Ted V. Mikels: Your guarantee of inept movie making. But FWIW, I thought this was probably the best film I ever saw with Mikel's name on it, in that it didn't make me want to throw myself into the woodchipper...compared to something like "The Corpse Grinders", this film comes off as pretty well.
But this is in no way, shape, or form a GOOD movie. The characters are cardboard cutouts, the actors are mostly unattractive and charisma-free, the script is your standard 60's 'rebel without a cause' fare, and the whole film looks like it was shot on a budget of about $30.
However, there is a moment in the film, when the band is playing the OTHER dance number that ISN'T the title track, sort of a Byrds/Burrito Brothers thing with a nice driving bass line and some plangent minor vocal notes and the dancers are choogling along (including our heroine in her first 'real' on stage dance)...it's a nice moment. In the words of Mike Nelson (in another of context), it's a moment where I actually don't want to drive a fire axe through the chests of everyone involved. So the movie has that going for it.
On the other hand...the putative 'star' dancer, who we first see leading other dancers...she has to be seen to be believed. I would really like to know what the choreographer and the director were snorting or smoking when they came up with the spastic flailings they captured on film and presented as 'dance'. Even without the MST3K coverage, the pure kitsch/comedy value of this train wreck of a dancer is worth the price of the movie. (BTW, the backup dancers are usually OK...nice bodies in bikinis, and they jump and shake the way that only very young women can.) That's emblematic of the entire movie...not so much bad, as incompetent and entertaining only by accident.
Not worth seeking out, but maybe worth a quick skim through on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
But this is in no way, shape, or form a GOOD movie. The characters are cardboard cutouts, the actors are mostly unattractive and charisma-free, the script is your standard 60's 'rebel without a cause' fare, and the whole film looks like it was shot on a budget of about $30.
However, there is a moment in the film, when the band is playing the OTHER dance number that ISN'T the title track, sort of a Byrds/Burrito Brothers thing with a nice driving bass line and some plangent minor vocal notes and the dancers are choogling along (including our heroine in her first 'real' on stage dance)...it's a nice moment. In the words of Mike Nelson (in another of context), it's a moment where I actually don't want to drive a fire axe through the chests of everyone involved. So the movie has that going for it.
On the other hand...the putative 'star' dancer, who we first see leading other dancers...she has to be seen to be believed. I would really like to know what the choreographer and the director were snorting or smoking when they came up with the spastic flailings they captured on film and presented as 'dance'. Even without the MST3K coverage, the pure kitsch/comedy value of this train wreck of a dancer is worth the price of the movie. (BTW, the backup dancers are usually OK...nice bodies in bikinis, and they jump and shake the way that only very young women can.) That's emblematic of the entire movie...not so much bad, as incompetent and entertaining only by accident.
Not worth seeking out, but maybe worth a quick skim through on a lazy Saturday afternoon.