Swingers' Paradise (1964) User Reviews

A product of its time

[neil-476 · 6/10 · 19 April 2009]

Let's face it, Cliff's greatest asset has always been his singing. His stage movement is notoriously naff, and he was never the greatest actor.

But he was always surrounded with a tolerable ensemble and, especially here and in Summer Holiday, some sunny production values.

The trouble is the story here is rather weak and the songs, with a couple of exceptions, are especially weak. Richard O'Sullivan, an actor of some ability, uses that ability to provoke extreme irritation. Melvyn Hayes is his usual comic relief fall guy. Una Stubbs is cute and dances the socks off everyone else (and would have been such a good leading lady if she'd ever been given the opportunity). Walter Slezak fulfills what the plot requires of him. And Susan Hampshire is versatile, fetching, and downright hot.

The best sequence is an extended trawl through the history of movies - hardly profound, but fun.

But it is all pretty dated stuff.

Not Such A Wonderful Life

[jimdoyle111 · 4/10 · 8 December 2015]

When the UK game show 'Pointless' asked contestants to name a Cliff Richard film in 2014, "Wonderful Life" would have won them the jackpot, because no one remembered this – Cliff's fifth film – fifty years on, and yet it was a film that changed things. After the poor reception and disappointing box office results of this one – it only eventually clawing its budget back in 1987 – Cliff abandoned his trademark quiff and instead went for a Beatle style comb forward. His support team of Melvyn Hayes, Richard O'Sullivan and Una Stubbs were dropped (although Una did later co-star with him in a TV adaptation of 'Aladdin') and there was a two year gap before Cliff and the Shadows (who had never been really used properly in his films) returned to the big screen with "Finders Keepers". And yet in 2015 I find myself strangely drawn towards this film despite – or maybe because of – its flaws of overproduction, poor acting, dull and unbelievable story and director Sydney J Furie's obsession with a new zoom lens. Susan Hampshire is so attractive. She bats her eyes and smiles and goes along with it all in a nice playful spirit – knowing it was rubbish bit determined to at least make people enjoy her performance. Cliff is Cliff. He sings some songs, most of which are terrible – but especially good is 'Matter Of Moments' – but Cliff never really looks at ease. Walter Slezak roars and shouts and gets it right. He plays a past it director with a sensitivity he hides until the end.

Many years later when I started writing about old films, I asked a friend to watch it for me and give me an opinion – but he called back a week later to say that although he tried, he had never gotten beyond the opening fifteen minutes.

Here's what I wrote about it in my book "What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)" when it arrived in Glasgow during week commencing 9th August 1964.

When the Beatles started dominating the charts, Cliff Richard's image took a bit of a dent and it certainly wasn't helped with the timing of the release of "Wonderful Life" at the ABC Regal and Green's Bedford. "The Young Ones" had been a breakthrough musical and "Summer Holiday" had seen him at his film peak, but "Wonderful Life" tried to repeat the formula once too often and the plot of a load of old looking youngsters working at a movie location making their own film looked just daft. On top of that coming to town a couple of weeks after "Hard Day's Night" accentuated the gap between what young people wanted to see now, compared to the sort of all-round-entertainment on show here with dance routines that went on too long, show songs like 'Home' which would have been booed off at a music hall and a lengthy sequence on the history of cinema which brings the film to a shuddering halt. The film had been troubled with weather problems in the Canaries and original support choice Dennis Price had been fired allegedly for drinking and replaced by Glasgow born Derek Bond, and the only Cliff hit song was 'On The Beach'. Susan Hampshire (who had had a small part in "Expresso Bongo") and Walter Slezak co-starred, but this put Cliff's film career on hold for a couple of years. "A Woman's Privilege" with it was one of the 'Scales Of Justice' series about a bachelor who sues a girl who dupes him.

Jim Doyle is the author of 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)', 'What We Watched In The 1970s (In The Cinema)" and 'What We Watched In The 1980s (In The Cinema And On Video)'

Adrift in a sea of no ideas

[ed-1573 · 26 February 2003]

This is the third in a series of Cliff Richard films and the weakest of the lot. 'The Young Ones' was fun, 'Summer Holiday' was great, but by this time the screenwriters knew they had to make a film but didn't know what it should be about. In the end it's about nothing much at all. The music is flat for the most part and closer to show music than rock'n'roll.

It's not surprising that they didn't make a fourth.

Like Mel Brooks doing Bollywood

[joachimokeefe · 1/10 · 24 April 2007]

'Wonderful Life' has its moments. Moments when you feel you can close your gaping mouth and swallow. The rest of the time you are just blown away by the arrogance of the people who thought this qualified as entertainment in any way shape or form, by the stupidity of the people who put up the money - which looks to have been an awful lot - and by the tragedy of how this pile of undercooked nostalgia was the best the mainstream British film industry could be bothered to come up with at the time. Oh, and never mind the complete ego trip of Cliff, comparing himself to every mainstream film icon from Chaplin to Sean Connery - there's even a creepy bit where he is smooching Susan Hampshire in a bikini (pre-nose job, much nicer) and his hand wanders down to her lap, then his fly...no, it's a tiny gun on his key fob! Eee-Yeww! An honourable mention for Una Stubbs looking older than she does now and baring more midriff than Madonna, and the rest of it is rubbish songs ('On The Beach' is the best of a woeful bunch), bizarre choreography, school play acting, weedy singing, useless dubbing, faulty colour grading, you get the idea - presumably this was part of Cliff's plan to 'crack' the US market, but to me it's a rival to 'Take Me High' as something you want erased from your memory as soon a possible. And TMH was funny. NOT so bad it's good. So bad it's infuriating.

