“Everybody has to love me! Everybody!” It’s Barbara Ann Greene’s year, or so her horoscope says. So enamoured is prodigy Mollymauk (Roddy McDowall) of gorgeous Tuesday Weld he endeavours to give her everything she wants. It starts with 12 cashmere sweaters, spring break at Balboa, marriage to an appropriate doofus and … murder! Taking potshots at all teen trends from beach party movies to progressive education (botany is called plant skills, years before Allan Bloom warned about listening to educational weirdos), this satire skewers and cauterises everything a couple of years before If… and The Graduate. Al Hine’s 1961 novel was adapted by debut director George Axelrod and Larry H. Johnson. Lola Albright is great as BA’s mom the Playboy Bunny turned cocktail waitress and Weld is brilliant: see her model those sweaters for her father – seriously provocative and strange and it’s a shame given the focus on costume that it’s not in colour. Ruth Gordon is always worth watching. This is a lot of fun, even if the scattershot approach isn’t entirely satisfactory.
mondomovies 