Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

Bye Bye Birdie
Directed by George Sidney
Written by Irving Brecher from a book by Michael Stewart
1963/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/Kohlmar-Sidney Productions

Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Harry McAfee: The next time I have a daughter, I hope it’s a boy![/box]

This blast from the past is enjoyable, if for no other reason, watching Ann-Margret take off!

Albert F Peterson (Dick Van Dyke) is a failing song writer who would really rather be engaging in bio-chemistry experiments.  His overbearing mother (Maureen Stapleton) has been standing between him and marriage to the long suffering Rosie (Janet Leigh).  Rosie gets a brainstorm.  Rock star Conrad Birdie has been drafted.  She pitches an idea to have a representative teenager give him a farewell kiss while he is singing a song written by Albert for the occasion on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Amazingly Sullivan buys it.

The lucky girl selected is small-town teenager Kim MacAffee (Ann-Margret).  The media circus complicates her relationship with new steady Hugo (Bobby Rydell) and with her father (Paul Lynde) and mother.

This is yet another show I was in in my teens.  Actually, the stage play is better and less crazy than the movie version.  We did not, however, have the incandescent Ann-Margret!  Nostalgia made it an enjoyable watch for me.

Bye Bye Birdie was nominated`for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment and Best Sound.

Trailer

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