Author: irememberjfk_l6fq3c

It all began in 1936. That year, a book was published called Birds of the West Indies. Novelist Ian Fleming, living in Jamaica, was a birder himself, and he was impressed with the volume. He was also impressed with the name of the book’s author: James Bond.

Fleming wrote a novel called Casino Royale in 1953, and gave the book’s hero the name of the author of the birding book. In an interview with Reader’s Digest, he explained:

“I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, and ‘James Bond’ was much better than something more interesting, like ‘Peregrine Carruthers.’ Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.”

Gotta agree with him there. Imagine hearing over and over again throughout 20+ films “Carruthers. Peregrine Carruthers.”

The Bond novels were a hit. I was particularly and personally impressed that my own mother was a fan. She really wasn’t so much into the subsequent film series, but she read many a Fleming Bond novel.

The film series was born when Fleming signed an agreement with Britain-based EON Productions for the film rights to all Bond novels (except Casino Royale, though that novel’s rights were also gained later). In 1962, the first film came out: Dr. No.

The star of the film was a Scottish actor by the name of Sean Connery. He had distinguished himself with roles in Darby O’Gill and the Little People and The Longest Day. His handling of the Bond character could either make or break the franchise plans that EON had in mind.

They needn’t have worried. Connery chose to become Ian Fleming himself, a sophisticated, educated, womanizing, hard-drinking-and-smoking ex-naval commander.

His portrayal was just the ticket. Dr. No grossed over $59,000,000. That was a nice return on a one million dollar investment. James Bond, the cinematic series, was successfully launched. This was big. How long could the racehorse run? Ten years? TWENTY?

Forty-four years later, I am still reeling from the audio and visual onslaught that nearly overwhelmed my senses that was Quantum of Solace. The movie was, in a one-word review, excellent. Did they REALLY trash an Aston-Martin worth a quarter of a million dollars?

The Bond franchise has proven to be the most successful and longest running in Hollywood history. All of the films, even the ones that you might never want to see again, were fabulously profitable. Ian Fleming wrote twelve novels and three short stories, all of which have been covered as films. He dropped dead as a hard-drinking, smoking womanizer should, suddenly of a heart attack, at age 56 in 1964. The lack of literary backup for the film scripts hasn’t hurt things one bit.

To Boomers, 007 will always be Sean Connery. Roger Moore had to endure much criticism from diehard Bond fans when it became obvious that he wouldn’t be a one-film wonder like George Lazenby. That seems trite now, when we are used to new a new actor every few years. But Connery’s appeal as THE Bond was demonstrated with 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which portrayed 007 as a balding, out-of-shape fellow who is reluctantly dragged out of retirement and back into action. The movie, of course, made a mint.

So every time a new Bond film is produced and carefully edited to maintain that PG-13 rating (something that I appreciate) and proceeds to make triple-figure-millions, remember, Boomers, that it all started when we were kids.

This was one of those movies of the 60’s that gave us the ratings system.

If I recall correctly, this movie came out with a “M” rating. That meant recommended for mature audiences. That didn’t stop a seven-year-old from getting into the Coleman Theater in Miami, Oklahoma with his older brother.

The movie featured some of the most violent scenes ever seen on the screen to that point. The slow motion machine gun scene at the end still gives me the shivers.

But it was also a pretty darned good movie, as can be evidenced by its imdb.com rating of 8.0.

And we loved repeating its lines and re-enacting its scenes in the school playground at recess. “Dirt in the fuel line. Just blew it away . . .”

If you were a kid in the 60’s who got in to see Bonnie and Clyde, I’ll bet you still remember it vividly.

Let’s face it, the lives of Boomer kids of the 60’s were ruled by four lads from Liverpool that none of us ever hoped to meet in person. Whether it was singing their songs on the way to school, carrying their faces plastered all over our lunchboxes, or buying their 45’s, we personally generated lots of publicity and profits for them and their various business partners.

Those business partners included the English and Hollywood movie industries. There were three successful films which we all have memories of excitedly watching during the Decade of Change.

The first Beatles film to come out was A Hard Day’s Night, released at the very height of Beatlemania in 1964. It was a British film which was presented as a “mockumentary,” a style later copied brilliantly by the Monty Python gang in their depiction of The Rutles. The movie portrayed humorously a couple of days in the life of the Liverpudlians, complete with attempts to escape adoring fans.

The movie is notable for its other actors. Paul’s grandfather is played by Wilfrid Brambell, who was the star of a hit British TV show called Steptoe and Son. It would later inspire the American series Sanford and Son. It also had a brief appearance by an unknown actress named Patty Boyd, who would be Mrs. George Harrison within eighteen months.

Oh, another extra was filmed, a young British lad by the name of Phil Collins.

One of the reasons the film was such a hit is because the boys never took themselves too seriously. That would pretty much be their trademark throughout their existence as a group.

The smash success of their first film made a second one mandatory. This would be Help!, released the next year in 1965. We got to see the Beatles in color as they romped it up.

The plot, such as it was, involved Ringo having a ring stuck on his finger which was used in human sacrifice rites by a Thuggee cult. The remainder of the movie involves the Thugs chasing down Ringo as he desperately tries to get that blasted ring off of his finger before he is offered up to their gods.

The movie involves pubs, the Bahamas, a mean tiger, exploding curling rocks, and a few other oddities. And it was a smash hit.

John Lennon would later say that the boys were doing some of their first experimentation with drugs, smoking lots of marijuana between takes. For better or worse, it added to the frivolity and the lack of self-importance which made the movie fun.

