MGM and producer Joe Pasternak struck box office gold with Where the Boys Are but could never quite turn any of his leads in that film into a star: The Horizontal Lieutenant, Come Fly with Me, Follow the Boys, this. It's a vehicle for Connie Francis, and the actual concept isn't that bad: she plays a singer who is frustrated with her career and thinks she's never going to make it, so she decides to get a husband.
Instead of going after someone rich and inappropriate while falling in love with a poor but honorable boy - the way these stories always go, she chases after an inventor (Jim Hutton) who wants to promote a clothes stand Francis invents, goes on Johnny Carson's talk show, then starts singing again, goes on Danny Thomas' talk show, and doesn't realise the boy next door (Joby Baker) is more appropriate. And she's got this best friend Susan Oliver who just kind of hangs around.
This film annoys me - it was just dumb. It's as though they had a story session with people going "hey you should put that in" and they did. Francis tries to channel Judy Holliday in some scenes but it doesn't work - maybe she could have made it as a movie star, she was likeable with that great voice, but her material is horrid here. Hutton throws himself into it as always but he's got nothing to work with - he can't even have a romance. Why is Susan Oliver in this film? Why are we meant to be happy that Francis gets Baker?
Hutton and Francis were in Boys - there's also cameos from other graduates of that flick: Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton and Paula Prentiss. Francis sings a lot of songs and her fans won't want to miss this. But I found it an offensively stupid movie.
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