Get Yourself a College Girl

Wow, this film is a real doozie as far as beach and party movies of the 60s was concerned...the acting is grade Z and I cant imagine the producer paid any of the actors more than a few thousand bucks apiece to make this "gem".....Mary Ann Mobley, Chris Noel, Nancy Sinatra, Joan O'Brien are the eye candy in this typical teenage boy loves girl fluff that was going around in mid 60s movies ala all the beach party fluff from Frankie and Annette...if it made tons of money for American International pictures you would guess other producers would hire young starlets for penny ante salaries to continue this stuff. The producer had no script except to hire some popular English singing groups for cameos like the Dave Clark Five and the Animals and some struggling bands like the Standells.....this film did not require any acting ability to speak of....this compounded by wooden, painted mountain scenes in the background of a ski lodge and phony cotton snow on the ground at a California ski lodge gives you an idea of the budget. Mary Ann Mobley is a stitch...she pretends to hate a music producer who wanted her to pose in a skimpy outfit but then falls madly in love with him in one 20 second scene at the ski lodge....ugh!!! All Nancy Sinatra can do is stand by a doorwall at the lodge and act like she is a smitten newly wed and mumble in sexy tones about being married....a four year old could recite her dialogue....actress Chris Noel though departed after this film and went to Vietnam according to legend and met and fell in love and got married to an army officer.....she also did a radio pop music show on the airways for the soldiers in Vietnam in the latter 60s......all in all if you can stand grade zero acting and poor sets you will like this teenage scruff.

Yes, the jazz fans will certainly like parts of this movie. That's a very young Gary Burton playing vibes behind Stan Getz blowing sax and Astrud Gilberto singing the English version of "The Girl From Ipanema". At the time this movie was made, Burton had only been recording for a couple of years or so. (I don't recognize the bassist or drummer.) Another treat in this movie is the Jimmy Smith trio. There are copies of the Getz/Gilberto number on Youtube, but the quality is horrible. Now if they would just release this thing on DVD! They may have already, but it isn't readily available. If anyone knows anything about that, please post it!

The acting and production values of this movie are about on a par with something like Don Knotts' The Reluctant Astronaut or one of those sixties Disney movies starring Haley Mills. Or one of the Ronald Reagan Bonzo movies. Not awful, but definitely in the "B" movie category.

The music is what makes this movie worth watching. Stan Getz's performance of the Girl from Ipanema, with a very deadpan vocal by Astrud Gilberto, is one high point.

The Dave Clark Five is also deadpan, wooden even, and it is easy to see why they didn't surpass the Beatles as some in the sixties thought they might. Classic performances by the Standells and the Animals are here too.

Along with Stan Getz, the Jimmy Smith Trio provides some great jazz.

A fun look into what middle-aged Hollywood screenwriters thought the younger generation was up to. Well worth watching. The studio is missing an opportunity by not releasing this film on DVD. I had to buy mine bootleg on an on-line auction.

The best movie representation of dated and camp I could dream. Despite excelling at every aspect of dated material, it finds unexpected ways to amuse. It's obvious lesson on women's rights, and the absurd manner in which it tries to illustrate sexual equality, is an unexpected bonus. You may want to watch it more than once so you can catch smaller details. For example: the background on the ski mountain, and the fact that her lipstick is applied on top of the snow. If you only like 'quality movies' then don't even consider it. You must appreciate 60's pop music because there are a lot of hysterical band/dance scenes. If you like this sort of thing then I recommended it strongly.

Okay, it's got Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, plus the Jimmy Smith Trio, so as others have said, if you like jazz, you've got two good scenes. Personally, I love the Dave Clark Five and The Animals, but the songs they perform here are far from their best. They aren't hits, and why they'd choose to waste filler material on a movie with the potential to reach a bigger audience is beyond me.

One of my pet peeves is when a film features a song clearly written by an older songwriter with a background in show tunes and the like, and tries to pass it off as a big pop hit. I can't fathom any universe in which the song performed by Mary Ann Mobley, "Get Yourself a College Girl", would be a hit. And yet she's presented to us as this major songwriter with her finger on the pulse of today's youth.

The script feels like it was thrown together on the set. Is it about Mary Ann Mobley being booted out of college? No, wait, it's about her fighting and falling in love with her publisher. Nope, never mind, it's about re-electing a senator. Oops, looks like we're out of time. The end. But before we go, here are the Dave Clark Five and The Animals to sing some more songs you've never heard of while we film them in a straight-on close up that looks like a mugshot.