Lists: Those Trash Classics ....

We have been here before - call them what you will: Bad Movies We Love, Guilty Pleasures, Trash or Utter Trash ... those delirious melodramas and just plain bad movies that are so enjoyable - most of the great ladies did some: Lana and Susan and Joan and Bette specialised in them later in their careers, while other great ladies like Olivia and sister Joan dipped their toes in the muddy waters too. 

I have covered them in more detail in my earlier reviews - click on Trash-A label to read on ...http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/trash-favourites.html

Right now, I list them:

• PORTRAIT IN BLACK - Lana's crowning epic, from 1960 (whereas IMITATION OF LIFE is a cult classic)
• LOVE HAS MANY FACES - Lana does Acapulco, with Ruth Roman and those beach boy bums in speedos in 1966
• WHERE LOVE HAS GONE - Susan and Bette go head to head in this 1964 stinker 
• I THANK A FOOL - Susan and Finch should have been a great team but not in this weird meller shot in Ireland ...
• ADA - Susan in fighting form
  
• BACK STREET - the best of the Susan's ?, 1961
• STOLEN HOURS - love Susan's British remake of Bette' DARK VICTORY, in 1963
• SERENADE - Fontaine is stupendous in this Mario Lansz sudser, 1956
• ISLAND IN THE SUN - Joan 'romances' Harry Belafonte ... 1957
• LADY IN A CAGE - sister Olivia is trapped
• THE SINGING NUN - Debbie's worst in 1966, a travesty of the real Nun's Story
• A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME - Shelley chomps the scenery. 1964.
• SYLVIA - a Carroll Baker epic, its delirious, its delovely 
• SINCERELY YOURS - Liberace's sickly starrer, with Dot Malone and Joanne Dru competing for him ... a 1956 howler.
• MAMBO - a 1954 discovery, torrid saga with Silvana Mangano and Shelley Winters, in Italy.
• FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN - the perfect 1957 Universal-International meller, as is:
  
• THE FEMALE ANIMAL - thats Hedy Lamarr in 1957 with Jan Sterling, splendid as ever.
• GO NAKED IN THE WORLD - Gina ! 1960.
• THE CHAPMAN REPORT - Shelley, Glynis, Claire, young Jane Fonda ... we love Cukor's starry drama, The Higher Trash.
• THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER - Jane Russell ! with Agnes Moorehead as the madam, 1956.
• A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - one of Laurence Harvey's worst 
• WALK ON THE WILD SIDE - ditto, but with Stanwyck, Capucine, Fonda, Baxter ...
• THE LOVE MACHINE - a scream with gay David Hemmings and Dyan Cannon both wanting John Philip Law
• THE CROWDED SKY - best of the airline disasters?, 1960
• DORIAN GRAY - Helmut ! in 1970s London 
• GOODBYE GEMINI - one of the terrible British flicks of the era, 1970 - as was:
• MY LOVER, MY SON - why Romy. why did you make this terrible film?
• 10.30 PM SUMMER - fake arty 1966 Eurofare, but it does have Melina, Romy and Peter Finch
  
• POPE JOAN - Liv may have been great in those Bergman films but made some stinkers in English, none worse than this in 1972.
• Glenda made some stinkers too, none worse than THE INCREDIBLE SARAH in 1976, where she flounces around as Bernhardt in a Readers Digest travesty. Its a scream. 
• BLUEBEARD - Edward Dmytryk helmed some Trash Classic favourites like THE CARPETBAGGERS, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, but came a cropper here, aided by Burton's worst performance, in 1972
• THE SQUEEZE - rather good Brit gangster flick, from 1977, with down on their luck Boyd, Hemmings, Carol White ...  BRANNIGAN (John Wayne) and HENNESSEY (Rod Steiger and wasted Lee Remick) were amusing mid-70s British thrillers too ...

We don't bother with the insultingly bad, like THE OSCAR or HARLOW ..... then there are the Troy Donahue and Ann-Margret clunkers, and you know how we love those Bette and Joans: TORCH SONG, HARRIET CRAIG, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, QUEEN BEE, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, BERSERK! or two Bettes in DEAD RINGER.

Tab Hunter Confidential

The book "Tab Hunter Confidential" was a fascinating read some years ago, as Tab took us through his career as that Fifties heart-throb with a secret - he was gay. It is now a film, with a wealth of clips and interviewees from that Fifties Golden Age. 

