Here is another Albert Zugsmith production.
Zugsmith trawled the seamy side of teenage life - as seamy as was allowed
back in the 1950s which isn't much seamier than Dobie Gillis - in a series
of films like Sex Kittens Go to College, Girls Town, The Beat Generation
and High School Confidential. They are corny, silly, moralistic, square and
have no real insight into what young kids were going through back then. They
do rub up against the subject of sex though and that was enough back then
to be controversial. They also had Mamie Van Doren in a bunch of them. That
brought me to this one.
This is also produced along with a company run by Steve Allen and his wife
Jane Meadows who both star in it and I would guess toned it down. Allen was
a huge personality in show business at the time having hosted The Tonight
Show for a few years and been involved in lots of TV shows. He was also a
prolific song writer and composes a few for this film. I have to guess that
he is the one who was able to get Walter Winchell, Rocky Marciano, Earl Wilson
(a famous gossip columnist at the time), Louis Sobol (a famous Broadway columnist)
and Sheilah Graham (another well-known gossip columnist and lover of F. Scott
Fitzgerald at one time) to show up for a few days. Quite a crew.
This really is a piffle. Mamie kicks it off as a college girl (who at age
29 looks as much like a college girl as I do - for different reasons). She
comes home at 3 a.m. from a little snook and cuddle with Marvin played by
Conway Twitty who had quite a career ahead of him in country music - he sings
one song here. But she tells dad - played by Elisha Cook Jr - we are supposed
to believe he produced Mamie? - that she was with her professor taking a
survey. And that gets the scandal started. Professor Mac (Steve Allen) has
had volunteers taking a survey about attitudes in modern day students - some
of them of a sexual nature! Egads! Sex! He is like some of the cool professors
I had at college - hangs out with the students - invites them over to their
home - and in those days usually slept with a few of them. I would bet that
doesn't happen any more. It even feels creepy in this film. But he isn't
sleeping with any but takes videos of them cavorting. Kind of creepy now
too. But all for science.
Well, it all comes down on him and a trial is called in which all those national
reporters show up. Sex was that scandalous back then? Jane Meadows is also
a reporter following the story, Herbert Marshall is a professor, Cathy Crosby,
niece of Bing, is the daughter of the store owner and the guy who sings three
songs isn't Conway but Randy Sparks who headed up The New Christy Minstrels.
Total fluff with Allen getting up at his trial and giving the old rah rah
speech about seeking knowledge among the ignorant who don't understand. I
am surprised he touched this junk. There isn't even much tease going on here.
Totally square. But Mamie looks ravishing throughout. And that is why I came
to this party.
