Ski Party (1965)

TCM must have been feeling in a strange mood on January 14, 2014. Consecutively they played a string of bad as in really bad musical comedies from the 1960's. OK what was I doing watching this nonsense. Well I was working on an article and I prefer having some noise in the background and it might as well be a movie even if my attention to it is sporadic at best. Of the lot Ski Party had to be the worst of the lot. Take Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman disguising themselves as girls ala Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in Some Like it Hot but not to escape but instead just to get into the girls dorm. Of course there had to be some guy after one of them. Instead of Joe E. Brown we had some hunk making a fool of himself. But the real knee slapper came when James Brown and the Flames came out in bad, really bad ski sweaters and sang. Unfortunately for James Brown it was all so contrived it was more laughable then it was anything else. Anyway add in some absolutely atrocious special effects along with the bad lines and contrived idiotic situations and you have a - well one really bad movie. Albeit somewhat amusingly entertaining.

"Todd Armstrong" (Frankie Avalon) and "Craig Gamble" (Dwayne Hickman) are two college roommates who aren't having any luck with two girls they like named "Linda Hughes" (Deborah Walley) and "Barbara Norris" (Yvonne Craig) respectively. So they decide to go on a ski trip in order to stay close to them. Unfortunately, they continue to strike out and unable to figure out why they decide to shift gears and put a new plan into motion. Now rather than reveal any more of the story and risk ruining the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film has a direct relationship to the beach movies of this particular time. That said people who weren't alive during this time or haven't seen any of the beach movies produced in the early 60's probably won't appreciate the music or the comedy. But make no mistake the music was pretty good and I thought some of the scenes were quite funny as well. Likewise, I thought both Bobbi Shaw (as "Nita Elksberg") and the aforementioned Yvonne Craig certainly helped in the scenery department. In any case, I enjoyed this film and rate it as slightly above average.

As with films about teenagers, the actors seem rather old. Dwayne Hickman is ancient even for 1965 but who really cares? The gags are silly. Confusing a Swede with a Southerner is not quite funny. Robert Q. Lewis would have been dated in 1965, let alone now.The girls' bottoms, however, are nice as are their tops. I still have no idea who watched these movies at the time of their release. The teenagers I knew at the time were—well, not likely to have cared for these films but the movies might have been background for other activities. Who wants to make out during a Bergmann film? The soundtrack is not bad, however. It has James Brown! The scenery is okay. I think that these films might have created a space for such classic titillation feminist works as T.O.P.S. I like how the filmmakers worked in a pool scene at the ski resort. I used to go to those places and they did have pools (and bikinis).

It doesn't take a ski accident to come up lame with this one. It is questionable SKI PARTY even has one leg to lean on. A cheap WHERE THE BOYS ARE(1960). Boys wanting to meet girls; snow bunnies looking for the "right" guy. If you can party on the beach; why not a ski slope? Terrible script overshadowed by the assembly of "over acting". Frankie Avalon isn't even able to make this movie credible. Also in the cast are:Deborah Walley, Dwayne Hickman and Yvonne Craig. But there is something redeeming...singing appearances by Lesley Gore and James Brown.