Nonsensical muscial comedy is nevertheless Cliff Richard's best in the muscial genre

[ccmiller1492 · 7/10 · 2 November 2003]

A truly nonsenscial muscial comedy, it's nevertheless Cliff Richard's best in the musical genre. ( He did a couple of dramatic films which were his best) A rather bland singer competing with his similar American counterparts Elvis Presley and Frankie Avalon, Richards fared no better than they in comedy and musical scripts. This one at least contains Susan Hampshire and Walter Slezak. What makes this movie so entertaining is the zippy pace and the surprisingly great dancing and choreography. The big dance number on the set by the whole crew is spectacular and rivals "West Side Story". Incidentally, the long-legged Richards keeps right up with the rest of them and does even better at it than his singing! The cute little send-up of the history of the movies is also very entertaining.

Delightful!

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 6 March 2020]

Not acknowledged as such, but probably the best of Sir Cliff's early sixties big screen vehicles; although even he dismissed it as "a disaster from the word go".

It has a witty script, choreography by Gillian Lynne performed by a young and enthusiastic cast, quirky little touches such as Gerald Harper cropping up in different supporting roles. And of course there's that wonderful potted history of the movies!

Guest stars Susan Hampshire and Walter Slezak are both well used; with Miss Hampshire cutting a far more provocative figure slouching from the waves in a bikini pastiching Ursula Andress in 'Dr. No' than Andress did in the original.

BadBadBadBadBadBadBadBadBadCleverBadBadBadBadBadBadBadBadBad

[eye3 · 5 April 1999]

About half-way to two-thirds through this movie the kids get a crazy idea: "Let's make a movie!" Don't ask me why. Let's just say it's a cue for the only inspired bit in the flick: the kids get into costume and put on a shticky little history of the movies from The Little Tramp to James Bond. And even then the best parts are Susan Hampshire impersonating - in order - Ginger Rogers, Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, a Jet (not a Jet Girl - a Jet!) and a Bond Girl.

Someday, when Hampshire's doing a T.V. interview, somebody should throw these bits on screen and get her reaction. It should be priceless.

'Wonderful Life' provides a most welcome and divinely titillating, mood-raising tonic!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 13 March 2022]

Cult Film-maker Sidney J. Furie's epically eccentric, fabulously far-flung and marvellous musical comedy remains a riotous, sun-drenched seaside spectacular, positively teaming with warmly-fuzzy holiday romance vibes, exotic excitements, fleet-footed dancing delirium, unbound youthful high spirits and sublime slapstick silliness! This is Cliff Richard as you've NEVER seen him before, unless, er, you HAVE seen him like this before, natch!!!! In these increasingly rum times, unrepentantly joyous filmic fripperies like 'Wonderful Life' (1964) provide a most welcome and divinely titillating, mood-raising tonic! The charismatic actor Walter Slezak is on especially fine form, and the devastatingly luminous screen siren Susan Hampshire is ALWAYS a rare feast for the eyes!

How could they get it so badly wrong?

[Shadowman1 · 30 October 2005]

OK - The Young Ones was a pleasant enough little movie, with some great songs to hide the pacing problems and weaknesses in the plot. Summer Holiday was a towering success on every level and remains to this day an absolute joy to watch, so just how, only 1 year after that wonderful film, did the same production team manage to make a film so utterly uninteresting and unenjoyable? I mean, I really wanted to like this movie but after several viewings I had to give in and admit that it really is an absolute disaster!

Their first mistake of course was not keeping the same actors from Summer Holiday who all seemed to gel together so well and contribute to the enormous charm of that movie. And bringing the Richard O Sullivan character back from The Young Ones was surely a big mistake. The absence of Teddy Green in Wonderful Life is really felt, big time. I kept hoping he, Jeremy Bulloch and the others from Summer Holiday would appear and turn this monstrosity around, but sadly no. All we have is almost 2 hours of O Sullivan and Hayes irritating the heck out of us and a plot that just drifts with no direction whatsoever.

And this time the songs aren't strong enough to cover up the cracks in the plot. True, there are a few exceptions, notably The Shadows' "Theme for Young Lovers", "On The Beach" and "A Matter of Moments" but they aren't enough to disguise the fact that this is really a terribly disappointing film.

I didn`t understand it then or now.

[will-75 · 11 December 1999]

I was a keen Shadows fan and saw this film when it came out and didn`t understand what on earth it was about. Now I am 50yrs old and still can`t make head nor tail of it. Funny, in a recent BBC radio documentary Susan Hampshire said she didn`t know what it was about and the only thing she remembers is the director throwing sheets of script out of his car window as it was re-written on as daily basis.

High spot "Theme for Young Lovers" by the Shadows, great melody written by Bruce Welch.