Bye Bye Birdie

CinemaSerf

Ed Sullivan is all for doing his bit for the war effort, so when it is suggested to him that recently drafted heart-throb "Conrad" (Jesse Pearson) should sing an as-yet unpenned song on his show before going on tour - he jumps at the chance. That suggestion has come from "Rosie" (Janet Leigh) who has been dating oddball composer "Albert" (Dick van Dyke) for years and was just about to marry him when the movie "Conrad" was about to make - featuring his song - was abruptly halted by his new war commitments. Now she has the tail end of her task arranged, she must convince "Albert" to write the song and then get "Conrad", whom she doesn't know, to agree to sing it. There is a lot that can go wrong with her scheme, not least caused by the intervention of "Kim" (Ann-Margret) who is becoming infatuated with their visiting star, much to the chagrin of her brylcream boy (Bobby Rydell) who's a fair crooner himself when it comes down to it. What chance her cunning plan can come together without bloodshed? I had watched this for a good hour before I remembered that I was actually in an am-dram performance of it in the 1980s. I had virtually no recollection of the plot and until "Put on a Happy Face" I can't say that I recognised any of the other songs, either. That was maybe my problem with this musical. It just isn't very memorable and even with the obvious parallels to Elvis Presley I couldn't really get into it. Rydell looked like he was trying too hard to be Roddy McDowall; Ann-Margaret hasn't the glint in her eye of a June Allyson or a Doris Day, and the whole frat-style of characterising and settings didn't really set anything alight for me either. The staging is a little too theatrically choreographed and though bright and colourful, this film just felt a little too stilted with too many songs coming in on cue rather than because the (quite thin) story needed them. Of course, what it does remind us is that these pros could turn their hands to just about anything in the early 1960s and what we have here is entertaining enough, it's just not one of my favourites.