I hope your wife puts starch in your shorts

[sovay]

The nicest thing I can say about the jaw-plummetingly un-hip pseudo-rock musical The Cool Ones (1967)—besides the fact that it is, in the way of truly bad art, a one-of-a-kind experience—is that Roddy McDowall took the only sensible approach to a script his agent had evidently signed him to in a drunken blackout and approached his material teeth-first; he plays an immature record tycoon with a Napoleon complex ("I am Tony Krum and nobody yells at me unless I say so!") and expresses the sentiments of the entire audience with a number called "Where Did I Go Wrong?" Nobody in this movie looks good in their apparent fashions of the time, but at least when his ruffled shirt and ascot and Lincoln convertible are all the same brilliant purple, he blends; the combined effect of the black leather pants with the Tyrolean hat in green corduroy, however, is not actually mitigated by having a Christmas-tree paisley vest in between. The movie seems convinced it is making an incisive statement on teen counterculture when it is in fact haphazardly edited—jump-cutting and cross-fading as if someone in the cutting room had heard of Richard Lester once—and as establishment as they come. Maybe even more so: but for a TV cameo by the Surfaris and a somewhat more extended appearance by the Leaves, no viewer could reasonably be expected to link the synthetic, Vegas-out-of-Broadway pop culture of this movie to anything actually being enjoyed by the rebellious youth of 1967. One song is performed in a gondola on the way up a mountain ("Hey, down there, look up here / We're going to get high up here / High in the sky up there / Just watch the show") and you can hear the suits nudging one another with their daring. There is a moment in the finale when the legendary Mrs. Miller is Florence Foster Jenkinsing her way through an extra-vibrato, key-optional rendition of Styne and Cahn's "It's Magic" and McDowall stuffs his face in the stage curtain to hide the fact that he's corpsing. It was the one authentic expression of emotion we could detect all movie. Everything else is apparently being enacted by plastic dolls periodically clicking chests or faces with each other. I feel bad for Gene Nelson whom I liked so much in Crime Wave (1954), but he is not one of Nature's directors. You realize someone gave the actors instructions only because they couldn't have turned out so artificial if left to themselves. The romance has the chemistry and probably consistency of flour paste. The dialogue's idea of hip lingo is "Like, uh, I haven't met some of these ditty bops. Who's her?" I tracked down the original recording of "It's Magic" just to hear what it sounded like when it wasn't wrecking Roddy McDowall and it led me to this rather lovely photo of Doris Day before she was Hollywoodized into hyper-virginity; otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, it's a good thing I see my therapist tomorrow. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel that had already been shot to review this movie for real, but I had to say something. Watch The Apple (1980) if you want a good bad rock musical. This was just so ineffably crummy.

Comments

[selkie]

Look, you have a very fine mind and you don't need to do dangerous things to prove it. You might have gone blind.

[sovay]

You might have gone blind.

Line not appearing in this post on account of being exclaimed by me to spatch while lying in bed afterward:

"Has it been visited by the racism fairy? Has it been visited by the sexism fairy? Who can tell? Its christening was presided over by the Fairy of Movies That Just Plain Suck!"

It at least gave value for money, in that we watched it for free.

[selkie]

*wonders about sunk opportunity cost though*

I wonder what you put out to make the racism and sexism fairies fuck right off. Skunked beer? We need to know, this day and age.

[sovay]

*wonders about sunk opportunity cost though*

If it helps, I have seen very few movies that I really, truly regret, and this one was too spectacularly stupid to rank among them.

[edit] It even has fans! "My fondness for . . . no, make that absolute love for this Swinging Sixties pop musical is as close to boundless as it is baseless. Baseless not in that I love it without reason (on the contrary, the list of things I love about The Cool Ones would fill up this entire post), but baseless in that my affection for this unfailingly gladdening go-go groove-a-rama has absolutely nothing to do with good filmmaking and 100% to do with the emotional, visceral, wholly subjective delight I derive from its cheery evocation of a particularly happy time in my youth." You know, that's fair. It's not me, but it's fair.