Tab, now in his mid-80s, is still fit, busy with his horses, and comes across as a man of integrity. He does not dish any dirt needlessly, and unlike some (Rock) he did not do the usual marriage of convenience for a year or two to put off the newshounds. He was genuinely friends with those girls he dated: Natalie, Debbie, Venetia Stevenson, Terry Moore etc. The survivors are all here, plus Robert Wagner, Clint Eastwood, Mother Dolores Hart, Rex Reed and more.

The clips show what a big deal he was then - I liked him in ISLAND OF DESIRE, BATTLE CRY, the two with Natalie - her dark looks complementing his blonde - and with Sophia Loren in Lumet's under-rated THAT KIND OF WOMAN in 1959. Pity he never got that main role that defined him (unlike his pal Tony Perkins), perhaps his best role now is in DAMN YANKEES in 1958, with that Fosse choreography. 

Tab also had a go at singing and had some top ten hits and albums, but he got tired of all that and bought out his Warner Bros contract, so Jack Warner replaced him with the manufactured Troy Donahue - another of gay agent Henry Willson's boys (as was Tab, plus Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun and of course Rock) while Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Fabian were also hitting the movies. It was though the cusp of the 1960s with a new breed of new guys emerging like the young Warren Beatty and Robert Redford who were able to parlay their looks into enduring careers. Other '50s hunks like Jeff Hunter and Robert Wagner had similar career problems. 

Tab was soon old hat, despite a surfing movie and some European cheapies. But he kept going, with smaller roles and guest appearances, as in THE LOVED ONE in 1965. He was also into figure-skating and horse-jumping, and did a lot of dinner theatre. He was also in that short-lived first production of Tennessee Williams' THE MILK TRAIN DOES NOT STOP HERE ANYMORE with Tallulah Bankhead - one of those productions that has passed into legend (it later became the Burtons' BOOM!).  Then of course he was re-discovered by John Waters for POLYESTER and LUST IN THE DUST with bombshell Divine. 

Lots of fascinating stories here, including his relationship with Tony Perkins (a very ambitious actor, who managed to get Tab's television role in FEAR STRIKES OUT to film for himself) and how Tab had to look after his mother and brother, who did not survive Vietnam. 

Tab now seems a contented man, well-liked and respected as the later generation of gays find his story fascinating and how he handled it during that closeted time. Tab is a Hollywood blonde who has endured; like the books by Michael York and John Fraser, Tab's shows how actors keep going once the initial limelight fades ... 

Summer re-views: beach boys

A wet Saturday as summer slips away from us - here in the UK at any rate. How about some beach boy pix to refresh our memories ..... bring on Tom, Tab, Guy, Alain, Rory, Jeff, Fabian and all the rest ....
Alain in PLEIN SOLEIL, and that 1930s nifty swimsuit for THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE. 

Thats Guy Madison on the beach, then Rory Calhoun and Jeff Hunter, Tyrone Power with Cesar Romero, Farley Granger, Tab, Fabian, Troy and Sandra go off to A SUMMER PLACE, and lets end with Tom Daley on the beach at Rio before the Games.... go Tom. 
Well, Tom didn't qualify for the final 12 - these things happen on the day - but hopefully the poster boy and media star will return again for Tokyo in 4 years time .... 

Bad Movies We Love

Here is a Trash Classic indeed. Rebello and Marguilies' 1995 tome on those bad movies we love, with a foreword by Sharon Stone, who gets a whole chapter to herself. The usual suspects though are here in force: Lana, Susan, Joan (Crawford), Bette and all those delirious movies of theirs.

Browsing it again makes one want to dig out QUEEN BEE (Joan - ["wearing the kind of gown a female impersonator would choose"]: "Any man's my man if I want it that way" or: "You look sweet - even in those tacky old clothes"); or Lana's PORTRAIT IN BLACK or LOVE HAS MANY FACES - perennial favourites of ours. Others like THE CHAPMAN REPORT, THE  BEST OF EVERYTHING, SERENADE, PARRISH and those Troy Donahue spectaculars get their due (I will have to look out for PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND, which sounds a hoot).

Pity they did not include Suzanne Pleshette's opus A RAGE TO LIVE, or THE SUBTERRANEANS or THE SOUND AND THE FURY or Lee Remick's SANCTUARY or Jean Simmons' HILDA CRANE or Jane Russell's THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER or Shelley's A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME or Debbie's THE SINGING NUN.... maybe in a new edition, and with a foreword by Joan Collins please? At least JOHNNY GUITAR gets it due - a delicious piece on its gay subtext, as does TORCH SONG, AUTUMN LEAVES, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, Bette's THE STAR and DEAD RINGER and Lucille's MAME, plus the pure trash of THE OSCAR and THE LOVE MACHINE and ... those 'disasters' get trashed again too: those AIRPORTs, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, EARTHQUAKE etc. too easy to make fun of those! 

