The Cool Ones

As a fan of 60s pop culture, I wanted to like this movie. Sadly, this wasted opportunity of a film feels like a rejected script for a proposed Elvis/Beach Party movie. (The director did two Elvis vehicles prior to this.) The muddled, meandering screenplay is by a failed, one-time writer and a studio hack who penned "Ski Party" and both "Dr. Goldfoot" flicks. This film doesn't know what it wants to be. It's a little of this, a bit of that, and a whole lot of bland filler in between. At least we have some pretty people, including a young Teri Garr, in colorful mod outfits doing Toni Basil dance numbers now and then.

The promising opener is a take-off on pop music programs like Hullabaloo and Shindig. A cute blonde go-go dancer (Debbie Watson) yearns to be the next Nancy Sinatra (supposedly, Sinatra passed on the lead role but her singing is heard in some songs). Enter scene-chewing Roddy McDowall. He has a few amusing scenes as wildly eccentric music producer Tony Krum -- a likely parody of legendary whack-job Phil Spector. His fawning assistant, played by the wonderful, sadly neglected Nita Talbot, almost steals the film in her one big seduction scene with lunkhead Gil Peterson. She has comic timing and a sophisticated sex appeal that blows everyone else off the screen. Debbie Watson is fine, but she's one of those generic, wholesome starlets who -- like Deborah Walley, Susan Hart, Pat Priest, Chris Noel, et al. -- provided charming eye-candy in countless '60s comedy/musicals but left no lasting impression.

After McDowall's grand entrance, the film almost becomes a zany spoof of absurd pop-music fads and instant stardom. But this only lasts about five minutes. The gutless, aimless script has nothing more to say about the music business and shifts to the sappy romance between Watson and human Ken doll Gil Peterson. They meet cute and cavort about, performing several song-and-dance numbers for the rest of the near-plot less story. Then it just abruptly ends due to a lack of ideas. Or maybe they ran out of film stock. No tension, no drama, no witty parody, and no resolution to speak of.

The hackneyed romance, cornball dialog, and groan-inducing attempts at humor are, as said before, on par with a Beach Party flick or a standard Elvis musical. (Bit players Talbot, Garr, and Angelique Pettyjohn all did Elvis films, by the way.) There's a couple decent rock songs with twangy, Byrds-like guitar riffs and some vocals by Nancy Sinatra. Also surprising to see a segment playing "This Town" while Watson wanders about in her trendy vinyl cap. Sinatra did a near-identical music video for this song in her "Movin' with Nancy" TV special that same year.

Recommendation: The only entertainment value is for lovers of campy 60s fashions. The mod outfits, mostly Mary Quant-style knock-offs, already seem a bit dated for 1967. The Palm Springs dance number that begins in a tram-car and continues on a mountaintop is great fun (and shows off Teri Garr). McDowall and Talbot elevate the weak material they're given. If the film had focused on them and the music industry this could have been a decent comedy instead of a watered-down, girl-meets-boy musical. If you like this genre, you'd be better off watching "Speedway" (with Elvis and Sinatra) or "Movin' with Nancy".

"The Cool Ones" is a very bad film. Yet it's an unusual bad film because it's unintentionally funny and offers an odd little window into the strange and exciting late 60s.

The story begins on the set of a show much like "American Bandstand" or "Hullabaloo". A young obnoxious lady, Hallie, is tired of just being one of the professional dancers on the show and she tries (in the worst possible way) to get the producers to listen to her sing, as she has a VERY high opinion of her skills. The worst of it is she insists on all this moments before the show goes on the air. When she doesn't get their attention, she decides to do something insane...she attacks the guy singing on the show (Glen Campbell...before he became famous as a country music singer...when he was a member of the famed 'Wrecking Crew'). She steals his microphone away from him and begins singing...and the two struggle and shake and make fools of themselves. Oddly enough, after she is fired, the producers are shocked to find the audience watching this live LOVED the interlude and thought it was planned! Soon, Hallie is a pop star singing with the talented Cliff and they are being managed by the strange and charismatic Mr. Krum (Roddy McDowell). What's next?

The film is funny because it tries very hard to be young and hip...and fails miserably at every turn. The hip modern music sung by Hallie and Cliff is pretty bland and the sort of stuff old people thought was hip...and which wasn't. Additionally, several old squares (such as Phil Harris) played hip folks...and their trying to be cool was hilariously uncool. Also really uncool was Mr. Krum...who just came off as silly and a parody of the Phil Spector-type producers. Overall, tragically unhip...the sort of thing oldsters thought hippies and other teens would love...but they clearly didn't!