[selkie]

That is the most self-aware thing I have read all day. *admires person from afar*

[muccamukk]

Now I'm curious if you ever saw Absolute Beginners (1986), which has David Bowie in the Roddy McDowall role, and was probably middling rather than out right awful (though it's been a few years).

[sovay]

Now I'm curious if you ever saw Absolute Beginners (1986), which has David Bowie in the Roddy McDowall role, and was probably middling rather than out right awful (though it's been a few years).

I've heard of it, but never seen it! I would be surprised if it were as bad as The Cool Ones—I know for a fact that some of its music was good.

[movingfinger]

...it looks like Batman! Everything is so stylized and cartoonish. (Including the people.)

[sovay]

...it looks like Batman!

You know, McDowall's Tony would have made a perfectly convincing Batman villain at that:



(Between the fashion sense and the megalomania, I would have cheerfully heard him cover the "Dressing Song" from The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), but that did not happen.)

[selkie]

WHY DOESN'T MY OFFICE CHAIR LOOK LIKE THAT

[moon_custafer]

I think McDowell did play a Batman villain called “The Bookworm.” He wore a hat with a reading lamp attached.

[sovay]

He wore a hat with a reading lamp attached.

I can respect the priorities there.

[asakiyume]

YES. I think I remember that.

[sovay]

YES. I think I remember that.

He looks deranged but adorable!

[moon_custafer]

He committed a lot of book-themed crimes.

[gwynnega]

jump-cutting and cross-fading as if someone in the cutting room had heard of Richard Lester once

Hahaha! I'd forgotten that the Leaves and the Surfaris are in this thing. Otherwise you have perfectly described my memory of the film. The fact that I once sat through the whole movie proves that I really will watch anything with Roddy McDowall in it.

[sovay]

I'd forgotten that the Leaves and the Surfaris are in this thing. Otherwise you have perfectly described my memory of the film.

Thank you! I'm sorry!

The fact that I once sat through the whole movie proves that I really will watch anything with Roddy McDowall in it.

I mean, same.

[thisbluespirit]

besides the fact that it is, in the way of truly bad art, a one-of-a-kind experience

LOL, oh dear. And we've all experienced some of those. They are kind of worth it, especially for use in bonding with those who suffered alongside us.

[sovay]

They are kind of worth it, especially for use in bonding with those who suffered alongside us.

It is true that from now on if I suddenly shout "FENDERS!!" spatch will know what I'm talking about, and wince with me.

[larryhammer]

That. Urk.

*puts on Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" to wash the taste out*

[sovay]

*puts on Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" to wash the taste out*

Much appreciated!

[asakiyume]

Ineffably crummy is really saying something.

The romance has the chemistry and probably consistency of flour paste. ... oh boy.

Ditty bops.

Ditty bops?

... Ditty bops?

[sovay]

Ineffably crummy is really saying something.

It was really impressive.

... Ditty bops?

It turned out to be military slang for a radio operator—from the onomatopoeia of Morse code—but that still explains nothing about its presence in this movie.

[moon_custafer]

I’m guessing someone in the script sessions knew that “ditty” is a tune, and also sounds kind of feminine and “bop” is a style of jazz, and figured the audience would accept it as meaning something like “female musician?”

I think I prefer “hep-kitten.”

[sovay]

I’m guessing someone in the script sessions knew that “ditty” is a tune, and also sounds kind of feminine and “bop” is a style of jazz, and figured the audience would accept it as meaning something like “female musician?”

There appears to be a contemporary female-fronted band called the Ditty Bops, possibly for that reason.

I think I prefer “hep-kitten.”

"Hep kitten" is best. Especially when played by Ella Raines.

[radiantfracture]

I read this with great relish.

[sovay]

I read this with great relish.

I am very happy to hear it.