A Falsa Libertina

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!!

Dreadful sex farce that wishes it had the nerve to be soft-core.

Sixties starlet Ann-Margret plays an good-girl aspiring author who's determined to sell her stories to a girlie magazine, rather than one where people might read the text. It goes downhill from there, editor Tony Franciosa rejects her writing and asks her to pose semi-nude instead, and of course that makes her fall in love with him. And set out to convince him that she's enough of a slut to interest him, by doing things like letting some beefy guys dip her in paint and roll her around a canvas (an unforgettable scene), and pretend to be an alcoholic. So he kidnaps her and tries to rape her, and she runs home to mother (virtue intact) and they both die, and the film is reversed and they don't. I'm not making this up!

Amazingly bad in a very sixties way; if this was the sexual revolution give me the PC nineties.

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.

Ann-Margret alternates between come-hither pussycat and uptight do-gooder playing a would-be writer who attempts to pass herself off as sexually depraved in order to get a deal with a sleazy men's magazine. The problem with this picture is the very same predicament Annie faces: it's a square piece of goods palming itself off as naughty. The opening montage of sex-clubs is amusing, and A-M is energetic bouncing around on a trampoline, but the movie is talky, draggy, and seemingly produced on the cheap. Tony Franciosa doesn't work very well with Ann-Margret (he squirms too much, which isn't good for the romantic sub-plot). A few clever gimmicks--like the teaser ending, which caught me off guard--and Ann-Margret's shapely figure compensate, but "The Swinger" just doesn't swing. Perhaps a director with a sharper flair for visual slapstick and satire (like Frank Tashlin) may have brought out a more cartoony sensibility to these proceedings. George Sidney certainly tries, but he's too literal for the flighty material; while staging a mock-orgy, he has Ann-Margret writhing around on the floor slathered in paint...wouldn't straight sex be cleaner? ** from ****

Ann-Margret looks lovely in this campy in this musical comedy from the 60's! She opens and closes the fim singing as she did in "Bye Bye Birdie"! Mary La Roach plays her mther again also! Its a real period piece.the clothes and the hairdos are very 60's! If you love Ann- Margret you will love "The Swinger"!