Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

Singing star (a la Elvis) Conrad Birdie is going to be drafted! Oh no! But that is not what the teenagers below are discussing in their wonderful "dancing while talking on the phone and clogging up all of the town's phone lines" number... No, just as worthy of hours of phone calls is the fact that Hugo and Kim (Ann-Margret) just got pinned!

"Did he pin the pin on? Or was he too shy?"

Adding more drama to the mix, struggling songwriter Albert (Dick Van Dyke)'s his soon-to-be-fiance Rosie (Janet Leigh) comes up with a brilliant and manipulative scheme to help Albert sell a song. Before Conrad ships off to the army, he will appear on the Ed Sullivan show to sing one last song, "One Last Kiss," and to kiss one last girl goodbye. And which lucky fan club member gets picked to receive the kiss? Kim, of course. Will Hugo like it? Will they remain pinned? Will Conrad and his hip-swinging, faint-inducing antics tear the town apart?

One of my favorite scenes is one in which Conrad sings at the town hall in Kim's town and causes almost everyone in the town to faint by the end of the song. While I don't have a picture of that scence, I do have a picture of my favorite outfit of Kim's. She wore this for a dance number that we may just need to do at my wedding. Or am I being sarcastic?

Four stars for joy inducing songs, animals and people being drugged with speed, crazy outfits, Dick Van Dyke dancing, and a movie that knows it is being over the top. The purpose behind this viewing was that David was Harvey Johnson ("Can I speak to Debra Sue...") in a high school production, and I was hoping to get him to sing along. I will of course see it again and again and again.