Lets' savour a few comments on the usually-respected THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (the 1968 one, natch): "Its not the money" business tycoon Steve McQueen drawls soulfully "Its me and the System" - that 60s phrase explains why the ineffably cool McQueen - who plays polo, drives a Rolls, pilots his own glider plane and dune buggy, and lives in a killer Boston mansion - masterminds multi-million dollar bank robberies on the side.... Everything's so terribly, laughably with-it in Norman Jewison's chi-chi epic - that you could bliss out with glee from all the faux hip dialogue, multiple-screen images ... Dunaway, all teeth and legs, and blissfully unaware of how disasterously dated she is going to look in those Theodora Van Runkle costumes, sets a trap to catch a thief, McQueen, whom she just knows is the mastermind".

Lots more here too on bad girls we love like Gina Lollobrigida in GO NAKED IN THE WORLD, Taylor and Burton get roasted for THE SANDPIPER and THE VIPs and Liz' THE DRIVER'S SEAT and X, Y AND ZEE (one I have been meaning to return to...). Carroll Baker gets her due (SYLVIA, THE CARPETBAGGERS, HARLOW) as does Natalie Wood (MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR), Ann-Margret ("THE SWINGER might just be the all-time tackeiest major studio  movie") and so many more .... its well worth seeking out for Trash devotees.   

Above: Bette, Susan and director Edward Dmytryk who after his early successes (THE YOUNG LIONS, RAINTREE COUNTY) hit the Trash trail with a vengance: WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, THE CARPETBAGGERS, BLUEBEARD ...

Actors want to act

A pleasant surprise watching the latest episde (5th of 6) of the superior BBC comedy series REV, this week, when a surprise guest star turned up - Liam Neeson, as God, no less (its already been transmitted, so hardly a spoiler) - to comfort our troubled vicar Adam when everything is going wrong for him, as this third series gets more sombre. 
I hope there will be an uplifting climax next week. Olivia Colman is also superlative of course, again playing Adam's wife who now has a busy career of her own and in fact we see less of her this time around .... It was good to see Liam and Tom together again - they were the original Oscar and Bosie in that play THE JUDAS KISS which was a successful revival last year, with Rupert Everett, as per my posts at the time - theatre label. Joseph Fiennes (right) too is effective in REV as the bishop. [I have been corrected, thanks Mark - its of course Ralph Fiennes!].

It all reminded me of how much actors want to act (Tom Hollander has just finished playing Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in a new drama) and of course Liam is now an action star, his last one set on the airplane seems a must see when on dvd. I was thinking about how even legendary actors like Jack Lemmon (post below), James Stewart, Henry Fonda et al kept working into old age, when they really didn't need to any more, on the stage as well as film. At least they didn't do too much material of lesser value to damage their reputations - unlike say Ray Milland or Joseph Cotten who ended up in all kinds of dreck, and we won't even mention Joan and TROG !  Right: the 1998 JUDAS KISS with Neeson and Hollander which I saw in London before it went to New York.

I am of the opinion that most fortunate actors who come along at the right time get "ten good years" (that delicious song Nancy Wilson sang in her live cabaret act), certainly the likes of Stephen Boyd and Laurence Harvey did - mid-'50s to mid-'60s, or Michael York (mid-'60s to mid-70s), York being one of the fortunate ones who was able to continue in lesser supporting roles, whereas Harvey's and Boyd's careers had died before they did. Fortunate indeed are the likes of Dirk Bogarde or Alain Delon or Jean Sorel who can go on for decades, whereas in the theatre actors like Jeremy Brett or John Stride can transcend their good looks as they get older. Is there the curse of the very good looking actor who starts out well but then fizzles out ? (Whatever did happen to Jeremy Spenser, Leonard Whiting, Graham Faulkner, Martin Potter et al...?). Left: the kind of period movie actors must like appearing in: Michael Redgrave, Richard Warwick, Martin Potter, Tom Baker in NICHOLAS & ALEXANDRA, 1971.

