Giorni caldi a Palm Springs

I recall the New York Times gave a favorable review to this sprightly fun film that became a smash hit for Warner Bros.

Troy Donahue who was the biggest star on the WB lot is first billed over other WB stars Connie Stevens, Ty Hardin and Robert Conrad. The WB stars all look great. Stefanie Powers is Donahue's romantic interest. The set up is thin but fun: a group of college students converge on Palm Springs for a weekend of romance and fun. Jerry Van Dyke, and Carole Cook give fun support. WB gave Ty Hardin a shot at stardom with other WB films such as Wall of Noise ( with another WB star Dorothy Provine), PT 109, and George Cukor's The Chapman Report.

Troy Donahue's real life best friend Greg Benedict, and best man at his wedding to Suzanne Pleshette has a small pivotal role in Palm Springs Weekend. This was WB's reply to smash hit MGM film Where The Boys Are that starred Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, and Dolores Hart ( who would leave Hollywood and become a Nun). During this time Columbia also had a stock company of Stefanie Powers, Michael Callan, James Darren, Deborah Walley. I wish those days would return!

Troy'Donahue made 4 smash hits at WB with Delmer Daves: A Summer Place with Sandra Dee, Parrish with Diane McBain and Connie Stevens, and Susan Slade with Connie Stevens and Rome Adventure with Angie Dickinson and Suzanne Pleshette. Palm Springs Weekend was Donahue's first film at WB without the mark of Delmer Daves. Troy Donahue's hit streak at WB continued with this film directed by veteran Norman Taurog.

Trivia note that Troy Donahue at first refused the film but was enticed to star into it and sings the title song over the credits. Suzanne Pleshette was offered role that eventually was played by Stefanie Powers.

This sort of has special meaning to me, I graduated from high school and started college in 1963, the year this movie came out. Yet I had never heard of it until yesterday when I noticed it scheduled for broadcast on the "Movies!" channel which specializes in older movies.

It was also the year that President JFK was assassinated. And the year before my dad passed away.

This movie has a thin, straightforward story line. It is spring break and groups of college students drive to Palm Springs, California, to have some fun.

The main focus of the boys are a basketball team, they just want to have fun and hopefully pick up some pretty girls.

The pretty girls are less aggressive about it but hope to be noticed by cute guys. Connie Stevens plays a high school girl (she was 24) and represents herself as a 21-yr-old college girl from Hawaii.

So all that plays out against a backdrop of swimming, partying, and one big fight with uninvited guys at a house party.

All in all pretty forgettable silliness but entertaining for a decent representation of this type of movie from the 1960s. The cast includes several actors who became well-know in the years following, many of them just in a whole series of TV roles.

At home, received via antenna in my attic.

This was the first movie I saw when I was a kid. I was almost seven at the time and it was on a double bill with "The Sword and The Stone." My mum dropped my two sisters and myself off at the Altantic Theater in Long Beach, California and this movie played first. I can't tell you a thing about the Disney movie, but I remember just about every scene from Palm Springs Weekend. The '63 Thunderbird, Bugs Bunny, Stephanie Powers, Connie Stevens, the pool with the bubbles and the car chase at the end. Hard to believe, but this film made me want to work in the movies.

And so I did. I have worked in film and video most of my career and I always tell people this was the film that first gave me the notion.

During my career I have been fortunate to meet two of the people involved with this film, Connie Stevens and Earl Hamner Jr (the man who wrote this film) When I met with Hamner over lunch, it was to talk about his classic television show The Waltons, but his eyes lit up when I asked him about PSW. He told me several stories and we had a good laugh. A very special memory.

I too would like to see this film released on DVD. It really captures a time and a generation and that '63 T Bird!

Palm Springs Weekend which was unashamedly ripped off from Where The Boys Meet The Girls, gave the Warner Brothers television stars a last time to strut their stuff before the cameras. Within three years all of these contract players would be gone from the Warner lot as the British invasion led by the Beatles reconstructed the whole idea of what a teen heartthrob was supposed to be.

Troy Donahue(Surfside Six), Ty Hardin(Bronco), and Robert Conrad (Hawaiian Eye), are all on spring break and bound for that favorite west coast location, Palm Springs. While there Donahue gets involved with Stefanie Powers the police chief's daughter and Hardin and Conrad get to fight over Connie Stevens who's lying about her age. She's borderline jailbait, but looks old.

In that department Connie was the most ludicrous, but the notion that these guys were all students of some kind is beyond belief. All of them were past 25 at this point, they must have felt ridiculous. But the stars of 90210 didn't look much like high school kids so nothing's really changed.

But romance was in the air in Palm Springs Weekend, even Jack Weston the college basketball coach gets to have a fling with hotel owner Carole Cook. Best in the film is Jerry Van Dyke who supplies some needed comic relief and plays a mean banjo.

Still the film really hasn't worn well over the decades. But it's pleasant enough entertainment. Troy Donahue gets to sing over the title credits. That was a mistake.

If you're after fun, escapist, Kennedy-era entertainment with a WB vs. AIP budget, sit back and enjoy "Palm Springs Weekend" for what it is: A bunch of kids (most of whom will never see twenty again) invading the popular resort community for the weekend, getting into all sorts of romantic trials and tribulations, with the inevitable happy ending.

Troy Donahue, then at the height of his fame, is the nominal hero of the story, a nice young medical student affectionately called "Dr. Jekyll." He has remarkably little to do, however, and it's the more colorful supporting characters who keep your interest through the film: Jerry Van Dyke as Donahue's wackyzanynutty best friend, Robert Conrad (just pre-"Wild, Wild West") as the particularly slimy heavy of the piece, Ty Hardin as the rodeo cowboy turned football hero (He's got steer horns affixed to the front of his car. You know the type), Connie Stevens as the "good girl" who gets in way over her head when she falls for Conrad, and Jack Weston and Carole Cook providing love among the oldsters as the boys' football coach and a local hotel owner, respectively. For the obligatory musical interlude, we have the Modern Folk Quartet performing in a nightclub sequence. See if you can spot a young Cyrus Faryar among the latter.

Norman Tourog's direction is appropriately easy and breezy, and the screenplay is by the young Earl Hamner, Jr. ("The Waltons"). Check your brain at the door and get in the mood for some early-60's-style fun. You'll be glad you did.