Bye Bye Birdie | |
---|---|
Directed by | George Sidney |
Screenplay by | Irving Brecher |
Based on | Bye Bye Birdie by Michael Stewart |
Produced by | Fred Kohlmar |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Joseph Biroc |
Edited by | Charles Nelson |
Music by |
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Production company | The Kohlmar-Sidney Company |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 112 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $5 million [3] |
Box office | $13.1 million |
Bye Bye Birdie is a 1963 American musical romantic comedy film directed by George Sidney from a screenplay by Irving Brecher, based on Michael Stewart's book of the 1960 musical of the same name. It also features songs by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams, and a score by Johnny Green. Produced by Fred Kohlmar, the film stars Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby Rydell, Jesse Pearson, and Ed Sullivan. Van Dyke and featured player Paul Lynde reprised their roles from the original Broadway production.
The story was inspired by Elvis Presley being drafted into the United States Army in 1957. Jesse Pearson plays the role of teen idol Conrad Birdie, whose character name is a word play on country singer Conway Twitty, who was, at that time, a teen idol pop artist. [4]
The film was Van Dyke's feature film debut and helped make Ann-Margret a superstar during the mid-1960s. Her performance earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress and her next role was with Presley in Viva Las Vegas .
In 2006, the film was ranked number 38 on Entertainment Weekly 's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. [5]
In 1962, popular rock and roll superstar Conrad Birdie receives an Army draft notice, devastating his teenage fans nationwide. Despite his doctorate in biochemistry, unsuccessful songwriter Albert Peterson schemes with his secretary and long-suffering girlfriend Rosie DeLeon to have Conrad sing a song Albert will write. Rosie convinces Ed Sullivan to have Conrad perform Albert's song "One Last Kiss" on The Ed Sullivan Show and then kiss a randomly chosen high school girl goodbye before joining the Army. After this succeeds, Albert will feel free to marry Rosie, despite his widowed, meddlesome mother Mae's long history of interfering with her son's life.
Columbus, Ohio, is chosen as the location for Conrad's farewell performance. The random lucky girl chosen, Kim MacAfee, is thrilled, unlike her high school sweetheart, Hugo Peabody. The teenagers of nearby Sweet Apple, blissfully unaware of their town's impending fame, are spending the "Telephone Hour" discussing the latest gossip: Kim and Hugo have just gotten pinned (a tradition where a boy gives a girl his fraternity pin, indicating a serious commitment to each other) [6] and Kim feels grown up ("How Lovely to Be a Woman").
Upon Conrad's arrival, the teenage girls sing their anthem, "We Love You Conrad", while the boys express their dislike of him ("We Hate You Conrad!"). Sweet Apple becomes very popular, but some local adults are unhappy with the sudden celebrity, especially after Conrad's song "Honestly Sincere" and his hip-thrusting moves cause every woman, including the mayor's wife, to faint.
Pressured by the town's leading citizens, Kim's father Harry declines to allow her to kiss Conrad on television, until Albert placates him by promising that his "whole family" will be on Sullivan's TV show ("Hymn for a Sunday Evening"). Albert reveals to Harry that he is actually a biochemist who has developed a miracle supplement for domestic animals that will make a hen lay three eggs a day; they test it on the family's pet tortoise, which speeds out the door. Harry, a fertilizer salesman, sees a great future for himself marketing this pill with Albert.
Hugo feels threatened by Conrad, but Kim reassures him that he is the "One Boy" for her. Rosie, meanwhile, feels unappreciated by Albert, who persuades her to "Put on a Happy Face". Albert's mother Mae shows up, distressed to find the pair together; Harry is also agitated about Conrad's monopoly of his house and Kim's behavioral changes. Both lament the problems with "Kids" today.