You hear that "The Cool Ones" is "The groovy movie with the hip hit tunes" (an official tagline), so you want to dig the scene, right? Not really. The scene is a confusing mixture of pop cultural references as written by a committee of older businessmen. If you were not around in 1967, when the movie was released, you will probably have difficulty knowing what references really were "cool" in 1967 and which were manufactured, or warmed over fare from years before. If you were around in 1967, the movie is somewhat fun--despite being bad--to pick apart and reminisce about.

In my opinion, this film is a musical. Musical numbers are staged in the middle of scenes, and the characters break out in song when not on a stage. Trying to create a teen movie musical is a bold undertaking, but this is no "Bye Bye Birdie". It features a young go-go dancer(Debbie Watson playing Hallie Rogers) and a former singing idol (Gil Peterson playing Cliff Donner) who meet in a supposedly hip club called "Stan's Cellar" and are persuaded by a young pop music guru (Roddy McDowall) to combine forces to capture the imagination of gullible teen fans. They even create what they hope will be a new dance craze: The Tantrum.

Donner is supposed to be a jaded singer who once had screaming fans. He performs in the "Cellar" with a group called The Leaves. Some of the numbers performed by musical groups in this film are not bad and are authentic to the theme of the movie. But Donner is often stuck singing old tunes that are arranged in a (not so) cool way: "What is This Thing Called Love", "Secret Love", and--incredibly--"The Birth of the Blues". There is one scene where Glen Campbell sings "Just One of Those Things". Not cool. No teen with an edgy persona in 1967 would be embracing those gems. This is three years after the Beatles conquered America!

Surprisingly, the choreography is often of good quality and on a par with other musicals.

Things to look for, even if some seem out of place in a movie about "cool ones":

*The Petula Clark poster on the wall.

*The dance performed to music reminiscent of "The Hand Jive".

*The kids snapping their fingers like the cast of "West Side Story"--cool man!

*The red Mustang. Now that was a cool car!

*The mod look--the colorful London-based chic that some of the kids dress in.

*Small smatterings of psychedelia.

*The "dirty old man" who looks all of 27.

*The "draft board" reference.

*The unexpected occasional lapses into slapstick.

*The laughable computer reference. The public had so little knowledge of computers that anything will flashing lights and beeping sounds could pass. And they often performed feats that are nothing short of mystical.

*Actor Phil Harris who seems to be playing the part of "obligatory adult whose purpose is to thwart the coolness of teens".

*Actress Nita Talbot, who plays Dee Dee Howitzer and somehow manages to have screen presence despite a limited role.

*The proposal scene in the back of a bus. One might be reminded of the iconic back-of-the-bus scene in "The Graduate", also released in 1967.

This is no time capsule of 1967 in particular, but as a reminder of many disparate cultural references from the previous decade or more, it could be a fun watch.

"The Cool Ones" is definitely a second-string musical but it's more entertaining than many of the A-list musicals of the decade and doesn't deserve the obscurity to which it's consigned. It's well-paced, with lots of song and dance numbers, directed by Gene Nelson, who has a great feel for these elements. The real standout in this film is Gil Peterson who greatly resembles Grant Williams. He has enough charisma and talent to pull the whole thing together with a convincing performance and wonderful vocals. If his songs were dubbed, it is incredible how synchronized they were and how appropriately they matched his speaking voice. It's a mystery why this talented, handsome and energetic performer didn't achieve a more successful career.

Unfortunately there is far too much screen time and energy devoted to Roddy McDowall's annoying and overly fey portrayal of the promoter. Could this be an earlier incarnation of Simon Cowell?

Would-be pop singer Debbie Watson inadvertently creates a dance craze on television, quickly dubbed "The Tantrum"; she pairs up with a has-been rock-and-roll star to form a new act that's sure to wow the teenagers! Gene Nelson directed this instantly-dated piece of overripe nostalgia from writer Joyce Geller, whose pale script was also worked on by Robert Kaufman and by Nelson. Eternally-girlish Watson and Gil Peterson (outfitted like a Ken doll) are a laughably tone-deaf pair. If you can believe them as teen-sensations, you may buy Roddy McDowall as a superstar music producer who has his own jet, sits on a purple throne, and has a lackey pick the dirt off his boots. The most bizarre aspect of the movie may be the depiction of young adults acting as direct copies of their own grandparents: they dance and sing, but what they're really pining for is love and the institution of marriage. ** from ****