Norman Taurog | Through the Shattered Lens

The 1963 film Palm Springs Weekend asks the question, “When is a beach film not a beach film?”

When it takes place in the freaking desert!

That’s right, Palm Springs Weekend takes place in the middle of the California desert. There’s no ocean in sight nor are there any beaches on which to frolic. Instead, there’s just a cheap motel and a swimming pool. That said, Palm Springs Weekend pretty much follows the same formula as all of the beach films that were released in the early 60s. A group of college students hop on a bus and head off for the weekend. One student is wacky. One student is rich, wild, and dangerous to know. And, of course, one student is clean-cut, responsible, boring, asexual, and studious and all about doing the right thing.

Troy Donahue, the blandest teen idol of all time, plays the clean-cut student. His name is Jim and he’s a college basketball star. Even when he’s on the bus traveling to Palm Springs, he’s still got a book to study. Jim’s the type who wears a suit and a tie to the pool. He ends up falling in love with Bunny Dixon (Stefanie Powers) and the two of them spend a lot of time talking about sex in the most chaste way possible. Bunny’s father (played by Andrew Duggan) is the chief of police and he doesn’t want any crazy college kids causing trouble in his town! Well, it’s a pretty good thing that all he has to worry about is Troy Donaue asking his daughter if she wants to take a moonlight stroll in the middle of the desert.

(Trust me. I’ve spent enough time in the desert to know that the last thing you want to do when you live near rattlesnakes is take a moonlight stroll.)

Jim’s best friend is Biff (Jerry Van Dyke). Biff is the wacky college student, which means that he plays the ukulele and he gets all the comedic moments. In this film, that amounts to getting babysitting an annoying boy and, at one point, falling into an extremely sudsy pool. Luckily, Jim’s there to deliver CPR, which leads to soap bubbles floating out of Biff’s mouth and …. you know what? I’m tired of writing about Biff.

Anyway, Biff and Jim really aren’t that important. The entire film pretty much belongs to Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens, largely because they’re the only two actors who are allowed to break out of the trap of always either being bumbling and innocent or dramatic and self-righteous. Robert Conrad plays Eric Dean, who is a spoiled rich kid who owns an expensive and fast car and who is basically a fun-loving sociopath. Meanwhile, Connie Stevens plays Gail, who is a high senior and who is pretending to be a college student. And while the film insists that we should somehow be disappointed in Gail because she’s acting wild and breaking curfew and doing more than just talking about whether or not it’s appropriate to kiss on the first date, she’s actually the most compelling character in the film because, at the very least, she’s actually setting her own rules and making her own decisions. Since Palm Springs Weekend was made in 1963, it ultimately feels the need to try to punish Gail for thinking for herself but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still a far more interesting character than the blandly innocent Bunny. Gail’s a rebel. Gail’s the future. All hail Gail!

Anyway, Palm Springs Weekend is pretty forgettable and it’s never as much fun as any of AIP’s old Beach Party films. That said, I’d still recommend it if you’re a history nerd like me. It’s definitely a film of its time, a time capsule of an era.

Before writing about the 1938 film Boys Town, I want to share a story that might be false but it’s still a nice little story. Call this an Oscar Urban Legend:

Boys Town is about a real-life community in Nebraska, a home for orphaned and homeless boys that was started by Father Edward Flanagan. In the film, which was made while Father Flanagan was still very much alive, he was played by Spencer Tracy. Boys Town was a huge box office success that led to the real Boys Town receiving a lot of favorable publicity. When Tracy won his Oscar for Boys Town, his entire acceptance speech was devoted to Father Flanagan.

However, a problem arose when an overeager PR person at MGM announced that Spencer Tracy would be donating his Oscar to Boys Town. Tracy didn’t want to give away his Oscar. He felt that he had earned it through his acting and that he should be able to keep it. Tracy, the legend continues, was eventually persuaded to donate his Oscar on the condition that he would get a replacement.

However, when the replacement arrived, the engraving on the award read, “Best Actor — Dick Tracy.”

That’s a fun little story, one that is at least partially true. (Tracy’s Oscar — or at least one of them — does currently reside at the Boys Town national headquarters.) It’s also a story that, in many ways, is more interesting than the film itself.

Don’t get me wrong. Boys Town is not a bad movie. For me, it was kind of nice to see a movie where a priest was portrayed positively as opposed to being accused of being a pederast. In a way, Boys Town serves as a nice counterbalance to Spotlight. But, with all that said, there’s not a surprising moment to be found in Boys Town. It’s pretty much a standard 1930s juvenile delinquency melodrama.

The movie opens when Father Flanagan giving last rites to a man who is about to be executed. (Boys Town takes a firm stand against the death penalty, which is one of the more consistent and laudable stands of the modern Church.) The man says the he never had a chance. From the time he was a young boy, he was thrown into the reform school system. Instead of being reformed, he just learned how to be a better criminal. Father Flanagan is so moved by the doomed man’s words that he starts Boys Town, under the assumption that “there’s no such thing as a bad boy.”

Father Flanagan’s techniques are put to the test when Whitey Marsh (Mickey Rooney ) arrives. Whitey is angry. He’s rebellious. He tries to run away every chance that he gets and, during one such escape attempt, he even gets caught up in a bank robbery. Can Father Flanagan reach Whitey and prove that there’s no such thing as a bad boy?

Well, you already know the answer to that. As I said, there’s really nothing surprising to be found in the plot of Boys Town. It’s just not a very interesting movie, though there is a great shot of a despondent Whitey walking past a several lines of former juvenile delinquents, all kneeling in prayer. As Father Flanagan, Spencer Tracy is the ideal priest but his role is almost a supporting one. Believe it or not, the film is dominated by Mickey Rooney, who gives a raw and edgy performance as the angry Whitey Marsh.

(That said, it’s hard to take Whitey seriously as a future gangster when he’s always wearing a bowtie. Then again, that may have been the height of gangster style in 1938.)

Boys Town was nominated for best picture but lost to You Can’t Take It With You.