Sometimes one sees an actor who started out well and seems reduced to nothing parts some years later, like John Philip Law - so promising in the mid-60s as the angel in BARBARELLA, in HURRY SUNDOWN, DANGER DIABOLIK etc, having literally nothing to do in the all star CASSANDRA CROSSING in 1976, as an aide to Burt Lancaster, right, with Ingrid Thulin. Well I dare say JPL (who died aged 70 in 2008) had that 10 good years.

Ditto Barry Coe, left, who was a promising 20th Century Fox contract player in the '50s and early '60s - Rodney Harrington in the 1957 PEYTON PLACE, the hero in 300 SPARTANS (looking fetching in a mini toga) etc. 
but in 1966 he is an un-named "communications aide" repeating commands in FANTASTIC VOYAGE - an amusing watch last week. He was also Carroll Baker's boyfriend in the 1959 comedy BUT NOT FOR ME with Clark Gable and Lilli Palmer. Coe went into television in shows like GENERAL HOSPITAL and continued acting to 1978. Other tv actors like George Maharis or Gardner McKay fared less well in the movies.

Barry, centre, in FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Brett Halsey (left) was another of the Fox pretty boys (RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING etc) as was future producer/tycoon Robert Evans (one of the cads in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING), though Robert Wagner and Jeff Hunter were the main Fox contract players, Joanne Woodward and Stuart Whitman too of course. Ditto Fabian - see HOUND DOG MAN post below.
A Fox film like NO DOWN PAYMENT (Jeff Hunter label) is stuffed with their contract players. Jeff Hunter unfortunately died too young too, in 1969, but found his imperishable role as Martin Pawley in THE SEARCHERS, which is always on view somewhere (as it was here yesterday). Robert Wagner was the most successful of all, with some good movies in Europe (THE PINK PANTHER) and successful in television. The Universal-International pretty boys like Rock and Tony Curtis worked hard through supporting parts to build careers and achieve A-list movie status, as before them did Guy Madison and Jeff Chandler and ...while Warners had those blondes Troy and Tab, and Tony Perkins (Tab and Tony tried singing too with some success - see labels), and Kerwin Matthews over at Columbia ... 

One has to feel sorry though for Richard Davalos, over at Warner Bros: the role of Aaron, the other brother in Kazan's EAST OF EDEN must have been a plum role, but with James Dean as Cal, Davalos was completely over-shadowed. At least the DVD contains those screen tests with Dean and Davalos and young Paul Newman who also tested, and was soon doing Dean roles. Davalos's other credit that year (apart from a bit part in a Jack Palance film) was a small part in Warners THE SEA CHASE, a John Wayne-Lana Turner starrer, where sailors Davalos and Tab Hunter go for a swim in shark-infested waters - guess which one the shark heads for.... ?  He contined acting until 2008 with small parts in films like Newman's COOL HAND LUKE, and lots of television. Right: Davalos, Dean & Julie Harris in EAST OF EDEN.

Heavyweight stuff coming up: Finney in Huston's UNDER THE VOLCANO, Frears' PRETTY DIRTY THINGS with this year's best actor nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, LOVE IS THE DEVIL with Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon and Daniel Craig as his criminal lover .... more impersonations with the Liberace film BEHIND THE CANDELABRA and Helena Bonham-Carter a surprisingly effective Elizabeth Taylor in BURTON AND TAYLOR ....  
Left: Jeffrey Hunter / right: Jean Sorel.

Wild in the country / you ain't nothing but a hound dog! - more teen heart-throbs ...

HOUND DOG MAN in ’59 may not be a western at all but is an amiable, pleasing backwoods comedy drama by Don Siegel set in rural America showcasing Fox’s new talent: singer Fabian as the confused teen, Stuart Whitman as his ne’er-do-well pal who takes the kids on a weekend of hunting with their hound-dogs, Carol Lynley and Dodie Stevens are the girls - Carol wants to tame Whitman, while Dodie and Fabian seem fated to be mated, after that barn-dance. 

Arthur O’Connell and Betty Field are the nice understanding parents, and there are old timers like Jane Darwell and Royal Dano, and its all perfectly delightful. Siegel also scored next year in 1960 putting Elvis out west in the stirring FLAMING STAR. HOUND DOG MAN is the kind of thing 20th Century Fox did well, their charming version of rural Americana ... usually those Jerry Wald productions like the pretty but vapid HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN in 1962.

