropriate here), it's horribly predictable, and there really isn't much of plot. So, if it's that bad, why haven't I rated it any lower than a 4/10? Well, because as a vehicle to watch Ann-Margret, The Swinger is a wild success. The scenes featuring Ann-Margaret dancing, rolling around in paint, or trying on a variety of revealing, kitchy outfits - those are the highlights. I think my favorite bit had to be where Ann is walking through the house she shares with a variety of other people. There's some sort of choreographed dance practice going on. Ann flawlessly moves into place and out-dances everyone else without ever once looking up from the book she's reading. Her dancing and outfit are just amazing. Unfortunately, however, it all ends quickly and we're back to the tired, unfunny old movie.

So, to sum it up, if you want to see a good movie, keep looking. But, if you want to see Ann-Margret in her prime, The Swinger just might be the thing for you.

4/10

Attention all bad movie lovers this one's for you! Part bad photo shoot-part wildly politically incorrect girlie show. The kind of lame brained junk the studios thought would connect with the youth of the sixties, the only people you can imagine this would speak to are lovers of camp. Be prepared to be practically blinded by the overload of color, some scenes have so much neon yellow and red you'll need sunglasses. That this horror show was directed by George Sidney who in better times was responsible for Show Boat, Kiss Me Kate and other classics boggles the mind. Leering and sexist as well as stupid and absurd this is an outlandish artifact of it's time. It is truly bad from beginning to the very end complete with Batman fight graphics such as POOWWW!!!!!! and ZAP!!

In this 1966 comedy about a 'good girl' trying to get published in a 'bad girl' magazine, Kelly Olsson (Ann Margret) plays a newbie writer with an obsession to get published. Figuring on the "sex sells" angle Kelly writes a sexually provocative story called 'The Swinger' for a popular girlie magazine. When she is turned down by the magazine's sexist editor because she is "too innocent to know about such things". Kelly sets out to prove him wrong by setting up an elaborate hoax to show him just how "debased" her life really is. Although before she even begins to try to pull the wool over the editors eyes, its hard to imagine she is so innocent. Dancing around in nothing more than a blouse and pantyhose for the first part of the movie tends to make her character harder to believe. None the less I loved the movie, although I love most campy 60's flicks! ...and Ann Marget is absolutely gorgeous! Viva Las Vegas is another favorite! I'm pretty sure she wears a lot of the same outfits in that one too!

I am a huge Ann-Margret fan, and I finally got to see this movie, not available on video, on AMC. The 'plot' concerns good girl journalist Kelly Olsson (A-M's real last name) who wants to be published in "Girl-lure" men's magazine, and she wants her story published, not her photo. She writes a lurid expose of a wild swinger girl and tells the horny editor the girl in the story is her, to try to get it printed. So, she has to spend the rest of the movie convincing the Girl-lure staff she is for real. Please note that this plot summary makes the movie's plot sound much more coherent than it actually is.

Terrible continuity, the main actors are nothing special, very corny jokes, and there seems to be no discernable script. However, who cares? We've got an opening montage of Ann-Margret singing the title song and jumping on a trampoline wearing a black catsuit, turning on the sex appeal full force. We've got a house she lives in with a bunch of beatniks including the dance group billed in the opening credits as the"Swinger's Dozen" who spend their time doing choreographed dance routines in the living room, and when A-M passes through, she just has to join in and go-go dance. For the guys, we have A-M covered in paint and used as a human paintbrush (though not nude as the Playboy pictorial would have you beleive-sorry guys, Playboy doctored the photos) by a bunch of beatniks wearing jungle loinclothes. We have Edith Head doing the absolutely to-die-for 60's costumes, some of which are showcased in those photo montages. We have A-M wearing a different outrageous 60's hair extension/style in almost every scene. We have a magazine headquarters obviously modeled on Playboy Enterprises where models walk around in bikinis and there is a framed photo on the wall of a groovy chick that actually rotates on a mechanical roller to show a different model every 5 seconds. And that's just for starters.

George Sidney directed the movie and it shows. He was the director of Bye Bye Birdie, totally smitten with Ann-Margret, who saw her talent when she was still fairly unknown and used his own money to shoot a new beginning and ending for BBB showcasing A-M. He was completely in love with A-M, and so for all the guys out there who feel the same way about her, watch this movie and you'll be in heaven.