The next film would be a big, stinking bomb. Magical Mystery Tour was a 1967 made-for-TV mess that Paul was ramrodding, to the rest of the boys’ reluctance. Paul’s being the boss here was a factor in the group’s eventual breakdown, as the cohesiveness that was felt when all four agreed on something was replaced by one of them attempting to do the thinking of the rest.

Paul was attempting to capture the spirit of Ken Kesey’s LSD-addled Merry Pranksters as they made their way across the US in 1964 in a psychedelically-painted schoolbus. The movie’s message was heavily bowdlerised for the staid BBC, and thus ended up making little sense. Perhaps a few tabs would have helped. Despite the movie’s failure, the album it inspired was still a hit.

In 1968, Yellow Submarine showed us the Beatles in cartoon form. These weren’t the same moptops we saw in the ABC Saturday morning show. No, these were older, wiser, hairier, spacier Beatles who traveled throughout a very weird world resembling, yes, an LSD trip.

The Blue Meanies were threatening life as we know it by turning Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band into statues and draining the world of color. It’s up to the Fab Four to save the day, and they make their way to the underwater home of the frozen band in order to free them and restore color, beauty, and happiness to the cosmos.

Like the earlier animated series, the voices of the Beatles were actually provided by other actors. But the dialog was razor-sharp, and made clever references to the group’s latest music. It proved to be a hit, perhaps, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, best understood with the help of medication. 😉

The group made one last film,1969’s Let It Be, which documented a breakup. It was meant to show the creative forces behind the scenes involved in making an album, instead, it captured everyone in the worst light possible. It was simply bad timing. However, the rooftop concert scene at the end is worth watching.

Thus ended the era of the real-live Beatles at the box office. Later attempts to capture the group’s music and stories have been pretty lame. At presstime Nowhere Boy is enjoying critical popularity with its limited release, perhaps it might buck the trend.

However, we who were lucky enough to experience the 60’s can recall a magical time when we were seeing the Beatles on the silver screen while the group was off somewhere else recording even more timeless, truly great music.

Ah, sweet summers of the 60’s. What could be more carefree than hanging out with Frankie, Annette, Fabian, Tab, and the rest of the gang on a sunny southern California beach with great rock and roll blasting in the background and, of course, a plethora of bikinis and muscular, bare-chested surfers…

Lord knows that there was enough pain, stress, and unrest in the decade to make your head spin. But beach movies provided us with an escape to a world where the biggest problem you might face would be trying to get the cute blonde with the groovy dance moves to notice you.

The beach movie era began with 1959’s Gidget. Sandra Dee’s character, Frances, learns to surf under the tutelage of one Moondoggie, played by James Darren. He is a dreamboat, and Gidget has her challenges ahead of her to get him to notice her as something other than a prodigy on a surfboard. Cliff Robertson plays the Big Kahuna, and Tom Laughlin, who would gain future fame as Billy Jack, had a bit part as well.

The movie was a smash, and another film involving lots of nubile young bodies clad in skimpy swim attire was released the following year.

In 1960, the phenomenon of the Fort Lauderdale college spring break was explored with Where the Boys Are, starring the lovely, sweet-voiced Connie Francis and George Hamilton. It too cleaned up at the box office.

These two films, while serving as the harbingers of the beach movie phenomenon, achieved critical acclaim as well. That was not to be the case with the flood of beach party movies that would follow. But still, it was all lightweight fun to take our minds off of things like assassinations, war, and crosses in flames. In that sense, the movies scored a perfect ten.

Beginning in 1963, the movies that came pouring out of Hollywood included Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Muscle Beach Party, Ride the Wild Surf, Beach Blanket Bingo, The Girls on the Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Endless Summer, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (which featured aging horror stars Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone), It’s a Bikini World, and 1968’s The Sweet Ride, the last of an era.

The films had nice lightweight plots involving surf competitions, girls who just can’t get noticed by the cute guys, bikinis, extremely square dim-witted authority figures, bikinis, space aliens, hot rods, bikinis, dance contests, ghosts, and, of course, bikinis.

Top-forty hits were heard blasting in the background, and there would frequently be appearances by bands, whether put together just for the film, or established groups in their own right. These included Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, the Animals, the Castaways, the Pyramids, the Toys, the Beau Brummels, and the Kingsmen. Little Stevie Wonder was also a frequent musical guest. And the stars usually crooned a song or two apiece as well.

The movies had an astonishing variety of familiar names in them. Besides Frankie, Annette, Fabian, and Tab, these included Linda Evans, Deborah Walley, Jody McCrea, Tommy Kirk, Nancy Sinatra, Toni Basil, Shelley Fabares, Jackie DeShannon, Morey Amsterdam, Beau Bridges, Ronnie Howard, and Bobby “Boris” Pickett, who would score a Top Forty hit with Monster Mash. Token squares were played by Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Elsa Lanchester, and Buster Keaton, among others.

Peter Lupus, who would go on to fame in Mission: Impossible, used his sculpted Mr.Hercules body to great effect in Muscle Beach Party, which also featured pre-steroid-era bodybuilders Dan Haggerty (aka Grizzly Adams), Chet Yorton, and Larry Scott.

The beach movie era was basically over by the Summer of Love. No comeback ever took place, which is just as well. The innocent free-for-all spirit of the lightweight classics could never happen in the 21st century. The sex that was so barely and carefully alluded to would now be depicted in its full unimaginative glory. The male lead would be coming to terms with his feelings of repressed homosexuality. The female would be dealing with having been raised in an abusive household. The bodybuilders would be suffering the effects of long-term steroid abuse. And the RIAA would sue anyone who dared to download any of the hit songs.

So here’s to the era of the beach party movie: a time of innocence that was seen in the movie theater that now seems as strange to us as the concept of filling up a car for five bucks.