During rehearsal for the broadcast, an impatient Conrad kisses Kim (who swoons). Hugo is hurt and Kim breaks up with him. Later that night, at the local malt shop, Conrad, Kim, Hugo, and many of their friends assert that they have "A Lot of Livin' to Do". Meanwhile, after being informed the Russian Ballet has switched to a different dance requiring extra time, therefore eliminating Conrad's song and farewell kiss to Kim, Albert unsuccessfully attempts to convince the Ballet's manager to shorten its performance. Afterwards, he dejectedly decides to drown his sorrows at Maude's Madcap Café, a local bar.
Surprisingly, he finds Mae there, playing canasta with the owner Mr. Maude, also a widower. Rosie, fed up with Albert and his mother, also goes to the café for "a night to remember". After ordering three drinks (but only gulping down one), Rosie goes into another room where the Shriners convention is taking place. She starts dancing and flirting with the men ("Sultans' Ballet"), but when the scene becomes too wild, Albert rescues her from the crazed Shriners.
The next day, Rosie formulates how to get back Conrad's spot on The Ed Sullivan Show that evening. She slips one of Albert's pills into the orchestra conductor's milk, which speeds up the ballet, amusing the audience, offending the Russians and placing Conrad back on the show to sing "One Last Kiss". However, just as Conrad is about to kiss Kim, Hugo runs onstage and punches Conrad, knocking him out on the live telecast, which shocks Albert and Rosie.
Kim and Hugo reunite. Albert is free to marry now ("Rosie") and his mother agrees, revealing her own marriage to Mr. Maude. All three couples live happily ever after. Kim, now wiser, bids Conrad a fond goodbye in "Bye Bye Birdie (Reprise)".
In addition, in uncredited cameo appearances as themselves, are two CBS personalities: former ABC News anchor turned CBS game show host John Daly, doing a live news report from in front of the United States Capitol; and The Ed Sullivan Show orchestra leader Ray Bloch, reprising that role.
Several significant changes were made in the plot and character relationships in the film from the stage version. The film was rewritten to showcase the talents of rising star Ann-Margret, adding the title song for her and dropping songs by certain other characters.
According to Ann-Margret, she was cast when director George Sidney saw her dancing while on a date at the Sands Casino on New Year's Eve 1961. [7]
Sidney was so smitten with the rising new star that Janet Leigh was "very upset that all the close-ups were going to Ann-Margret", as Leigh herself was the lead star of the film. [8]
Sidney says originally he was only going to produce and Gower Champion would direct, but Champion told Sidney he could not see it as a film, so Sidney stepped in. "That was a great deal of fun," said Sidney. "It was a young people's picture, with a lot of bright, gay noisy cast members yelling and screaming." [9]
Ann-Margret was paid $3,500 a week and earned $85,000 in all. [10]
Bye Bye Birdie grossed $233,825 in its opening week at Radio City Music Hall in New York, a house record at that time. [11] It was the 8th highest-grossing film of 1963, grossing $13.1 million domestically, [12] of which distributor Columbia Pictures received $6.2 million in rentals. [13]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 86% of 29 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10.The website's consensus reads: "A poppy satire on pop music, Bye Bye Birdie is silly, light, and very, very pink." [14] According to Filmink Ann-Margret "stole the show". [15] Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News gave the comedy a full four-star rating and said it "bubbles over with the vitality of youth and the fun of farce as it creates a teenage furor over a hip-twisting, leering rock 'n' roll male singer." [2] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times said it "should repeat the success It scored on the stage and is in the smash class with 'West Side Story' and 'The Music Man.'" [16] A user of the Mae Tinee pseudonym in the Chicago Tribune said "the music is pleasant, the dances are spritely, and it's all amiable, light entertainment." [17] Ken Barnard of the Detroit Free Press stated that it "offers an attractive and tuneful means of saying bye, bye to the summer doldrums for a couple of hours." [18] Margo Miller of The Boston Globe called the film "fantasy as Hollywood can best serve up, slick and funny." [19] Harold Whitehead of the Montreal Gazette said it was "a quite handsome film with not too many drawbacks" but noted that Ann-Margret "is much too frenetic for our taste. When she calms down a little, she will probably be really something for the musical screen." [20] Michael P. Feiner of the Montreal Star called it "a gay musical—sometimes farcical, sometimes mildly satirical, sometimes merely entertaining, but most of the time fun to watch." [21] A critic for the Buffalo Evening News called it a "hilarious song-and-dance show" that "exaggerates youth's exuberance and carries its infectious exhilaration to the audience." [22]