Teen heart-throbs:
Fabian was the ideal idol for a while then - an Italian-American teenager discovered and made a singer, he looked the part and filled a pair of jeans nicely. Good too with comic timing in NORTH TO ALASKA (rave for this favourite 1960 western at Fabian label) and other Fox movies like HIGH TIME, FIVE WEEKS IN A BALOON, and MR HOBBS TAKES A VACATION, amother other acting roles. 
He posed (tastefully) for "Playgirl" and aged quite well.  Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson (and even Tommy Sands) all went into the movies too, scoring while Elvis was away in the army - Ricky being a delight in Hawks' RIO BRAVO - and of course Bobby Darin in COME SEPTEMBER, not to mention the Elvis films - his big hit G I BLUES after his return from Germany, and those Fox dramas WILD IN THE COUNTRY and FLAMING STAR before all those lesser-quality items ... while serious actors like Tab Hunter and Tony Perkins tried their hand at singing - successfully too ! Then came the blondes: Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, James Franciscus, and another striking brunette: Kerwin Matthews ... as per labels. Soon: more Guy Madison ! Kerwin Matthews ! George Maharis ! and those new 60s boys Warren Beatty, Christopher Jones ("the new James Dean"), Georges Peppard and Hamilton, Jean Sorel and some French guys ...

Summer re-runs: a summer place in Rome

"A cannily crafted piece of work with mass audience appeal" - The Warner Bros. Story

A SUMMER PLACE: Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue star in this enduring favourite about desire and tumult at an elite Maine resort, from the best-seller by Sloan Wilson. In his first movie lead, Donahue is strong, handsome and unshakably devoted as lovestruck Johnny Hunter. 17 year old Dee is pixieish Molly, a woman/child struggling to cope with adult emotions. Set to a lush Max Steiner score that produced one of the most unforgettable movie themes ever, this box-office hit also stars adults (Dorothy McGuire, Richard Egan, Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford) also romantically at odds. As Johnny, Molly and their parents discover, love will find a way. They've already found the locale: A Summer Place. 

Any iconography from that great year 1959 has to include that shot (above) of Troy and Sandra from A SUMMER PLACE,  one of the year's popular hits up there with PILLOW TALK, IMITATION OF LIFE and THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - as well as the year's big hitters like BEN HUR, SOME LIKE IT HOT, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, RIO BRAVO and those adult dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, ON THE BEACH, THE NUN'S STORY or ROOM AT THE TOP.  Sloane Wilson was one of those chroniclers of American middle-class mores (as in THE MAN IN THE GREY FLANNEL SUIT) and I remember his "A Summer Place" being a best-seller. I don't recall the film though turning up at my local cinema - adultery, divorce, pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy were hot potatoes and strictly off-limits in the Ireland of 50 years ago... . the teen fan mags like "Movieland and TV Time" had plenty of colour pin-ups and stories on Troy, Sandra, Connie and the rest....

Seeing it now its a well-crafted movie with the glorious scenery of Maine (or is it California?) and that great Max Steiner score (which also inspired the pop hit by Ferrante & Teicher). Richard Egan is the wealthy, mature ex-lifeguard returning to Pine Cove on vacation, with his controlling, repressed wife Constance Ford (why though does he put up with her so far?, they already sleep in separate rooms) and their daughter Molly (Dee, in that busy year for her). He really wants to see old flame Dorothy McGuire who has married alcoholic hotel owner Arthur Kennedy (first seen with a glass in his hand), their son Johnny (Troy) and Molly are soon sneaking off for romantic walks and kisses in the moonlight, and the two adults resume their affair too.
Busybody Bealah Bondi watches and is in her element. Constance consults her mother to see how she should procced to maximise her divorce. Troy looks a treat in those short shorts and cardigan, but his acting seems rather limited ... (he was ok though in those small parts in IMITATION OF LIFE and THE CROWDED SKY - Troy label). 

Constance & plastic christmas tree

Storm clouds gather as the teens are stranded on a beach all night and Molly's mother insists a doctor examine her to make sure nothing happened ... there are some good hysterical scenes here. The plot moves on, the adults divorce, Egan and McGuire marry and move to a Frank Lloyd Wright house (above), the teens are at their separate colleges but visit and it all gets rather heated again .... until the prolonged (at over 2 hours) climax. Ford is in her element here as the mother from hell. I couldn't help recalling that she and Kennedy were the mismatched parents of CLAUDELLE INGLISH, that other delicious piece of Warner trash from the early 60s, which starred Diane McBain, who pops up next with Troy in PARRISH, below... Dorothy McGuire seems an under-rated lady now, but was terrific with Cooper in FRIENDLY PERSUASION (1956), SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and others like THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1960).

