Beach party movies were popular in America during the early and mid sixties and "A Swingin' Summer" is typical example of the genre, except that the action takes place not in a seaside resort but in an inland one, Lake Arrowhead in California. (A real place).What plot there is (and in beach party movies the plot is not normally very important) centres upon two young men, Rick and Mickey (or is it Mick and Rickey?), and Rick's girlfriend, Cindy, who set up in business as concert promoters at a lakeside dance pavilion. The main obstacle is Turk, a local lifeguard, who for some obscure reason takes a dislike to Rick and Mickey and does his best to sabotage their plans as well as trying to lure Cindy away from Rick. (When watching the film I assumed his name was "Dirk", but in the cast-list it is spelled as "Turk". Turk by name, jerk by nature). A sub-plot deals with Mickey's romance with another girl, Jeri.
The film is probably best remembered today for giving Raquel Welch her first major role as Jeri and her "introducing"credit. Raquel, of course, was to go on to become a big-name Hollywood star, unlike her co-stars here who were mostly to remain mired in obscurity. (The one exception is perhaps James Stacy who became relatively well known before his career was interrupted when he was seriously injured in a road accident).
I cannot say that her performance here really stands out. Jeri is supposed to be a bookish intellectual- not the sort of role which Raquel would play all that often in her later films- and speaks in a sort of impenetrable pseudo-intellectual jargon which might have been quite funny, in a satirical way, had the role been taken by a more experienced actress who could have delivered the lines with greater conviction, but Raquel makes it all too clear that she is quite aware that she is spouting nonsense. She also has to sing, and her attempts show just why this was something else she did not get called upon to do very much in her subsequent career.
Jeri is supposed to be the sort of girl who hides her good looks behind a severe hairstyle and unflattering glasses, although in this particular case her attempts to conceal her beauty seemed rather half-hearted as she spends most of the film wearing little more than a skimpy bikini. Nevertheless, I was still counting down the minutes until the inevitable scene when Jeri takes her glasses off and lets her hair down to show the world just how gorgeous she is. (Warning! Major cliché ahead!) I couldn't help wondering, however, why a girl who is so short-sighted that she needs to wear glasses in the first place suddenly feels able to dispense with them, without suffering any noticeable deterioration in her eyesight.
Beach party movies were aimed at the teenage audience; all the main characters are supposed to be teenagers, although the actors paying them were all well into their twenties. They relied heavily on the standard mixture of pop music, handsome boys and pretty girls in bikinis. (A number of real pop music acts from the period are featured; some of them such as the Righteous Brothers have remained famous to this day, although others, such as Gary and the Playboys, are today fairly obscure). The genre has not aged well; the version I saw was both literally and metaphorically faded. Literally, in the sense that it was clearly shot in low-quality film and the colours today look very washed- out. In one scene the tones change every time the director cuts from one camera to another; the two cameras were presumably loaded with different types of film.
The film is also faded in the sense that it can arouse little interest today, except perhaps to those who want to know what our parents and grandparents were watching in their teenage days fifty years ago. With its forgettable music, indifferent acting and vacuous plot, "A Swingin' Summer" might suggest that the teenagers of the sixties were far too easily pleased. 3/10
The film is probably best remembered today for giving Raquel Welch her first major role as Jeri and her "introducing"credit. Raquel, of course, was to go on to become a big-name Hollywood star, unlike her co-stars here who were mostly to remain mired in obscurity. (The one exception is perhaps James Stacy who became relatively well known before his career was interrupted when he was seriously injured in a road accident).
I cannot say that her performance here really stands out. Jeri is supposed to be a bookish intellectual- not the sort of role which Raquel would play all that often in her later films- and speaks in a sort of impenetrable pseudo-intellectual jargon which might have been quite funny, in a satirical way, had the role been taken by a more experienced actress who could have delivered the lines with greater conviction, but Raquel makes it all too clear that she is quite aware that she is spouting nonsense. She also has to sing, and her attempts show just why this was something else she did not get called upon to do very much in her subsequent career.
Jeri is supposed to be the sort of girl who hides her good looks behind a severe hairstyle and unflattering glasses, although in this particular case her attempts to conceal her beauty seemed rather half-hearted as she spends most of the film wearing little more than a skimpy bikini. Nevertheless, I was still counting down the minutes until the inevitable scene when Jeri takes her glasses off and lets her hair down to show the world just how gorgeous she is. (Warning! Major cliché ahead!) I couldn't help wondering, however, why a girl who is so short-sighted that she needs to wear glasses in the first place suddenly feels able to dispense with them, without suffering any noticeable deterioration in her eyesight.
Beach party movies were aimed at the teenage audience; all the main characters are supposed to be teenagers, although the actors paying them were all well into their twenties. They relied heavily on the standard mixture of pop music, handsome boys and pretty girls in bikinis. (A number of real pop music acts from the period are featured; some of them such as the Righteous Brothers have remained famous to this day, although others, such as Gary and the Playboys, are today fairly obscure). The genre has not aged well; the version I saw was both literally and metaphorically faded. Literally, in the sense that it was clearly shot in low-quality film and the colours today look very washed- out. In one scene the tones change every time the director cuts from one camera to another; the two cameras were presumably loaded with different types of film.
The film is also faded in the sense that it can arouse little interest today, except perhaps to those who want to know what our parents and grandparents were watching in their teenage days fifty years ago. With its forgettable music, indifferent acting and vacuous plot, "A Swingin' Summer" might suggest that the teenagers of the sixties were far too easily pleased. 3/10