The film received generally mixed-to-positive reviews in the state of Ohio itself. Brainard Platt of the Dayton Journal-Herald said it was "an excellent follow-up to the hit stage play of the same name" and a "real fun show for the whole family". [23] E.B. Radcliffe of The Cincinnati Enquirer said the film "should be on your list of planned holiday fun" and called it a "good farce". [24] Dale Stevens of The Cincinnati Post criticized the film for lacking the satirical edge of the musical, but said "this is unquestionably among the smash films of the year" and "should be the teenage sensation of the century". [25]
A more mixed review of the film was offered by David Cobb of the Toronto Daily Star , who liked Ann-Margret's and Leigh's performances, its humor and the musical numbers; as for everything else, he said "it is professionally, smoothly accomplished [but not] very engaging or dramatically interesting". [26] Richard Roud of The Guardian said, "I wonder if anyone will remember any scenes from Bye Bye Birdie (Odeon, Marble Arch) in 20 years. I doubt it. Birdie is no On the Town , no Singing in the Rain , no Funny Face . But in a year as barren of American musicals as 1963 (and 1962 for that matter) it looks pretty good [...] and it makes quite a pleasant evening out." [27] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised several of the musical numbers but wrote that "unfortunately, Mr. Sidney and his scriptwriter, Irving Brecher, have allowed the essence of this spirited musical comedy of Michael Stewart to get away from them. Not only do they lose Conrad Birdie in the mazes of their rearranged plot, but they lose the essential idea of satire and the pace and sparkle of the show." [1] Les Wedman of the Vancouver Sun was more negative in his remarks, saying that the musical "as served up In the movie version, is a bit of a turkey, well-dressed but flavored with chestnuts and overdone to the point where it fell apart to reveal a pretty flimsy skeleton." [28] Dickson Terry of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said it "starts out to be a hilarious satire on the Elvis-type rock and roll singers and their swooning teen-age audiences but somewhere along the way it loses its bearings and turns into just another musical." [29] Stanley Eichelbaum of the San Francisco Examiner wrote that "producer Fred Kohlmar has clumsily transformed 'Bye Bye Birdie' from a clever musical satire on American teenagers into a comic-strip movie for adolescents. It's true that certain vestiges of the stage work's devastating humor and vitality have crept Into the film at the Fox Warfield and Mission Drive-In. But on the whole, director George Sidney and screenwriter Irving Brecher have bludgeoned the original into semiconsciousness. Happily, no one tried too hard to spoil the bouncy score by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. The musical numbers are the best part of the film and Onna White's choreography, which brightens most of the songs, is fresh and attractively original. And since the cast is generally young and eager—with Ann-Margret doing a surprisingly competent job as a nimble Ohio 15-year-old—the movie isn't exactly a total loss. But what it misses most is Gower Champion's sleek, galvanic direction, which kept the stage musical moving like a fine Swiss watch." [30]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
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Academy Awards [31] | Best Scoring of Music – Adaptation or Treatment | Johnny Green | Nominated |
Best Sound | Charles Rice | Nominated | |
Golden Globe Awards [32] | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Nominated | |
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Ann-Margret | Nominated | |
Laurel Awards | Top Comedy | 4th Place | |
Top Musical | Nominated | ||
Top Female Comedy Performance | Ann-Margret | Nominated |
In addition, the film was given a Royal Charity Premiere when released in the U.K. on 7 November 1963, at the Odeon Marble Arch, in the presence of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(March 2019) |
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