Director Delmar Daves made his name with some great westerns like DRUM BEAT (my father took me to that in 1954, one of the first westerns I saw as a kid), and the original 3.10 TO YUMA, COWBOY and that good Gary Cooper one I liked THE HANGING TREE in '59,  and he scripted WHITE FEATHER - he then turned to these lush Warner melodramas showcasing their new star Troy Donahue; the hit of A SUMMER PLACE was followed with PARRISH and SUSAN SLADE both '61 and ROME ADVENTURE in '62. He also did another Italian one THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA in '65 which has been long unseen, and also that 1964 one I saw and reviewed a while ago: YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE (trash label) as well as SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN in '63 which became THE WALTONS. 

PARRISH is another delicious romantic saga now and was a hit too, as Parrish (Troy) and his mother (Claudette Colbert) move to tobacco country in Connecticut. The adults are great here: warring Karl Malden (also terrific in Daves' HANGING TREE) and Dean Jagger, as Parrish romances Connie Stevens, stunning Diane McBain and Sharon Hugueny. Troy looks the business and the girls, particularly McBain, are all equally showcased. Max Steiner scores again and its a lush treat for anytime. (This was as weirdly enjoyable as Elvis over at Fox romancing Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld and Millie Perkins in Jerry Wald's WILD IN THE COUNTRY. Sheer hokum.) 

SUSAN SLADE is certainly a kitsch classic now too ...but a more hysterical sudser, no wonder it has not been seen for a long time. Connie Stevens again is Susan, who has a baby out of wedlock and her mother (Dorothy McGuire again) pretends to be the infant's mother, which causes no end of melodramatics as Susan is wooed by horse-trainer Troy (love the red windbreaker jacket), while Lloyd Nolan is sterling as Susie's father. Max scores the music again and its lushly shot by Lucien Ballard.

Dear Prudence

ROME ADVENTURE, 1962, was titled LOVERS MUST LEARN here, the title of the book our librarian heroine Prudence Bell (Suzanne Pleshette in her debut) resigns over at the start and sets off for Italy to find romance. Rosanno Brazzi is of course the older Italian man who has romantic designs on Prue and Troy is also resident at the nice villa. Rome looks curiously empty as our duo explore the sights on their scooter, and we also get a travelogue of Italy taking in the leaning tower of Pisa, the Lakes and other delights. Italy was popular with Americans then: Gable with Loren in IT STARTED IN NAPLES, Rock with Gina (and Sandra!) in COME SEPTEMBER, Vivien in Rome for her ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE,  Minnelli's TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA in Florence and Angie Dickinson as JESSICA (after Italy being discovered in the '50s by ROMAN HOLIDAY and THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN. among others as that LA DOLCE VITA era took off).

Angie also co-stars here as Troy's previous lover, who leaves at the start - but, guess what, she returns (and wears a fabulously slinky ensemble to reclaim her lover at that dinner she hosts)  .... we also get Constance Ford again as the bookshop owner where Prudence works - "The American Bookshop" small on the outside but the large interior is actually the library set from Warners THE MUSIC MAN, (right). There is also another lush Steiner score and a great song "Al Di La"- its all a delirious confection as "written for the screen" (rather tongue in cheek surely as each cliche is burnished) by and directed by Daves. Troy though was not in Daves next, as it was the turn of another Warner Bros contract blonde (James Franciscus) as YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE. 
Suzanne was nice too in that one, and of course in THE BIRDS, FATE IS THE HUNTER (Suzanne label) etc, and looked just the same in WILL AND GRACE as Karen's mother! - fun too seeing her in later roles like THE QUEEN OF MEAN! She and Troy were married for a year or so ... Troy though, like Tab Hunter and Fabian, did not stay a heart-throb for too long - by the mid '60s those new guys like Beatty and Redford were taking over .... but these kitch classics by Delmar Daves have stood the test of time and are now all re-issued as a boxset with another of Troy's I do not know: PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND from '63. Troy may have had his limitations as an actor - as seen by his Romeo scene at Juliet's balcony in Verona (this was among 19 minutes of travelogue cut from the English release version! - according to the "Films & Filming" review).  Troy and Suzanne (& McBain) also did a so-so western for Raoul Walsh, A DISTANT TRUMPET in 1964, looking incongrous out west.
[Troy Donahue 1936-2001, Sandra Dee 1942-2005, Suzanne Pleshette 1937-2008].