Les dingues sont lâchés

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.

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.

I enjoyed this film for what it was - an early 60's escapist film which was coming to grips with a quickly changing culture influenced by the effects of the pill and the coming social revolution. There are a few scenes in this movie that must have influenced movies like Animal House and others years later. A young Stefanie Powers makes a startling impression - goes to show how charming William Holden must have been to have made her his companion for the last 10 years of his life. Some good characters to watch here.

You have got to give Warner Bros studios credit for milking Troy Donahue for all they could get with the teenage audience....there was "Summer Place", "Parrish", "Susan Slade", "Rome Adventure"...Warner Bros was riding the high waves with Donahue for the teenage audience in the early 60s.......then they apparently decided to remake "Where the Boys Are"....this time the film is in Palm Springs California instead of Florida....Stephanie Powers more or less recreates the role Delores Hart had in "Where the Boys Are".....a young student looking for teenage/young adult love...Troy Donahue basically recreates the role George Hamilton had.....the handsome lover boy looking for romance.....basically corny and overly silly in a lot of respects. Plenty of comedy though as Jerry Van Dyke plays a over the top goofball who winds up with the homely down and out girl...sort of like the role Frank Gorshin had in Boys Are with Connie Francis....lots of similarities with both films. Troy Donahue did not have to do much acting...just stand around looking handsome and available and the gals ate him up. In a silly teenage film like this much acting was not required at all. For my money a scene near the end where Donahue and Stephanie Powers were standing in front of a fake, paper rock, supposedly in the desert was laughable....Powers says "look out there, see the sands, it is the valley of lost lovers" ha=ha-ha.....or something to that effect....Donahue stands there listening to her with a silly gape on his face....just totally laughable acting. Nothing like that old puss himself Jack Weston to play the lovable loser - he was the basketball coach trying to keep his players under control and falling for the matronly owner of the motel they were at....Weston always a lovable loser, just like in "The Cincinatti Kid" and "Thomas Crown Affair" in the 60s..... For my money Jerry Van Dyke steals the movie as a looney over the top comedian....once again, this is a teenage love flick at it's best....if you saw "Where the Boys Are" you have seen "Palm Springs Weekend"....just the same two films stitched together with different actors....Bob Conrad as the spoiled, rich kid with the fast T-Bird and Connie Stevens as the nubile, and very available coed....she gets mixed up with the wrong guy. Top notch film for the teenagers in the early 1960s.

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.