Palm Springs Weekend (1963)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Strong and Moving!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Fluff about a bunch of college kids spending Easter Week vacation in Palm Springs. There's Jim Munroe (Troy Donahue) romancing a local girl (Stefanie Powers) whose overprotective father happens to be the chief of police. Then there's innocent Gail (Connie Stevens) falling for psycho Eric (Robert Conrad) but is watched over by sweet Stretch (Ty Hardin). The odious comic relief of the kids named Biff (Jerry Van Dyke) falls for nerdy Amanda (Zeme North), AND the coach of the boys basketball team (Jack Weston) falls for Rosalind Russell sound alike Naomi (Carole Cook). The comedy is stupid, the complications predictable and there's zero believability here but I liked it! This falls squarely in the so-bad-it's-good category. The color is strong, the cast is certainly attractive and there's good acting by Stevens and Powers. Only real debit-=Robert Conrad. His character is clearly a psycho and Stevens keeps going out with him! I know she's naïve but THAT naïve? Still this is harmless fluff and terrible but fun.

You have to love the casting in 60's films where all the teenagers were pushing 30 (or in a few cases 40) and all of them looked it. There must have been an audience for these B pictures but even as an actual high school student when this was filmed I knew as did my friends that the actors in the Beach Party films and knock offs like this had nothing in common with us. Who went to parties in jackets and ties? And the plot here: overage basketball team tries to dodge coach to find women; spoiled and father issue "playboy/man" Robert Conrad pursues supposedly underage teenager, Connie Stevens; ugly duckling girl who knows judo finds love with college student Jerry Van Dyke; and Troy Donahue tries to make it with local who happens to be the sheriff's daughter. If you need to watch a flic of this genre you are so much better off with Animal House.

The film's story is about what one would expect for a romantic comedy from the early 1960s. California guys chase girls, and vice versa. With an exception or two, the tone is lighthearted, upbeat, frothy, and fluffy.The script has an ensemble cast. Connie Stevens, Ty Hardin, Stefanie Powers, and Robert Conrad probably fare the best. And Carole Cook, as a perky hotel clerk, is quite good. But Andrew Duggan, Jack Weston, and Jerry Van Dyke all seem out of place here.Major characters have enough dimension, though just barely, to make them reasonably interesting, especially Gale Lewis (Stevens) and Eric Dean (Conrad). One could argue that the script over-populates the story. Three or four main characters might have worked better. As is, the plot is all over the place as it flits from one character to another.Comedy is quite juvenile. It is very unsubtle, and veers toward slapstick. As an example, an annoying little boy named Boom-Boom creates havoc when his behavior results in a swimming pool that fills up with soap bubbles.Music trends decidedly upbeat. I like the Van Dyke/Hardin duo of "Bye Bye Blackbird". But I could have wished for some songs from the early 60s. The Kingston Trio performs a rather uninteresting number. More interesting than the song are the large, unattractive horn-rimmed glasses the lead singer wears.Don't expect any complex plot or heavy-duty message here. "Palm Springs Weekend" is pure fluff, engineered for entertainment. As such, the film will appeal mostly to older audiences yearning for a bit of early 1960s nostalgia.

The nice thing about Palm Springs Weekend is that the film makers did not waste the audiences' and their time with bad language and obscene material like today's film makers do. The plot may not be that original or Oscar material, but then again, not every film is meant to be or should be. However, it is wonderful, free-wheeling, nostalgic fun.I'm a college student and I saw this film for the first time when I was eighteen years old, and it was probably the first teen flick I could watch from beginning to end without having to change channels because of inappropriate content. The film centers around a group of college students and their antics when they converge on a Palm Springs Hotel for spring break. The story has its funny moments, like whenever the kids have run-ins with the local police or when Jerry Van Dyke tries to get people to check out his love machine. Watch out for Bill Mumy in the swimming pool scene. You'll laugh like crazy!The one to see is a young Robert Conrad (why can't there be more young actors like him today?), who's got a big part in this film, even though Troy Donahue got star-billing. This is the perfect film to watch if you're looking for something that's sweet, innocent, and timeless no matter how corrupt and cynical the world has gotten.